To wonder what the hell is going on with viruses these days?

[FuckOffTom]

Before the pandemic, back in the good old days of getting ill, you usually knew what was wrong and roughly how long you would be ill for. You knew what a cold felt like and that you’d be over it within a week. You knew what gastrointestinal viruses felt like and, although unpleasant, you knew you’d have 24/48 hours of ‘evacuation’ and then you’d start to feel better.

Since last year, everytime I catch something I can’t really identify what it is - it’s both gastrointestinal and upper respiratory except you don’t throw up, or have the runs you just know it’s affecting your stomach and the worst of it is… they last for weeks now!! Every morning you wake up, for weeks on end, feeling lethargic, weak and listless with no end in site. EVERYTHING feels like flu and lasts way longer than it should. Anyone else get this?!

I would agree. I came down with my first cold for about 5 or 6 years last Thursday. It’s already pretty much gone.

I'd say it's probably more to do with the fact that, after practically being confined to our homes for over two years, our immune systems are shot to bits.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Long covid is a case on it's own I think, plus other viruses can have a long recovery time.

But I stand by my point that in generally I would be looking to improve my health first.

DD1 is 18 and vegetarian and ostensibily healthy, but hasn't felt great recently and is anaemic- can be quite hard to get enough iron and B vitamins from a veggie diet.

I think unusual viruses have always been around. I was really unwell for about six weeks back in 2016, what started off as a normal cold then caused conjunctivitis, a perforated eardrum and the worst cough I have ever had. No one else I knew had it either, it was quite strange.

I hardly ever get colds, and I have felt great the past week especially, and even got my pb when out running on Sunday. But now I feel like I've been hit by a truck, massively heavy cold and sore back :( I came in to work but should have probably stayed at home.

Thank you for articulating this. I’ve felt similar for a while, but haven’t quite been able to put my finger on it. Could be peri meno kicking in for me I suppose. This is an interesting thread.

Op I am the same. This winter I have either had one long virus or just virus after virus. I've had about 6 weeks of flu like symptoms, chest symptoms, nausea but not like norovirus. I cant even work out if I'm developing a cold, stomach bug or flu each time

Since I've had covid I find generally viruses wipe me out a lot more. I had glandular fever when I was a teen and it was similar. Every virus gives me post viral fatigue for weeks

I'm probably not as healthy as I was because I'm bloody exhausted from being ill. But I'm a healthy weight, bloods are perfect, eat good diet. Excercise is a bit variable due to fatigue

Life has been pretty normal for over 2 years now. I don't think its that I wasn't exposed to viruses during covid and now my immune systems catching up. It maybe catching covid has effected our bodies? Or just there's some odd viruses floating about

I’ve never had Covid as far as I’m aware and I haven’t been ill for a long time. My DD though definitely has had Covid and now when she gets a cold it seems to last for ages, she gets really ill and gets a temperature. When she’s ill I get very slight symptoms but nothing that stops me carrying on with normal life. It makes sense to me what other PP have said about Covid messing with your immune system. DS has never had covid either and he’s never ill.

As far as viruses generally, there were a number that were rather pushed out by covid, or some people avoided so much, that their immune systems may be treating it more like it's new. It's not necessarily a good thing for the immune system to avoid being challenged.

But OP, it might also be something that's happened to you. Maybe you have low iron, thyroid or other hormonal issues, sleep issues?

Could one of your illnesses been mono? That will knock the stuffing out of you for a year or more, especially if you don't baby it enough when you are actively ill.

Or if you've traveled could you have picked up a parasite, Lyme disease etc?

My point being, there are so many possible explanations.

I agree, and though, of course, we should all do our utmost to look after our health, sometimes perfectly healthy people get sick. Some of these posts smack a bit of victim blaming.

Indeed, and I didn't mean mine to come across that way. I would always look at my personal health first though rather than blaming "funny viruses around".

Then also if you are ill when your baseline is feeling pretty good, you are more likely to spot something is up.

I am 62 with a BMI of 28.8. I did get Covid a couple of years back but can't remember when I last had a cold. I'm hypothyroid but in terms of infections pretty healthy. I have had my flu jab, take a vit D supplement. Eat plenty of fruit and seeds. Exercise regularly.

