Here is what the CDC has to say about cold vs. flu. General rule of thumb is you’re more likely to have severe symptoms, including fever and body aches, if it’s the flu, but there’s no absolute way to tell.
I know a couple years ago I got very, very sick, and it was “probably the flu but we’re not going to do any blood tests, because there’s no point”. The two things that made it feel different from other illnesses were the body aches and the absolute exhaustion. I didn’t want to move because I felt like someone had played whack-a-mole with a sledgehammer on my body - but even if I’d wanted to, I felt like I literally did not have the energy to get out of bed. Literally for three days, I took NyQuil, occasionally drank a little bit of tea, and laid in bed in a not-quite-fully-asleep haze. It was the type of unwell where you feel so bad you literally can’t care about anything else.
While we’re talking about our little virusy friends, I would like to provide a PSA: “stomach flu” has absolutely nothing to do with the influenza virus that gives you the fever and aches and cough. Sometimes, but not terribly often, the influenza virus can cause nausea. “Stomach flu” is a catch-all term used to describe the symptoms of an irritated digestive tract. It can be caused by any of a huge number of bacteria and viruses. If your primary symptoms are nausea and vomiting and diarrhea, you most likely do not have the flu, you just have food poisoning or a random bug.
I had it when I was fifteen. I never imagined that I’d be fifteen and wanting death but that’s what it felt like. My mom had to take a week off from work to take care of me because I literally couldn’t do anything for myself but stay in bed and cry. One of my employers is paying for my flu shot this year. I love them.
I thought the flu wasn’t all that much until about three years ago, when I really got a case. It was a killer. I couldn’t eat (I threw up water), I was terribly weak, and I couldn’t even fall asleep (which helps with most everything). I lost nine pounds in five days.
I agree with Sattua- you probably just had a cold. I always kind of enjoyed getting the flu, because it gave me a good excuse to laze around and feel sorry for myself. Then I caught the real thing, and wanted to die. It really put The Stand into perspective for me.
That’s pretty much my experience, and at the same age, but with added weird hallucinations. The GP was getting a bit concerned (home visits!) about my temperature and possible fluid in the lungs, but I was up and about after a week. I did take a month or so to feel properly OK again, I was getting very tired doing normal things.
I know what you mean. I don’t get a bad cold very often, but it’s perversely quite enjoyable for the day or two that you’re fighting it off. All snug in bed, napping when you feel like it, crazy dreams, hot toddies a-plenty. And then you’re right as rain and have to leave the bed-womb again.
I love the “Oh, you didn’t feel like dying so it must not have been the flu,” as if people can’t have different degrees of flu. Please. I’ve had it pretty bad…vomiting, aches, pain so bad it hurt to wear clothes, thinking that I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to feel normal, etc.
But Christ, I didn’t want to die. You really want to die, you can do that with your Tylenol and a bottle of whiskey. It’s not THAT hard.
It’s the body aches that really get me. I can live with the rest of the stuff but when I really have the flu, I feel like I’m on some medieval torture machine, being wracked and torn apart. You’re constantly uncomfortable but it hurts just to shift your body slightly and change position.
I’m no fan of the fevers but there is something kind of neat about going to sleep with a 104 degree burner and then waking up feeling like someone just poured a bucket of cold water on you (literally cold and drenched) but yet a thousand times better and lucid. It’s not worth being sick but at least there’s a pay off.
For me, it was pretty neat when I ran a 103+ fever and didn’t have any antipyretic on me. When I got back from the drug store and took it, I could feel the fever coming off me in waves and more lucidity creeping back. My fever didn’t go above 101 as long as I kept taking the aspirin and acetaminophen.
But driving the 65 miles back home when I originally was getting the flu was hardcore. In just a couple hours I went from feeling a bit off, to getting the chills, to full-bore wracking shivers in the car, to said 103 fever by the middle of that night.
Last year I had flu-like symptoms - fever, body aches and a slightly scratchy throat. I took the day off work and went to the doctor to get a medical certificate. I got tested because N1H1 was going around. I spent the next couple of days at home, low on energy and with a slight fever but otherwise not feeling too bad. Got the results a few days later - turns out it was H1N1.
On the other hand, I have bad sinuses so when I get colds it is often really nasty for me. I am prone to middle ear infections too. So I disagree that colds are always less severe than fevers. As a general rule though, it is true.
If you’re a sciency-person, and grumbling about getting the flu shot even though you’ve never been sick, perhaps try thinking about the concept of “Herd Immunity”. Every one more person that gets the flu shot is one less potential carrier for the Flu virus to mildly infect and/or mutate in. You’re basically helping to protect the people you come into daily contact with by making sure you’re less likely of a carrier of the Flu, and to help your body more efficiently and quickly fight it off so that others around you who may be sicker or weaker won’t have to worry as much.
You’d basically be getting your flu shot then to protect your loved ones, and that’s often a good motivator for people to consider the shot.
Also- one other note- get the Flu Shot earlier than later- Once you have the shot, it still takes 2 weeks for your body to actually build up the antibodies- during those first two weeks after the shot, you can still catch the Flu just like any other person! So for all those people that don’t believe in the Flu shot because they got the vaccine, and then got sick within the next week- well duh! Get your flu shots early, and still stay safe and cautious, because it takes 2 weeks for the darn thing to work!
/public service announcements.
I was in Vegas one time visiting family and came down with the flu. My sister and I were taking turns blowing up an inflatable chair for the kids, and she had it and so I got it. The next day my temperature shot up to 103 and I really did feel like I was going to die. My entire body ached, the combination of being cold and sweating was extremely unpleasant, and by the end of the second day I was able to crawl to the bathtub and take a cold bath. By the third day my temp starting coming down, but the residual effects took about two weeks to go away. Easily one of the worst experiences of my life.
I got the flu a couple of years ago. It was literally the worst thing I ever experienced. I had never been sick like that and didn’t even know it was possible to feel so terrible. And when I started to feel like a human again, I was weak for days after. It was going around my grad department and just depleted every class. There were only a handful of people who escaped getting sick.
I had the flu one summer. I know it wasn’t a cold. I was so deathly ill, for so long, I really did think, “I could die from this!” - interspersed with, “I WISH I was dead already!” Seriously. I’m terrified of doctors, and I went to see the doctor twice, that’s how sick I was. All the symptoms mentioned above. I don’t ever want to have the flu ever again, and I will pull a George Costanza and knock down little old ladies in the waiting room in order to get me a flu shot!
One November I had to see a doctor for something minor and while I was there, I asked him if I could get a flu shot. Of course there was a shortage. He didn’t know me, so he was very serious, said, 'well, Sali, what flu vaccine is available is first being given to the people who need them the most, like people who have had organ transplants. When more is available, then the general public can get shots." I barked, “the hell with them! I want a flu shot, It’s all about ME!:mad:”
You should have seen the look on his face before he realized I was joshing!
I went through unmedicated childbirth. Not an ounce of pain wimp in me. The flu? OH. MY. GOD. I went from being a perfectly healthy fifteen year old who could do all the things all perfectly healthy fifteen years do to being an infant again. I remember being astonished that I couldn’t even sit up without terrifying effort.
