Is there a strange virus going around?

[Getagoodfeeling]

This is a really odd one!
started on Friday with a very sudden sore throat. Low grade fever overnight, woke to awful muscle pains, neck ache and a general feeling of low level unwell.
Saturday felt off with a running nose and aches and pains. Kept feeling warm and waves of nausea. Overnight into Sunday stomach pains started with diarrhoea and nausea, snotty nose, shivery, headache.
Symptoms are coming and going, feel a bit better one minute then headachey and off the next. Every time I eat I get stomach cramps and loose stool. Not positive for Covid (old tests tho).

It’s the stomach issues that are unusual, it’s like a low level flu bug but with a bad stomach too.

Anyone else have this?

Wow…. That’s a crazy long time to be unwell with a virus… I’m glad you are feeling better though.
I’m finding this tough, I’ve barely left the house for two weeks and I’m a single parent, so no one to chat to or offer to make food. It’s very hard trying to keep positive. I’m on antibiotics now after assessment by the GP for the ongoing symptoms, so we will see if that helps. So far it doesn’t seem to be but it’s only day 2. Never felt this exhausted or broken in my life from a bug… literally feels like body just doesn’t work anymore.

Yes, it's been shite! I hope you feel better very soon. Take it easy. I think rest is the crucial thing, often easier said than done ...

Me too - barely left the house in weeks - I think the viruses around lately are causing a lot of people to be low grade sick for weeks on end. But I also have a toddler who loves to wipe her secretions all over me so I don’t stand a chance. My immune systems never been the same since stopping breastfeeding (and having covid, which I know can make the immune system wiped out). I think it’s the chronic stress, exhaustion and lack of being able to get over anything before the next hits. My partner isn’t as bad as me but I’ve never known him to be sick more than 2 times in the last 7 years and he’s been poorly on and off for a lot of this year.

Starting to feel quite worried about the level of weakness and exhaustion. Is anyone else basically in the house / on sofa still? Desperate to go out but when I do it bites me so hard. When people saying 4 weeks is that for exhaustion? I’m about 4 days from not feeling really unwell but I’d prefer to feel poorly and functional / walking wounded than this. It’s quite claustrophobic. I’m talking shaking when putting laundry round levels.

Yes, I was bedbound for about two weeks and then VERY gradually have returned to being up and about. But still generally tired and a bit weak. Shaky doing laundry sounds familiar. Getting there though. Trying to eat well, early nights, no booze, no caffeine, take vitamins, etc.

I had a lot of caffeine at the beginning… maybe that was a bad idea…
day 15 here and I’m still in bed most of the day. I’ve still had to do a fair amount as I’m at home with two teens, but they go to their dads some days. So I have had to get all my own food, keep up on laundry… doing anything exhausts me, eating makes me feel better for a few minutes but then I’m feeling shattered again. It’s just soul destroying!

I’ve got the radio on today as I’m just so bored or lying here day after day on my own mostly. Kids here occasionally but doing their own thing. Next week will be the third week of work missed. Never known anything like it. I do work in a secondary though so I know where I caught it… 😒 never been as unwell since I started that job three years ago. And they offer us a flu jab in January… too late

@Thegrassroots26 sorry to hear. I’m the same. But had back to back illnesses since I don’t know when. They usually leave me pissed off and exhausted but not to this point. The mummy mummy mummy from my toddler and my partner being basically a teenager himself is pretty draining as well. Do you think it was flu? I guess we will never know. But I’m sort of pleased it’s not a flare up of another condition I have and kinda normal albeit horrible.

When my girls were younger I was sick a lot too… but I think since 2020 and Covid the viruses are different… I reckon this was Covid or flu for sure. I’ve had Covid twice and it felt very similar to this, but I’m usually back on my feet after two weeks, this has been much worse and am shocked at how slow the recovery time is. I haven’t been eating well, but I’ve not been hungry and no one to help with meals means I can’t be bothered most of the time, so perhaps that hasn’t helped.

Hope you feel better soon. It is awful being unwell with a little one to take care of so I feel for you.

For me it was one week of feeling like I was coming down with something/body fighting it. About 10-14 days in I developed the chest pain and fatigue worsened. Week off work basically on the sofa. After that I have been dealing with fatigue (maybe post-viral fatigue). I am often fine in the morning and then go downhill in the afternoon. Maybe I’m doing too much in the morning but I wake feeling better!

