# Weirdest bout of flu ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 16, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361 "2014-12-16T04:00:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/1 "2014-12-16T04:00:33Z")
So last week I start to cough a little bit- like a little tickle in the back of my throat. Come Wednesday afternoon, I start to cough more. No fever, etc… just the cough. By that night, I do feel like I’m running a fever. I go to bed with the fear that I might have the flu. Thursday morning, I woke up feeling like shit. So I went to the doctor, who jammed a swab up my nose, and about 15-20 minutes later says the test came back positive and that I have the flu. He prescribes me Tamiflu, tells me to take Advil, drink plenty of fluids, and get as much rest as I can. I go home from there and feel progressively worse and more tired. I go to bed at 10 pm or so. Here’s where it gets weird. I woke up Friday morning without fever. I still had the cough, and had some wooziness and diarrhea, which are Tamiflu side-effects, but otherwise felt pretty good, if really fatigued. Saturday- less cough, still no fever, same wooziness and squirts. Sunday- cough almost gone, no fever, wooziness, no squirts. Today- slight wooziness, hardly any cough, and no squirts. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but WTF kind of flu was this? I’ve had the flu 3 other times in my life. One was arrested by amantadine (it was like 1984), and I just stayed in the low fever, feeling generally cruddy stage for a full week. The other two were full-blown, 103 fever, body aches, chills, severe congestion, wishing I was dead, classic influenza. This time around, it was like that for exactly one day (Thursday), which was possibly worse than any single other day of flu I’ve ever had. But that was it. I didn’t feel _bad_ on Friday, just really tired. I did get my flu vaccination in early November, and I did get Tamiflu within the first 48 hours. Did those somehow combine to make it a much less serious illness? I thought Tamiflu generally lessened symptoms a little bit, and dropped about a day off the total duration, not reduced it to a day, and removed the symptoms entirely. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/2 "2014-12-16T17:06:14Z")
No idea, but I had a hella 24 hour bug, I was fine Friday evening, but was flipping between hot flashes and freezing cold can’t warm up flashes. Saturday I had the runs much of the day, along with hypoglycemic type shakes and light headedness. No nausea or coughs, just shakes, hot and cold flashes and the runs. My temp was running normal at 94.4-6 the entire time, no matter whether I was hot or cold at the time. Glucose was running normal for the part of my meal cycle I was testing in. Woke up fine mid-Sunday morning [woke up at 5 am as normal for meds and instead of breakfast went back to sleep.] [And yes, that is actually my normal temp range - drove the Navy nuts until we finally managed t get it documented that running a 100.1 degree temp is actually hazardous for me. _sigh_] ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/3 "2014-12-16T18:22:57Z")
About a year ago I started to feel the telltale signs of the flu one early afternoon. I went to bed feeling rather cruddy, and was almost tempted to call into work ahead of time. Woke up the next morning and felt perfectly fine. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/4 "2014-12-16T18:43:19Z")
Many of the same symptoms here. The first couple days I thought I had something mild I could shrug off. Then it hit big time. I had about 4-5 days of fever total, but here I am on day 10 still feeling fatigued, woozy and struggling with a cough. Tamiflu didn’t do a darn thing as far as I can tell. My wife (who had the same symptoms, starting about two days before me) went to the doctor who even told her she had a cold and not the flu. My own doctor was convinced I had a cold right up until the flu test came back positive. (So my wife went back to her doctor and demanded a test. Yeah, came back positive.) Anyway, this is without a doubt the worst flu I’ve ever had. On its worst days, it was the most incapacitating, and this long tail of recovery is a bitch on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/5 "2014-12-16T18:51:23Z")
I think the same thing got me. Ticklish cough turned into a hacking cough which eventually became slightly productive. A day of something like stomach flu, in the middle of it all. Low energy ever since then… it’s been a week since that started, and I still feel like the walking dead, though the cough is almost gone now. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-bout-of-flu-ever/707361/6 "2014-12-16T19:01:27Z")
Here is what the NHS tells me about flue treatment: > [@](#): > > If you have flu, it will usually be possible for you to treat yourself effectively at home. > If this is the case, you should: > rest > keep warm > drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration > > If you feel unwell and have a fever, you can take paracetamol or anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen to lower your high temperature and relieve aches. > > If you are in a high-risk group and are more likely to suffer complications from flu, your doctor may prescribe antiviral medication. > > Antivirals will not cure flu, but they will help to: > > reduce the length of time you are ill by around one day > relieve some of the symptoms > reduce the potential for serious complications > > Antibiotics are not prescribed for flu as they have no effect on viruses. However, occasionally it may be necessary to treat complications of flu, especially serious chest infections or pneumonia, with a course of antibiotics.