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!

had real flu twice and was so weak dh had to to help me to the toilet.
As for migraines, I get some real corkers but about mid-afternoon they will ease so I come downstairs feeling delicate and try to do stuff but end up back in bed wanting to rip my head off by 7. Migraines can vary.

I have a cunning plan. Let's rename 'Flu' to something that reflects the seriousness of it and keep the word 'flu' which everyone is used to using to mean that serious cold that knocks you out.

I've had flu several times (maybe I have a poor immune system?)

The worst time I was ill for almost a month and was so weak my (now) dh had to feed me with a spoon.

I get migraines and headaches. There is a difference - although I remember a phase of recurring headaches when through sheer tiredness adn frustration I once headbutted a wall.

And it really annoys me when dh sneezes two or 3 times in an hour and declares he has a cold.

had flu twice in my life, it's so different to a cold. YANBU Flu keeps you in bed and you think you are dying. A cold in a bit of an inconvenience that paracetomol sorts out.

we had students who would do that all the time.

come into the office and announce, 'i have the flu'.

if you had the flu you wouldn't be standing here.

i had it and went back to work 5 days later, it being America were taking time off is frowned on.

wound up spending Xmas in hospital on a drip with fecking pneumonia.

YANBU! Even as I type, my DH is upstairs, reading in bed, apparently suffering from flu....

Aaaaaaaargh. He calls it flu every bloody year.

No no no no no - it's a cold. If you had flu, you wouldn't be able to read.

Drives me mad.

blew you personal days on being actually sick, expat?

midnightexpress - was going to say the same about Cheryl Cole. Yes darln' if you had to flu you wouldn't be doing a live TV programme in a short revelaing dress, you'd be huddled under a duvet at home

And all the other acts with their larygitis, colds, throat infections, and then there are the red carpet thr week before wearing next to nothing for the new James Bond flick

If your future career depended on you being well enough to sing early nights would be better , but I guess they have to go to promote the show,, I just post this on the x factor thread really

So true. If you have had flu you would know it. The trick is to stay in bed then it doesn't develope into something more serious, hospital case pneunomia etc.

How's Struan, Expat?

I get 2 types of migraine. the rip your own head off which lasts about 24 hours and ones that last 4 days, pain isn't as bad and it swaps sides periodically and I vomit a lot.
Nothing stops those 4 days buggers.

last weekend i was quite ill, aching bones, shivers, was rocking to help the pain. it was a little more than a cold - but i know it wasn't the flu, it must have been a flold

I hadn't realised those several-days-in-a-row blinding headaches were counted as migraines.

I think I hate those the most I think.

So do you take migraine medication for them?

I didn't know that either, Mercy! But it explains my repetitive headaches which switch from side to side and which painkillers don't help. And then I don't get any for weeks. Weird.

The flu thing - my bro has flu at least four (or is it six??) times a year. I had flu a couple of times as a child, in the 60's and early 70's, and the memory stays with me. It was ghastly.

We've had nasty bugs go through our family upon occasion, when we've all been sniffing, aching, coughing and downright bl%dy miserable but even then I don't think it's true flu, it's a nasty cold with maybe sinusitis or a chest infection thrown in.

I've never had flu to my memory, and according to almost everyone, I would remember if I had.

I do remember one Christmas when I lived at home being ruined since my parents and sisters all had flu and I didn't. Dinner was abandoned and I was chief drink maker while feeling shit myself (patently not flu, though).

I had flu when I was 17 and I honestly didn't care whether I lived or died. You'd certainly know it wasn't just a cold - I felt terrible for about 2 weeks.