I’ve had the real flu a few times, and it’s easy to tell the difference between it and “flu.”
It comes on suddenly. One minute you’re sitting there minding your own business, and the next you feel weak and achy.
The fever. Last time I had the flu my temperature went over 103 and stayed there days.
Fatigue and weakness. Oh sure, you can feel lousy with a cold, but with the flu, you want to just fall down where you are because crawling into bed is too exhausting.
The recovery. After the fever breaks you think you’re feeling better,except that you want to fall over again after about five minutes.
The last time I had the flu, I got pneumonia on top of it. More fun.
I finally understood why terminally ill people sometimes want to commit suicide when I had pleurisy for a month. I knew I was going to get better, but after a month of EVERY single breath being agonizingly painful, it made sense to me why those who are dying would want to get it over with.
I’ve had the flu once that I clearly remember - I was about 15 or 16. I don’t remember a whole lot about it – I did nothing but lay in bed and sleep and whimper. My temp stayed at 103 for days. One night I felt so horrible that I knew I needed to go to the hospital so I got out of bed, walked down the hallway into my mom’s bedroom and said “Mom, I think …” and keeled over. I woke with her putting a blanket over me and calling 911.
Turns out my fever had broke and it made me pass out. Still felt like hell for a few days afterwards, though.
I’m generally one of those robust folks that you sickly ones hate. I go to the doctor once a year for the physical, and maybe every other year, end up going twice because I get strep throat or a bad cold.
That being said, I’ve had the flu three times in my life.
The first time, I was in high school, and I started feeling feverish and kind of crappy after school. Took my temperature- it was 101, so I went to the doctor the following morning. He prescribed me amantadine, which pretty much kept it at the “feeling cruddy, but that’s it” stage for about a week.
The second time I was in college. Had the same feverish/cruddy feeling one night, then the following day, it got worse- fever ended up being 102. I dicked around and didn’t go to the doctor for a few more days- by then, the fever hadn’t gone away, I felt like absolute shit, and had pretty serious body aches; imagine having the ones you get with a fever, only twice as bad. Plus, the worst part was the god-awful chest congestion I got with it. My entire body and head already hurt, and I was racked with this awful cough. It truly sucked.
The third time was much like the second, except in graduate school, and I never did go to the doctor. I ended up literally staying in bed for 4 days, and being pretty wretched and useless for about 2 before that and 4 more after that.
Nowadays, I religiously get flu shots (free at work!) and haven’t had the flu since.
I have probably had it 3 or 4 times. The temp goes up fast and stays there 102 to mid 103. You take aspirin. You wear sweat pants, a sweat shirt and use every blanket in the house and you are freezing anyway. you have no interest in food. When you wake ,could be morning, might be afternoon, you feel a little better. you think you should eat but nothing sounds good. Not coffee, soup or orange juice. You go take a leak and you have used up all your energy and are now tired again. After a couple days, soup, water and juices seem ok. You may throw them up. If you get up to watch Tv for a while and decide to go back to bed, the bed seems so far away. you are exhausted and sore.