To inform you that Flu CAN be mild or asymptomatic?

[LittleAlexHornesPocket]

For the love of everything that is holy can we please, once and for all, put to bed this idea that if you're only feeling a bit poorly it could not possibly be flu?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1473309923006199

"Influenza viruses cause respiratory infections that range from asymptomatic to severe and contribute to morbidity and mortality globally."

I've seen it everywhere on MN in the last couple of weeks and it is driving me insane.

The old "if you could get up to pick up a bank note then it definitely isn't flu" cliche is utter, utter, utter nonsense.

Please Mumsnet. Stop spreading this myth!

I used to be one of these people, I had a terrible bought of flu as an older teen - the type where I couldn't get out of bed and was concerned I was dying (had no one to check on me, lol) and took weeks to get better - and since then loved reminding people that their sniffle was likely just a cold, and not a flu like they were saying.

Which I stand by, really. If you have just a sniffle, but are otherwise functional without a fever and can get by (even if miserably) it's likely just a cold. Likely.

But. BUT.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Im pretty sure I had a flu again. Not as bad as the other, but started off like just a cold and then got super nasty, fevers etc. Very weak, could barely move or think. Out of action for almost 2 weeks, better now but still feeling it in my body, fatigued and weak.

Yet my husband, who was taking care of me, even kissing and cuddling me as normal? Got some body aches. A headache one of the days. Otherwise totally fine.

He absolutely must have caught it, there is no way he didn't. He was right there for the whole thing. Kissing my germ ridden mouth. But it caused only very minor symptoms in him. He hasn't been ill recently or anything either.

I think the flu jab statistics are focused on hospital admissions. So i think if you have really bad flu managed at home its doesnt tip into what they consider severe.

Completely agree.

And it’s always such poor logic that people use “when I was so ill I couldn’t get out of bed it must have been flu therefore flu is only when you can’t get out of bed”. Or “the only time I’ve had flu I was really ill” despite (obviously) not being tested for flu during any milder illnesses.

I don’t think people should stay home. I just think people should stop being so annoying about it with “if you actually had flu you wouldn’t even be able to lift your head off the pillow for a million pounds”

I think the point is: a bad case of flu is completely debilitating - the one time I had it very badly I was so poorly I couldn’t even to get out of bed to retrieve medication and drinks. I was too unwell to watch TV, read or have lights on. At one stage it was so painful and shivery I couldn’t even bear to turn over in bed. I couldn’t think about getting kids up and fed and to school - I was absolutely ruined for a few days.

So when people are moaning on “ohhh I’ve got flu I need 8 days off work”, the rest of us think “yeah you just need to muscle through it.”

Whether it’s technically flu is neither here nor there really, in my opinion.

And as regards vaccines a good luck booking a paid vaccine where I live. I try every year and the appointments are always sold out or I book but get an apologetic cancellation as someone with a higher claim has taken the appointment.

I think because if you are normally pretty healthy but then are bad with flu it does feel like something else entirely. That’s how I felt anyway. Very suddenly delirious and very ill. I think I’ve just had it again and I’m just emerging out. But how would I know? (I’ve not read the article). This time again it was sudden and weird. But nowhere near as bad.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I would steer clear of people where possible with a cold because that’s quite easy for me to do.

The fact that flu can be asymptomatic doesn’t contradict the logic of feeling you probably have flu if you have a high fever and are prostrate in bed for a week! The only thing is that we now also have Covid which can have the same effect as influenza.

We learned a lot (maybe too much!) about viruses during covid. Getting seriously ill can depends on a combination of past exposure, genetics but also, importantly dosage. This is why the second sibling nearly always gets chickenpox so much worse than the first sibling to get infected.

And infectiousness also depends on viral load. Normally asymptomatic infection, though infectious, is far less infectious than symptomatic infection. And, there are also super spreaders! These, due to the configuration of their vocal cords, produce A Lot more aerosol than everyone else. A lot of epidemic clusters come back to one superspreader.

But, realistically, we can’t do much about it. No one loved the way our lives were curtailed in Covid, even those of us who still believe it was necessary (including me).

Although, I do now look at a crowded tube in a completely different light post Covid!

I have had flu. I was ill for over 2 weeks, couldn't leave my bed at one point and also had to go to hospital. It was dreadful and I do worry about catching it again. I now have the vaccine every year.