It's this. The sheer desperation people have to deny Covid was ever really a thing astonishes me. People who still wear masks, isolate etc are not the ones who are silly here- it's those who are re-writing recent history and forcing themselves to believe their version who are delusional and causing this situation to drag on and on.

Practically confirmed to your home for 2 years? Really? Intrigued to know Where you live that this was the case? I’d say someone’s exaggerating. At most it was social distancing but given Covid is an airborne virus most of us going to work during the pandemic, kids at school or generally being out and about with few tables in restaurants etc we’re still being exposed to germs and viruses. We were hardly all confined for 2 years.

@Jumpingthruhoops our immune system is fine without being challenged or exercised with exposure to viruses. The "immunity debt" theory was invented in 2021. Throughout history we have tried to avoid viruses, not tried to "top up our immune system" with infections. Exposure to dirt is good for our immune systems, to viruses is not.

COVID isn't the only virus that damages the immune system. Measles us the same.

Oh, I agree. And that's precisely it - by keeping everyone apart and everything so sterile, for so long, we weren't being exposed to even the slightest bit of dirt, that we perhaps might have been ordinarily. This was always going to store up problems down the road.

I actually don't really care what 'you might say'. You don't know anything about my personal situation in lockdown, or anybody's really.

For your information, we were instructed by our company to work from home from the week before the official lockdown in March 2020, officially not going back to the office until June 2022. So a little over two years actually. Hope that helps.

I take it you're not following any of the Covid enquiry? Highlighting what an absolute croc of shit many of the covid 'policies' were...

I’d say maybe it’s a perfect storm of everything? My own health maybe isn’t as good as it could be… and that’s on me. But there are a lot of nasty viral infections around too. I’ve never been so consistently ill than I have been in the past two years (having a child that started school last year probably hasn’t helped with that…)

To be honest, no I haven't noticed this. We have two kids, we rarely get ill, and if we do it's a similar illness pattern to before the pandemic. I think it might be your immune system playing up. I always take Sambucol and first defence when I feel I'm coming down with something, and it usually heads it off. It's very unlikely that viruses have changed since before COVID, but some people's immune systems may well have done, due to factors related to OR unrelated to the pandemic.

I think I've been I'll every three weeks since Easter, when I had covid. Or maybe it's just long covid. Either way I'm fed up and exhausted with it. Currently off with yet another ear infection.
Dd has been similarly ill-culminating in a recent bout of glandular fever. And dh has been off sick three times this year-which is unheard of for him.
It's rubbish. And I have actively tried to improve diet and exercise this year to Stave it all off-hasn't made a bit of difference.

I’ve had Covid twice, this summer and this time last year. Yes I think it affects the immune system but then yes, I think most people’s immune systems are shot to pieces since covid.

I’ve also got asthma and underactive thyroid which apparently mean I catch colds etc fairly easily. I do take a daily zinc tablet on recommendation of my pharmacy and it helps a bit. I also have Covid booster jabs and flu jabs.

A colleague of mine is currently recovering from Covid and has swollen mouth/lips, looks like lip fillers but isn’t! She thinks she caught it on her train commute into work but says lots of people were coughing and not mask wearing. She’s wearing one now going forward and I’ll be doing the same.

My dd (never had Covid) brought a gastro bug home this weekend from nursery. She threw up once then was bouncing off the walls. I felt nauseous all afternoon, threw up twice and had diarrhoea in the night. Added to that my temperature perception is all over the place, something I more associate with the flu. I went to bed wearing a ridiculous number of layers, including gloves and thick socks. I was still cold. When I woke later I stripped a few layers to go to the loo and felt too hot, and freezing cold, at the same time. It's really weird.

It's been the opposite for me! I spent decades getting cold virus after cold virus, always with a terrible cough that lasted weeks.

When I finally got Covid last year in October (after thinking that with my usual susceptibility I'd be DEAD if I got it), it was extraordinarily mild and gone within the week.

My partner, who has never once caught one of my many viruses, went down much worse with Covid (she got it first and passed it to me) and 4 weeks ago caught a nasty cold virus which she's only just shaken off. I did not catch it from her, despite us being together all day most days.

I was just thinking today how short my colds have been over the last year. Started getting a runny nose on Sunday, felt awful yesterday and much better today. I work in a hospital, my husbands a teacher and I have kids in nursery and in school so we get exposed from all angles