Do I have just a cold or flu ?

[redtulip19]

Hi everyone hope you are all well!
I started off with a dry cough few days ago now have full blown streaming nose coughing up rubbish and muscles are aching all over! I had the flu last year and it was dreadful! I am asthmatic and don't have the best immune system! I will hopefully get docs appointment this week but can anyone help ? Thanks xx

There is no point going to the doctor's about a cold or flu. They can't give you anything. They will tell you to take paracetamol, drink lots and rest. Hope you feel better soon.

No point gp

Sounds like a bad cold to me.

I have been told that if someone offers you £20 for walking across the room for a cold you will do it, for flu you will tell them where to go

Yes, sounds like a cold. When I've had flu (3 times in 40 odd years) I would have been unable to go to the doctor's. Was pretty much bedbound for 2 weeks, and then one week on the sofa!

I have had the flu 3 times and unable to walk even to the loo let alone the GP. If you are on MN you have a cold I would guess.

I think if you’re asking, then it’s a bad cold. If it was flu, you’d know!

A nasty cold virus can make you feel shit- achey, shivery as well as the sore throat, hacking cough and congestion.

Proper full blown flu though means you’re laid up in bed for a week or more. I’ve only had it twice, and both times I could only lie in bed in a dark room - definitely couldn’t read or watch tv. My whole body aches horribly and I had a raging temperature. I actually needed dh to help me across the room to the loo.

@Frogletmamma has it. You only wonder if you have flu when you don't have it... when you have flu you 100% know it.

I also had to be carried to the loo when I had it.

I read that flu comes on with a couple of hours whereas a cold builds.

Lazymare is right, flu pretty much hits you out of the blue. One minute fine, next minute floored.

You will get a million posts saying if you can post on mumsnet you don’t have flu! Flu hits people differently. If you couldn’t do anything thenflu would never spread as no one with flunwould be leaving the house and it would burn itself out!!!

What you describe though would be a bad cold as flu doesn’t normally have a runny nose and yours sound like it has come on gradually whereas flu normally hits you like a tonne d bricks out of the blue.
I had flu once. If taken DD horse riding, completist healthy came home, had a cup of tea and within 10 minutes I felt like I’d been hit by a truck and could barely talk.

If you have 'flu you feel as though you are going to die, can hardly move, everything hurts including your skin, you're tired but can't sleep properly. It doesn't go in a couple of days either.

No comparison with a cold. I have a cold which is not nice but no way do I think it is 'flu, something I live in dread of frankly.

It isn’t true that ‘flu means you can’t do anything but it is awful. The NHS website has good tips. I had it before Christmas and it just appeared without warning. Do you have a fever?

Could be flu but sounds like a bad cold (which can make you feel shocking - people can underestimate how awful a bad cold can make you feel).

PLEASE don't go to the doctors about either unless you have an underlying health condition or are worried about a secondary infection - and in that case call 111 first to see if it needs a visit.

Would be selfish to spread it to an innocent room of people when the doctors can't do anything for colds or flu.

Hope you feel better soon