THE GODDAMN FLU!!!!!!!!!!!

my stomach is on fire

i have it right now. its the one that is strongly resembling TB at the moment.

its the one that is strongly resembling TB at the moment.

YA RLY if this were the old days my new username would be bloody sputum.

I'm on day 3 and it only seems to be getting worse. The fatigue! Headaches! Aching limbs! Now sadness has set in too, and my bed, previously a sanctuary, feels like a torture chamber...

Last knee I got up to pee and I was shaking from the shivers so badly that none whatsoever went into the toilet. A low.

My wife and I have some stomachy crap that is making me all dizzy and light-headed. I don't feel like eating anything, and I could barely choke down a third of my coffee this morning.

I had the worst flu in years in late February - four days in bed - and I still feel like I'm just recovering from it.

it seems like there is something really nasty going around. i have just been living in fear and washing my hands compulsively.

That flu pwned half my office. My TB test was negative.

In which I threw up half of last night's dinner this morning and haven't been able to swallow anything beyond porridge since. muscles aching. headaches. shivers.

oh and I have an exam paper to sit for on thursday and a 120-page book chapter to edit by Friday so this is really just EXACTLY WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW. boo, whine, etc.

job interview tomorrow, trans-european flight this afternoon, and I'm fucked with flu. feel like I can't think/sleep/move/eat...GAH.

I moved to Africa five weeks ago, and I've been sick the last three weeks. A malaria-typhoid doubleshot is currently the best guess as to what I have/had. Don't worry about the pity thing, cuz I got that shit COVERED. I was bummmming.

Sucks.

3 days without more than an hour's sleep at a time

fucking DIE

apparently this year's strain is worse than usual

Fuck this shit imo

i prob should have gotten a shot huh

fucking hell

Did you get a flu shot y/n and if n why not and if y u may not have flu just a garden variety coronavirus or whatnot so stop whining.

no flu shot, why not? because fuck you

Excellent reasoning. Perhaps you have encephalitis?

sorry for posting on a thread about the goddamn flu when i have the goddamn flu

Why does everyone insist they have the flu when they may very well have a bug that is just as bad? Why not just say "I AM SICK HOLD ME"?

would it please so much you if i said that i have really shitty flulike symptoms and a spiking fever and that the specific diagnosis isn't my primary concern at the moment?

Aw elmo I'm sorry, I'm being a jerk. FWIW if you lived near me I would totally bring you made-with-love Yucatan Chicken-Lime Soup, which is the only thing that tastes good to me when I am super sick like that.

The only other thing that feels good when I am super-sick is to have my feet rubbed. Everywhere else, contact just hurts when you have a fever.

Much <3 and I do hope you feel better soon.

it's ok q, i am kinda fried in the brainpan and a little less collected than usual... fwiw my boyfriend got a flu vaccine because he works in public health and he has not been taken to symptoms while caring for me so yeah i'm pretty sure its flu... i have never got a vaccine before because i always had the prejudice that the were somehow bunko but i am re-evaluating that stance

My bf had what I assume was flu for the last 4 days and somehow I didnt catch it. I never seem to catch the flu (colds yeah but not actual Flu). I dont know why... I'm a smoker, I'm not particularly healthy, I never have flu shots?

flu vaccine that is! need to be specific about that

I had what I'm pretty sure was actual influenza during the 1994/5 epidemic, and it was truly unlike any other infection I've ever had. I was in college, living in a single in a college dorm, and were it not for the kindness of my concerned hallmates really think I might have dehydrated to the point of. . . well, there was no way in hell I could go out for gatorade or even to the coke machine downstairs. I counted on my hallmates to bring me fluids, and literally crawled to the bathroom when I had to.

It made a huge impression on me and I have not missed a flu shot since. I'm a virologist by training, so at least it was an interesting--if unpleasant--experience.

Take good care of yourself! Or better yet, make others take good care of you!

Trayce, within any given population there are always those who quite resistant to influeza (mostly likely due to genetics)--you are probably one of those lucky ones!

You can take care of us all when the not-covered-by-that-year's-vaccine flu epidemic hits.

Feelin' that flu here too elmo.

there was no way in hell I could go out for gatorade or even to the coke machine downstairs. I counted on my hallmates to bring me fluids, and literally crawled to the bathroom when I had to.

Saturday night, its my friend's 22nd. We go to a sushi place where its $37 for all-you-can-eat. After twenty minutes of eating I run to the bathroom, spew, and don't stop until 4am. Yesterday I could barely walk. Today I email my professors asking for extensions on the pre-spring break papers.

Was it the flu? Sounds like all the right symptoms. Or was it food poisoning, or protein overload (I'm a vegetarian and made a fish exception for the occasion)? Maybe I'll find out tomorrow when I visit the campus clinic, but what I do know is that I'm sicker than I've ever been before.

I've never had food poisoning for more than 24 hours.

That sounds more like food poisoning but I guess it depends if you also had the fever and aches (I dont think you'd get the full body aches if it was FP?)

Influenza virus infection doesn't usually present that way. . . calling on ILX med peeps to verify. If you were feeling fine and then suddenly had vomiting, sounds like something differnt? Either way, it totally sucks and I hope you soon feel better!

