Dopers who have had influenza: what's it like?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve had influenza three times in 40 years:

First time - fifth grade. I wasn’t doctor-diagnosed, but was the last member of my family to get hit by that particular bus. (Everyone was too sick to take me to the doctor by the time I came down with it.) My only real recollections of that bout are of taking care of myself for about a week while everyone else was sick, and then becoming horribly ill at lunch one day at school.

Second time - ninth grade. I never, ever went to the doctor, but was finally sick enough that my mother took me. Had the flu and bronchitis. I remember being so sick that I didn’t care that my boyfriend came to see me. Didn’t even change out of my comfy flannel pajamas. Wanted to die. (Plus, I was too self-conscious to ask and too ignorant to realize that I had a subsequent yeast infection, since the doctor had prescribed antibiotics for my bronchitis. I’d never taken antibiotics before, and didn’t know their potential side effects… Not fun!)

Third time was in September of this year: H1N1. Honestly, it wasn’t really as bad as my memories of previous flu bouts. I described it to my best friend as feeling like I’d been hit by a bus, but with more snot. However, due to staffing shortages (2/3 of my department out of the country for the first week or so of my illness, then one of my co-workers out of town due to a death in the family, and another stricken by a stroke) and due to other medical issues (me 6 weeks pregnant at age 40,) things were worse than they could have been. Fortunately, things appear to be okay with my pregnancy, and I was vigilant about hand-washing and sanitation during my illness, so I didn’t spread H1N1 to my colleagues or customers. Between first-trimester exhaustion and the flu, though, I haven’t been so tired since I had a severe case of mono in college…

22

I’ve had it twice for sure.

The first time I’m sure about, I was mercifully asleep or otherwise out of it most of the time. I’m told I was really sick for five days, but you could tell me it was two hours or three weeks and I wouldn’t really be in a position to argue. After that, it took a little over a week to get back to the point where I could live normally without worrying that I’d suddenly have to sit down and rest. Everything hurt. I couldn’t turn my head because the muscles hurt so bad. I had no appetite, no interest in the world around me… I just wanted to sleep. And sometimes I realized I was thirsty and wanted something to drink.

This happened shortly after King Olav died. When I got sick the whole country was in shock and in mourning. When I came back to reality, he’d been buried and the public mourning was over. That probably helped add to the unreality of the whole experience!

The second time I wasn’t quite as sick, but that unfortunately meant I was more alert and experienced more of it. Achy muscles and joints, serious lack of energy, total lack of interest in the world. Just getting out of bed to use the toilet felt like a major project. I clearly remember ringing in my ears, too, probably because of the fever. Again, about a week of being really ill, and another week of fatigue before normal life started creeping back.

23

Well, it wasn’t officially diagnosed, but I had a pretty bad case of what I assume was influenza, but could have merely been the Marburg Virus, in about 2006.

Let’s see…the night before, I felt fine, so I had a good dinner. Which included some spicy mango sausages. After that…

Well, I forget at what point I started throwing up, but it was possibly after the intestinal symptoms started up. I know because I puked a good deal in my sweatpants as they were down around my ankles while I was on the john. Kind of a bazooka effect going on.

That kept up for awhile—maybe a day or so—going through a couple of different changes of sheets while I kept grabbing some fitful sleep (and/or feverishly passing out. It was hard to tell). At the very least, I eventually ran out of actual vomit, and was left with greasy, spicy-sausage flavored bile and dry heaves. Mostly dry because I wasn’t able to keep down even a glass of water to wash out the taste of spicy, greasy bile from out of my sinuses. Much less stave off the growing thirst.

Eventually, I was left in enough pain, nausea, and stomach upset enough that I was left lying in (clean, at the time, for the record) bed, taking care just breathing, and literally moaning, until I could get to something approaching sleep. Which was a few hours.

'Sorry if the details are a little fuzzy, as I don’t really like thinking about that time too much. And I think I may have blanked bits out. I do remember lying on the bathroom floor, in the dark, after puking the enamel off the toilet bowl, mostly because that was the pleasantest enough (and easiest) place to crawl to to rest at the moment. This, unfortunately, offended the disagreeable old cat who dwelled in the bathroom at the time, possibly because I was lying down close to her litter box. So she made her displeasure known, and I had to take a minute or two to gather up the strength to crawl into the bathtub to rinse the cat crap off my shoulder. That fucking cat.

