Is getting ill in the run up to Christmas inevitable?

[sogsandogs]

I know it's the time of year for it but EVERYONE I speak to is ill. Loads of plans cancelled due to illness.

People talking of nasty flu strain and dreadful norovirus.

IS it worse than usual this year ?

Is it likely I'll stay well over the next few weeks.

I have emetephobia and the fear can really overwhelm me.

Trying to rationalise that there's millions of people in the country and we can't ALL get ill in the next week!

Absolutely everybody seems to be ill at the minute! The only thing that you can do OP is up your hygiene measures and hope for the best.

DD had the dreadful norovirus and I had the awful flu - despite living in the same house neither of us caught anything off each other so it’s certainly not a given that you’ll catch it

In the last few weeks, both DDs and I have had sickness bugs. I then had a fever and sore throat last week. On Sunday, DD2 came down with a really high fever which I assumed was what I had had. Nope. Chicken pox!

Noro is way up on typical numbers.

Flu is up, but not to atypical levels (rather that it's been low for a few years)

Lot of RSV around too.

And of course the one that no-one wants to admit is still causing major issues - covid. One of whose effects is to dampen the immune system for months (possibly years) after initial infection, even if the symptoms were v mild. Which of course leaves you wide open to all the other lurgies in circulation (catching them that bit more easily, having them a bit worse), and of course that bit more vulnerable to the next wave of covid. Which is going round every 3-4 months, so the dampened immune system becomes your new normal. (Many viruses can dampen immune system - what matters here is that covid is rather good at it, the effects can last longer than it takes for the next variant wave to come along)

So do what you can to step off this merry-go-round? Avoid catching - wear a mask on public transport, in healthcare settings and in other crowded indoors places (covid, flu, RSV); and wash your hands (noro). Avoid spreading - if you are unwell, stay home as much as you possibly can. And if you get any of the winter lurgies, take as much rest as you can possibly can

I was touching on this earlier. People are dropping at our place with proper flu. It's quite scary to watch, ive never seen so much flu at the same time. The cleaners have cracked open the stuff that was used for COVID.

No noro though which quite frightens me really. Clever, nasty bug it is.

I've utterly jinxed myself posting this

Daughters boyfriend stayed on Tuesday night and started getting ill

He's still here as too poorly to travel home

Burning up, shivering and now vomiting

Daughter has started feeling ill and my husband too

Nightmare !

Urgh, I remember a Christmas when the kids were little. Both kids and husband had norovirus, so being sick and the other end.
I spent Xmas eve, Xmas day and boxing day dealing with the 3 of them. Had to tell my poor parents not to come (I think they ended up having egg and chips for Xmas Dinner!).

Somehow I managed not to succumb, some kind of Xmas miracle 😀
I had a little cry on Christmas day, pretended it was because I was watching Call the Midwife!

We had Christmas the following week.