However, I work in a school and during Swine Flu pretty much everyone caught it and was very ill. For a 2-3 week period, barely anyone was in school because they had flu. One day, I started to feel hot/cold and shivery and progressively more ill as the day went on. I went home and collapsed into bed. In the morning, I was totally fine. I think I must have had a mild dose of swine flu, so I do get that it's possible.

Do people not go on about what bad flu is really like because otherwise their managers are trying to get them to work. When they literally couldn’t even wash and dress themselves. Loads of mainly poorly paid and young folk being told “it’s just a bit of flu get to work” which is bollocks if you’ve got bad flu. Emphasising that flu can also be mild doesn’t help anybody when the usual assumption is that any sort of winter “just a virus” can and should be worked through.

I totally agree with you. This drives me round the bend.

Saying that if you can get up to retrieve it bank note is also a very weird way to diagnose anything anyway. It's totally meaningless.

I would imagine they had the flu vaccine because they are already more vulnerable and or have weakened immune systems. Nothing to do with the vaccines themselves.

Whilst you re right, the % of asymptomatic vs symptomatic (ie Fever, fatigue, sore throat etc) is very small.
Could be as little as 4% in some studies.

The vast majority with flu, will get the classic symptoms, to a greater or lesser degree.

With up to 23% being severe.

I've never knowingly had flu. The one time I thought I did, it turned out to be campylobacter, tested due to stubborn symptoms lingering on afterwards.

Unless I was seriously ill which I'm not currently statistically high risk of, there's no point in me testing which brand of sniffle I have for minor illness, be it flu or covid. There is a point for some people where it opens up access to additional treatment, but if I'm too ill to function, I'll be in bed, if I can function on OTC remedies, my employer expects me to plough on.

I don't see the point for myself to be vaccinated as supplies are finite and there are people who need it more than me. I accepted the vaccine in pregnancy, and consent for my children to have it. If it was offered to me, I'd accept (but not covid as I did not react well to them and they were worse than the illness) but I'm not going to hunt around to access a provider when other people have greater need.
Depressingly when my class was called for their vaccinations, only 4 had consent from their parents, about 1:6.

I have certainly been exposed to flu this autumn. Significant numbers of staff and students have been off ill with it, and DS2 was ill for 10 days with very clear flu-like symptoms, and I was cuddling up with him. I recently had a week of feeling "under the weather" like I was fending something off (but not actually ill, just drained), but my role at work is more pressured the higher the absence rate is, so my bar for illness has to be pretty high.

For the majority of people, they'll never know exactly what "brand" of mild illness they have is and it makes no difference to their treatment and recovery, which is why the myth of "if you can't bend down for a £20 note" continues.

Where I do get twitchy since 2020 is the number of people that seem to think that the spread of all minor illness should be curtailed lest it become more serious in individuals, but 2020/21 demonstrated that the social and economic toll of that is too great and has enormous, lasting repercussions.

The government's (and therefore schools') policies on attendance really isn't helping at the moment.

I've never seen so many ill-looking teenagers still in the classroom despite looking like clammy ghosts or popping to the toilets to vomit. But they're in because their parents fear the consequence of high absence and being marked unauthorised without a drs note, and school won't send them home until after the pm attendance mark because data matters more than humans.

When DS was off for the week because he hadn't energy to not be horizontal, I was emphisising the flu-like symptoms of the fever, sweats and exhaustion because of the mantra of "send them in with a cold". My concern for him in particular is a history of chesty coughs and his asthma, and now is not a good time for urgent treatment/ 999 calls.
T'other DS is still on 100% and not been unwell (although they are in that teenage phase of avoiding each other generally )

I think people get annoyed because those who haven't had flu badly don't realise how awful it is. Those who sit at their desk at work wiping their nose and saying they have flu can be incredibly frustrating for people who literally did have to crawl to the loo and thought they were going to die.

Haha this is me - had flu last year and literally told everyone I was
crawling and lying on the bathroom floor. Had the jab this year!

YANBU.

I’m not very good at science so to be fair, I didn’t really realise this until a few years ago. I realised that two of the three people I live with fairly regularly get heavy colds (two or three times a year) while myself and the other member of the family never seem to get those same symptoms. I thought that we were literally not catching the colds and then realised it was more likely that we had the virus ourselves but just didn’t have any symptoms (or symptoms so mild they are easily missed).

So while I would say that I have never had flu, I most likely have had it but just never been made ill by it, luckily for me.

I’m don’t pay for tests or vaccines though- I’m not vulnerable and nor are the people I live with.