That, and after a few hours of on and off puking, feeling well enough to try (very gingerly) eating a strawberry juice bar. It didn’t actually last more than about ten minutes, but the flavor of the popsicle was a merciful and gentle relief compared to what I’d been getting—I never thought I’d feel grateful for the taste of vomit, but for that bit, I’ll be thankful for the rest of my days.

The only time I’ve ever been sicker, I was hospitalized with pneumonia. And I felt better, then.

Edit: Ah! Almost forgot—this was the time I vomited so hard, I broke a blood vessel in the white of my eye. Actually, it might have been both eyes.

24

I got it when I was in my 20s, and I got it at a New Years Eve party.

We were going into the sauna, then out and jumping into the pool (outdoors) (Colorado) (winter). Then back into the sauna.

I had never been in a sauna before and I LOVED it. Until the last time, when we went back in and I started feeling horrible, and too hot. (I NEVER feel too hot.)

Went back out, jumped in the pool again. Almost too weak to swim out.

It was about 10. I hung on until midnight, then went home and crashed. Had a fever the next day. And the next. Of course everybody at my job just figured I was royally hung over.

The second day I called in sick, my boss came to my house to make sure I wasn’t just goldbricking. I could barely make it to the door. I was actually too sick to go to the doctor.

I did not go back to work for a week. Then, it turned out, I needed a doctor’s statement saying it was okay, so finally I went to the doctor. He said nix on going back to work, as I still had a fever.

Achy, fever, really bizarre dreams, slept like 23 hours a day. At one point, I got a horrible cough.

Eight days later, when I did go back, I couldn’t make it through the whole day. Just very tired, weak, and wheezy. Hard to breathe. I worked three days then actually had to take another day off.

Now this is very strange for me because normally, I go for years and years without taking any actual sick days (because I’m sick–I’ve taken them for sick kids, and I’ve also been known to just flat-out lie, in my younger days–but I just don’t get sick).

It was about 3 months before I felt like myself again. I didn’t get in another sauna for YEARS. Even though I realize this is like blaming the La Brea Tar Pits for giving me polio.

I got the flu again in 1991. This time, everybody in my office got it. I was the last one, and I had watched everybody else on my team fall victim and thought I was immune. We were working on a big health-care project and we called it the [name of hospital] flu. It was about the same–several days of achy, weak, coughing, hard to breathe, dreariness. The only time I threw up was when I was trying to fix dinner and being on my feet, coughing, and smelling food just didn’t go well. But it was more like I coughed so hard I threw up, rather than originating in my stomach.

That time I had it for the entire Gulf War. (January is some kind of low point for me, apparently.) Once again, didn’t feel like I came all the way back until March. Most of the people on my team were the same. There was a lot of snapping and snarling because we all felt like crap.

25

I currently have what’s probably the flu. No access to medical care so I couldn’t say for sure - but a fever of almost 103, aches everywhere, dehydration, lethargy, etc.

The main problem has been dehydration. My body wants to piss like crazy for no good reason, but I wasn’t able to drink much water without feeling like I was going to throw up. So (being in a desert) I’m losing moisture through my lungs, pissing out way more than usual, but am unable to replace the water lost, which leads to feeling painfully dried out, a nasty headache with pain spikes if I moved my head even a little bit.

I’ve been basically feeling every sort of way you can feel ill in non-specific ways. Your whole body just feels wrong and unpleasant. I haven’t puked but I felt like I might at any time.

Fortunately it seems to be on the way out and my fever has come down 2 degrees and I’m able to drink normally again. I still hurt all over - and in particular I’m developing a sore throat and cough that I didn’t have yesterday - but at least I can get up to go to the bathroom without it feeling like an epic journey that I may not return from.

26

Yeah, that’s why I ended up in the hospital. Not ever having been really sick before, I didn’t realize the whole dehydration thing and how serious it was. They gave me a couple IVs and made sure I understood the importance of keeping up the fluid intake.

One poster above said we were all being overly dramatic in this thread. I disagree. I don’t see anything overly dramatic about the symptoms being described. Seeing that every single person has pretty much the same symptom experience, I’d say we were all spot on. I realize the flu typically doesn’t kill an otherwise healthy person (although you may feel like death warmed over), but it does kill hundreds of thousands of people.