So my hope is that the period of exhaustion in the afternoon lessons and lessons. I have declared myself better many times! This virus has a very long tail…

Yes, that sounds familiar. Have also felt like I was better and then gone instantly downhill again. I think it’s Covid, it has all the hallmarks, even down to changes in my sense of smell.

Yep. I’ve concluded Covid too. I’ve had a lot of inflammation (can feel in lungs etc) and Covid can be very inflammatory with a long tail…

Im back in bed again. I actually had a PCR done and it wasn’t covid in my case. Also no one around me tested positive - as in 5 people with similar symptoms all negative when testing frequently.

My latest illness, my third one with a week to 10 days in between, was definitely flu. Specifically Influenza A which has more severe symptoms than Influenza B.

Flowflex brand make lateral flow tests for flu A/B and mine came up positive for A immediately.

Sorry everyone is suffering so much.

How are people doing today?
I’m still bed bound, can’t really do anything. Limbs achy and floppy. Im on day 4 of 7 of antibiotics, and have actually felt worse physically since I started them but a bit better in my head/ less foggy and dizzy/light headed. Just keep hoping I’m going to wake one day and feel back to normal. This really sucks.

@Thegrassroots26 a mess today. Really emotional as it’s my birthday and just laying here alone on the sofa. Dp didn’t get my daughter to say happy birthday or anything and now she’s gone away for the night cause I can’t look after her when im like this (get out the tiny violins 🎻 😂). But all in all - massively shite. How long are you into being too knackered to get out of bed?

Oh bless you - that’s just miserable. Well happy birthday to you for what it is worth x

It is day 16 for me today, I’m thoroughly fed up with this. Particularly as I was probably better last week than now. I’m assuming things have to improve soon, but not as yet.

Scents/foods - I can't stomach a lot of foods, they taste weird/off. DP did a covid test which was negative, though.

Cloxs, I'm sorry, I hope you feel better very soon and can celebrate your birthday when you do!

Day 19 here, day 9 of a terrible chesty cough and really sore chest. On my third dose of ABs and I don’t feel any better. Utterly fed up. Anyone else has / had a sore chest? How long did it take to clear? It’s really getting me down….

No sore chest here, just crippling fatigue… like so bad I can’t move most of the day.
Sorry to hear you’re so unwell x Some absolutely brutal bugs around at the moment.

Also I’m with you on feeling down. It’s mentally awful being so sick for so long and isolated. The whole thing sucks and I’m not sure why it’s lasting so long.

Is anyone else feeling really spacey and panicked with it? I would’ve assumed it was covid but the amount of tests I’ve gone through when I haven’t ever tested negative when I’m not (iyswim) and the fact no other person around me has, including people on a word of mouth basis makes me feel like it’s not. But I’m genuinely getting worried now. It’s been over a month.

Yeah I’ve had moments of feeling that way. I had to leave the petrol station the other day because I was about to have a panic attack. In truth I shouldn’t have even been in there, but thought I’d try to pick the kids up and get some shopping on my way… bad idea, ended up putting all of it back, paying for the fuel and going straight home

I agree, it’s really concerning feeling this bad. I’m only 42, I feel about 95. If this is what old age and illness feels like I’m happy to die young! We have to turn a corner soon, surely?

Today I was thinking that it actually felt like I had been poisoned. I was just lying there with my arms hanging at my sides, unable to move. Just horrible.

I had hyperemesis when pregnant so I am familiar with this sensation of almost paralysis, but hoped I might have seen the last of it back then.

Also re Covid testing, there’s lots of talk of some tests not working on newer strains, and needing to test at the right moment during the infection. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t shown up. I also did one and it was negative, but others at my workplace tested positive.

I’m 36 (today!) and yeah also get the paralysis feelings. I went out to take cat to vet a week ago and it completely did me in. I’ve tested every other day since getting sick and then my DP on days I didn’t test. I guess other things can be circulating and other viruses are around. My DM who is elderly I am concerned about as she is very very fatigued. I couldn’t actually describe how I feel very well - dizzy and spacey and panicky + very extreme exhaustion seems to be the best explanation.

I feel like it’s got to be Covid or flu to be this severe.
I found the spacey panicky stuff was a result of my sinus/ears so I felt dizzy and nauseous from that. That seems to have settled now.
I wonder if some of us just have a really extreme immune response and this kind of then messes with/exhausts our body so we can’t bounce back like other people… I’m just grasping at straws really to try to make some sense of the fact a few weeks ago I was energetic and capable and independent and now I can barely move.