Possessed 2 year old, please help!

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My son is turning 2 next week. He's always been your average toddler with tantrums etc but on the whole, he's a lovely funny chappy that loves life.
... Until recently....!
He got a really bad cold last week (possibly croup) and all of a sudden, he's a COMPLETELY different child. He's pretty much recovered from his cold now but his behaviour is awful. He's kicking off over anything and everything. We had a screaming fit last night at bath time when I removed his sock! It ended in him screaming his lungs out, throwing himself all over the place, he sounded like he was possessed by the devil... I felt like calling either a GP or an exorcist. The only thing we could do was wrestle him in PJs and rock him to sleep. Then today I took him to a new farm, something he usually LOVES and is so excited for, but he had a full blown meltdown as soon as we got out the car, laying on the floor in the car park, screaming, refusing to get up. We had to wait 20mins before we could even consider going in. It's so unlike him, I'm starting to get worried... I think it's just the terrible twos but it's come out of nowhere.
Does anyone have any reassuring news that it gets better? 😭 Will my sweet child return one day?.. I'm getting to a point that I'm not enjoying spending time with him 🥺 I just recently started finding him so fun and rewarding, I was looking forward to weekends and days off with him. Now, I'm dreading the day ahead. Everything is a battle and I'm absolutely exhausted.
Any advice or words of wisdom? 🙏🏼
Thank you

Three, two, one, cue "have you had him assessed for ADHD/autism"....

PANDAS?

Did he have steroids for his recent illness? That always made my son behave like a demon.

He’s probably just knackered, his little body trying to get over it.

Yes, I'm wondering about steroids... ( very common euphoria, insomnia..but can be expressed differently in children). if so, take heart, it'll all settle down.

Thanks everyone.
No I haven't given him any steroids, he's just had nurofen and Calpol... So that doesn't explain it 😞

Maybe it’s just his body trying to recuperate after being poorly, if it was only last week he’s maybe still catching up on sleep and feeling drained. I know I still feel sluggish in the days after my symptoms are gone when I’ve been unwell!

He might be exhausted from the sickness / growth spurt or something, I would scale back on activities for a while. My daughter is 3 and we have had periods when she drove everyone mad for days/weeks. For no good reason. My husband used to comment on how miserable our child was. Then after some time she’d bounce back to a happy girl. I’d say between 18 months and 2 years we had the most tantrums as she found the inability to express herself so frustrating. Give him time, everything changes all the time with toddlers xx

Thank you @SiberFox , I really appreciate that 🙏🏼 We try saying that he's "levelling up", they go through rough patches before they make big changes.
But on this occasion, I'm quite shocked by this leveling up phase 😂 I think everyone is right, he's probably just exhausted from being poorly xx

My daughter at times experimented with screaming noises that I could only describe as ‘a pig being slaughtered’. Sometimes genuinely upset and other times not so much but clearly looking at me to see the reaction.
Its all fun and games for them lol

My eldest just turned 3 and was ill over the weekend. The following few days were awful - his behaviour was unbelievable. He does have normal toddler tantrums, but these few days were just insane, and like you’ve said, I didn’t really want to spend time with him as it would end up in both of us crying!
I assumed it was his body still recovering from
being ill though, like he still wasn’t quite himself even though he seemed so much better.
He’s been much better behaved since yesterday and been much more loving and enjoyable to be around.
So hopefully your little one is just not feeling quite themselves just yet and it’s making them act a bit worse. Should be back to more normal behaviour again soon 🤞

Thank you @Row23 , I really appreciate your response. It's good to hear that you've experienced a similar situation and your little one is back to being lovely and normal again 🙏🏼
He's still quite snotty so probably not feeling back to best just yet. Fingers crossed 🤞🏼

Could he be in pain and unable to express it? (Is his throat red? Are his poos regular?)

Or could there be a problem with his hearing? Sometimes kids with glue ear get worse after a cold... It can be difficult to spot as they can still hear lots of things (e.g. a jacket of crisps being opened) but everything sounds like it's underwater, so they can get frustrated.