From wikipedia:

27

I think the defining factors (I’ve had it twice for sure: in 4th grade, age 8 and what was almost certainly H1N1 in July) are feeling like you’ve been flattened by a steamroller, being unable to regulate your body temperature and extreme fatigue. When I had it this summer I fell asleep more or less immediately after any exertion for about a week. When I had it as a kid I was out of school for two full weeks.

Also, I had to force myself to eat this summer – even saltines (though once I stopped trying to eat real food I felt a good bit better).

28

If the house had been on fire, I would not have been able to get out and save myself. Someone upthread mentioned going from thinking they were going to die to wishing they would die, and that’s how I felt.

29

I got it Christmas morning – don’t remember the year. 2002, maybe. My husband had had it the week before, so I had had to do all the shopping, plus come home at lunch and make him soup, etc. He got better, so Christmas morning we came downstairs to exchange gifts. He handed me a package and I started to open it and stopped in the middle and fell over. Seriously, it happened that fast. He said, “oh, shit, we’re not going to my parents’ for Christmas dinner.” I said, “No, I’ll be OK.” He called them and said we wouldn’t be over. I didn’t get out of bed for four days. They left our presents and his dinner on our doorstep and sped away. We called it the year of the drive-by Christmas.

30

I hate to be a ‘me too’ poster, but ‘me too’ for everyone that is annoyed by people with bad colds that call it the flu.

I had the flu twice. Both times, it took me off of my feet entirely and I even had to crawl to the bathroom once. It hit like a brick wall and after three days it lifted like a veil and I was 100% as if I had never been sick at all.

The traumatizing thing about the flu is that I can pin that down as the precise moment in my life when I truly learned ‘empathy’. I remember lying on the couch, thinking, “oh my god, consider for a moment people with chronic disease that feel like you do right now, except with the knowledge that they will never recover”.

And I still carry the moment that dawned on me. The flu actually blew my mind.

31

Although it wasn’t officially labeled “flu” by the doctor, I think I had a comparatively mild case about 11 years ago. I’d had a shot - but there were reports of a fair number of people getting it anyway that year.

One of my kids was sick with a fever a few days earlier. We’d dose for the fever and he’d be fine, then the meds would wear off and he’d be lying immobile in bed.

Then my other kid started coughing. Then I started coughing. My coughing and chest congestion got worse over a day or so, and there was that fun evening where I alternated between chills (fetal position in bed, all the covers, and a hot water bottle) and feeling like I was roasting alive. I think the fever hit 102 that night. Ibuprofen and tylenol barely touched the fever though perhaps they kept it from creeping higher than 102. And my breathing continued to get worse.

Made it to the doctor the next day where I got (if memory serves) a short course of oral steroids and of antibiotics (I have asthma, the flu caused a flareup, and I usually develop a secondary dose of bronchitis when I catch a bad cold). For several days, if I didn’t keep up with the ibuprofen, my skin became very sensitive to touch - as in a light stroke of a hand was painful.

All in all, I was wiped out for most of a week. Though not as badly as some have mentioned. Either I didn’t have true flu, or I had a milder case because of the shot.

Oh, and during the time when I was lying in bed thinking that if someone burst in with a machine gun, that’d sorta be OK? Couldn’t even suffer in peace. The kids (4 and 1) were home… with a sitter, but they wanted nothing to do with her when MOMMY was so near. Argh.

32

Yup, the time I had the flu in college, that’s exactly how I felt. The only advantage to the dehydration was that I didn’t have to marshal the energy to crawl to the toilet.

33

It was like a cold, I’m afraid to say - but an EXTREMELY bad cold, the granddaddy ass-kickingest cold of all time, the Boss Cold at the end of a really long level of colds, assisted by Ninja Colds with special Extras Symptom Attack Powers. I was out of school for a week and not 100% for another week. The fever was unbelieveable; bad fever dreams for two nights. Like **matt_mcl **I soaked my sheets in sweat. Joints hurt. No energy whatsoever.

Interestingly, I did not get nauseated, but it’s worth noting I NEVER get nauseated.

