to hate it when people get colds confused with the 'flu

[wittyusername]

My MIL does this very often.

Me: "Hi, how are you?"

MIL: "Oh I had the 'flu earlier this week"

AIBU to think that if you really had the 'flu, she's still be very poorly just 3-4 days later? She does this to me too - I had a case of the sniffles, nothing more than that, then she's all aghast and delares that I too, have the 'flu

I know she doesn't mean any harm, but this detracts from the poor old so and sos that really do suffer from 'flu [sigh] - in the same way that I roll my eyes when someone tells me that they have a migraine when all they really have is a headache. Grr!

YANBU if it was flu she'd still be in bed!

I hate it when people say.. oh I've got a migraine!.. when it's just a headache.

YANBU

It really irritates me when DH does this. I've had flu once in 38 years and I was weak as a kitten for 3 weeks.

Sore throat, headache, runny nose = COLD
Inability to sit up in bed to take medicine without help - FLU

My friend calls it manfluenza!!

YANBU!
BCNS - yes the migraine thing winds me up, as I do get them... horrible nasty things that leave me hiding under the duvet with a packet of codeine for about 24 hrs!

you are definately not being unreasonable!

I know people who seem to have the 'flu' just about every year

I have had the flu twice and i felt like i had been hit by a truck, in bed for best part of a week and lost about half a stone because all I could manage was fluids. Hideous.
I think most people who say things like 'i'm a bit fluey' have actually never had it.

agree - if you've had flu you certainly know the difference - the two times in my life I have had it it made me feel as ill as I can remember

YANBU

Flu - will literally floor you for at least 2 weeks

Cold - you sneeze for 2 days and feel a bit shit

Get it right people

I know a real migraine can have me in bed hiding from anylight.. throwing up and not getting out for at least a day! and it still hurts 3 days later!

One of my biggest pet hates.

My ex used to say that "a cold is just a cough and a runny nose, if you have a temperature and feely achy then it's flu."

I was compelled to inform him that by his reckoning I had never had a cold in my life - but I got flu three or four times a year.

I think you only make that mistake if you have never had flu. Basic rule of thumb: unless you think you might actually die, and don't even care, then it ain't flu.

YANBU - this is one of my real annoyances! If you've had real flu, you could never mistake a cold for flu. Earthpixie you've got it spot on. If you're up and about, and functioning fairly normally, whilst feeling a bit off - it's a cold. With flu you cannot get out of bed, and feel exhausted for weeks.

"I always correct people, which makes me popular."
Rolf at lula

I have had Flu once.. I wanted to die and felt crap still after 3/4 weeks! grrrrrr

wittyusername are we married into the same family. My MIL gets 'flu at least two or three times a year. I don't think that she can ever have really had it or she wouldn't get so confused.

My friend gets 'migraines' too.

I have had real flu once in my life. Once you've had it you know the difference between a cold and the flu.

My dp used to say he has manflu. Then he had flu so severe he was actually admitted to hospital.

He's never had manflu since. But he does keep reminding me that his flu was worse than mine

ROFL not ROLF.

one is an acronym the other is an antipodean

I feel the same way when people have "a touch of mastitis". No, that would be a blocked duct.

This and all variations drive me mad. I have a good friend who always has a "bug", never a "cold". People who claim to have a migraine and yet are up and about are also infurtating.

YANBU - I have had flu twice and its awful, I think that all the companies marketing 'cold and flu' medicines is to blame here. Test for flu, you look outside and see £50 note on the street, if you go and get it you have a cold, if you don't have the energy to care, its flu.

too true! people say they have flu waay too easily. I've had it twice, once was a gastric flu when I was about 11 - bedridden, hallucinating AND vomiting just awful. funny when you consider that more people died as a result of the SPanish Flu epidemic of 1918 than got killed in the whole of world war I, yet people nowdays get a sniffle and call it flu!

Also know what you mean about migraine - I get them and have to get in bed and pull the duvet over my head - painkillers don't help at all

Oh yeah and what about "food poisoning" for "been sick." ?

(Food poisoning is that thing which has to be reported to your local health authority so that the food responsible can be traced and action taken. Being sick is that thing that happens when you have had one too many the night before.)

I hate it too

"I've had a touch of flu" if you had a touch of flu you would be in bed for about a week.

There's an old test to distinguish between flu and a cold.

If you saw a £20 on the floor if you can bend down to get it, it's only a cold.

Of course flu is much worse and it is much rarer than a cold but I would say that it possible to feel almost that ill with 'just' a cold. I had one before Christmas last year and I was bedridden for a week. Really really ill and weak. It took ages to get back to full health. I went back to work and everyone asked what was wrong - felt so stupid saying 'Oh I had a bad cold' but according the the practice nurse that's what it was.

Yeah, my friend with the 'migraines' used to sit at her desk popping Migralive (sp?) saying, "Oh, I've got an awful migraine". Having never had one at the time I was very sympathetic. Now I've had a couple myself, I know that she gets the occasional headache and that a migraine puts you in bed with the wish to die quietly.