34

I had pneumonia twice, the flu, and pleurisy. So I know all about different types of breathing problems.
Walking pneumonia - basically extreme exhaustion and trouble breathing.
Flu - fever, exhaustion, breathing problems, pain/aches everywhere, and loopiness
Pneumonia with pleurisy - stabbing pain when you inhale, body temp bouncing around, getting winded by walking a foot, very disturbing noises coming from the lungs that last a while past you recover (I had this 2 years ago and my lungs are still wheezy when I exhale).

35

The flu is about 5 times worse than a cold for me. I can usually tough out a cold and still go to work. With the flu work is out of the question, every joint aches, headache, one minute too hot, the next minute too cold, painful urination, sore throat, itchy eyes, stuffy or runny nose, sometimes nausea, cough-usually not productive.
Life just sucks in general. If you think you have the flu, you probably have a cold. The flu leaves little doubt for me anyway.

36

Based on this thread, I know I haven’t had the flu! But also based on this thread, I am more compelled to get the shot. Last year was the first year I got it, and I think I will continue to do so. It’s been delayed up here but when it’s available…

37

Comparing the flu to a cold is like comparing a diamond to a rock: yeah, both are hard, but by making a comparison you’re giving the rock entirely too much credit.

When I got the flu in Colorado, my lungs hurt. The only way I could breathe was to wrap hot towels straight out of the dryer around my chest and bundle up in blankets. I was weak and shaky. It was a feat to stumble the few feet from the bed to the toilet. I was an invalid for several days, to the point where I decided if I got any worse, then my friends would have to take me to the hospital, because I was surely dying.

Not the sickest I’ve ever been (I’d say continuous diarrhea for several days, or the time I vomited up everything I tried to eat and lost probably 10 pounds, resulting in me looking like a starved horse with ribs and hips poking out everywhere, were both worse) but not an experience I’d care to repeat. I’ve been vigilant about getting flu shots every year since.

38

timely thread- I just finished the 4 day flu that is going around in the Cincy area, according to my doc, a local CDC reporter, an anamoplous strain ( I think that is what she said- kind of delirious then). This was the second time I have had the flu in the past 4 years- and both years I had flu shots.

There is a definite difference between the flu and a very bad cold. I can function, albeit not happy to be alive, with a very bad cold. With the flu, I am incapacitated for the most part- strong fevers (up to 105 a few years ago) that cause me to have awful chills. These chills are so bad with me that with a t, sweatshirt, blanket, and down comforter, I am still shaking like a leaf. The are generally followed by “sweating out the fever” with buckets and buckets of sweat.

For me, other symptoms generally include the inability to concentrate on anything, poor general coherence, odd, lucid fever dreams, dizziness, odd cravings-but with loss of appetite, and apparently a change in my ability to taste, even with a clear nose. Most of my food tastes extremely salty when I have the flu, or when I am just getting over it. The fatigue is just unbearable and the aches are miserable.

Since I have now twice had flus that were not included in the strains prevented by the flu shot of the year, I have been reported to the CDC twice. Apparently I’m special.

39

You may start to think that someone must have forgotten to bury you.

40

I had it over Christmas five years ago. I went out on the evening of the 22nd with a friend, feeling like I was getting a slight cold.

Woke up the next morning feeling like a steamroller had crushed me overnight. It was hard to breathe, my head was throbbing, I was exhausted, and the worst part is that your entire body just hurts in a way I can’t describe.

My loving parents declared that I just had a cold and should suck it up, and they bundled me into the car for our annual (and hated by me) 8-hour drive from New Jersey to Ohio to spend Christmas with Grandma. I made them stop at CVS first, bought some Benadryl, cough syrup, and dramamine, and spent the next eight hours in a state that was in no way remotely healthy (kind of awake, because I just couldn’t sleep, but I was in no way coherent.

Upon arrival my parents realized that bringing someone obviously ill into an 83-year-old woman’s house wasn’t the best idea (as I had previously said). I was banished to the one single guest room in the house, in the basement. I took any spare blankets in the house, a box of tissues, and disappeared for about thirty-six hours. Missed Christmas eve completely, emerged for about twenty minutes on Christmas eve to refill my thermos of tea and say hello to people, staggered back to bed. Finally could stay upright for more than a few minutes on the 26th.

One of my aunts - who is a clinical nurse - put it this way: if you have a cold you kind of want to drink lots of hot tea and take tylenol knowing it will make you feel better, but if it’s the flu, you really kind of wish you’d just die right where you are, so you don’t need to move to drink your tea or swallow a pill.