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is how I always understood it: sudden onset of high fever, followed over the next days by continuing fever, shakes, weakness, aching all over, and a nasty cough/headache... thats flu.

Clagged up head and ears, sneezing, dribbly face, general run down blergh - thats a cold.

I'm no doc, but 20 minute between feeling fine and eating something suspect and massive vomiting seem unlikely to be flu, unless a total coincidence?

But yeah what I was taught was that sniffles in the absence of mega fever symptoms, nausea, and a 7-10 span of feeling awful was likely non-influenza virus infection. Rhinovirus, coronavirus, coxackivirus I seem to recall???

7-10 DAY span, rather.

Its strange. I was feeling excellent, top of the world, until I got that sushi in me. Seems too big a coincidence to be flu.

Anyone see that clip of the vegan family that ate steak -- or some kind of meat and potatoes meal -- and the whole gang found themselves physically shut-down for the rest of the day? It made the rounds on youtube, The Soup and that kind of thing, for the bit where the dad breaks down in the bathroom screaming "how could I do this to my family," all weepin' and sobbin'?

Can't that kind of thing happen if your diet doesn't include meat?

Hmmm well I went from 4 years of strict ovo-lacto to eating a T-bone, and then another within 4 hours, and didn't have an issue at all. But these things are highly individual, of course!

i feel better now

ctrl f theraflu? yall stupid
(relapse)

wow, good luck Mark.

And all with this ongoing flu.

the advantage of being asthmatic (also ancient) is that i am super-aware of minor shifts in my ability to breathe well, and the doctors at my health centre know to pay attention to these shifts, so fingers x-ed

I was talking a friend who I often see on my dog walk yesterday, she's 73 and just recovered from what she said was the Aussie flu strain. She said it was the worst flu she has contracted in her life, and only a few back was thinking the end was nigh.

My wife's aunt, who was in the hospital, was finally released after 20 days. Hopefully, she's healthy enough now to take care of herself at home. I'm sure my mother-in-law will be checking in on her.

and into week five!

the actual flu is long gone i think and the TB stuff will be slow reveal if it all -- certainly it's not currently manifesting in any appreciable way

i did get called in today for FURTHER LIVER TESTS though, to follow up on some that worried them from 22 jan (routine part of the follow-on to last year's cryoablation and the medication i'm still on, one element of which can be toxic for the liver -- tho generally only if yr on it for far longer than i have been)

the GP thinks it likely that -- as i was tested right in the middle of the worst of my flu -- this is why my liver seemed to be registering as working too hard: so there should be nothing to see here when they retest, we shall see fingers x-ed

anyway BORED NOW (others have had it much worse obviously but it is still tiresome and distracting and i am now a month behind with my big PLAN FOR JAN)

familiar pundit on the Man Flu!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/style/why-men-complain-about-colds-so-much.html

manTB

Woke up in the middle of last night and vomited on and off for 6 hours. At the end of it I felt like it could just be food poisoning, I felt kinda better, but now I have a fever & I ache & I can’t keep anything down, not even water. So... I hope it’s just food poisoning.

I’m not sweating

there was also a nasty norovirus going round london just before xmas :(

Definitely sounds norovirus-y

wife and both kids have flu, I'm on preemptive tamiflu

i am out of the woods and in my opinion entirely better now! nevertheless i have another liver test tomorrow (bcz they fucked up yesterday's) plus the TB nurse just dropped off two weeks-worth of antibiotics (rather than six) bcz the TB doctor is concerned abt the infection on my lung revealed last week (tho there is no sign yet it is TB)

in my own time i also have to provide *another* sputum sample -- i'm not quite sure how, as i am no longer coughing at all and have *never* coughed much during the entire stupid time (tbf the nurse acknowledged as much and sort of implied "only if you actually can")

(obviously this is all better-safe-than-sorry belt-and-braces stuff and an indication i was probably a lot iller than i realised three weeks ago)

YEEE HAW!!

good job, eat yerself fitter

Its 86 degrees outside and I'm freezing to death!!

think I have that norovirus. lovely stuff

get yr shots people, I got mine but it was maybe a week too late, it doesn't start working for 2 weeks and I got sick like 6 days after

I have been brutally sick for 8 solid days now, I'm maybe at 85% today.

mostly coughing, with a side of backache and lethargy

me too friend, ive been feeling like chicken fried dogshit since thursday

im trying to remember why i didnt get my flu shot bc i got my covid booster some months ago, but im paying dearly for it

feel better, flu-zys. drink lots of drinks!

yah I have an IPA right here oh wait

(I am actually drinking a beer rn but have cut down immensely and am consuming tons of ginger lemon tea)

My wife and I got our flu shots back in the fall and caught it anyway a couple of weeks ago. Mild cases for both of us though.

great time to fire the whole CDC huh?

oh i just meant liquids in general. though some people probably swear by a whisky or two when ill.

Influenza B. Have been sick for over a month (pretty mild now though.) Has kind of come and gone in waves. Will never skip a flu shot again.

ugh this shit is killing me. the fever was bad enough, two days now the fluid buildup in my ears is causing me high levels of pain. i've taken three oxy over the past two days. i have them left over from my GRS, where i took maybe one, because i fucking hate oxy. the oxy is barely controlling it. i still can't sleep because i'm constantly coughing - dry, hacking cough, all the fluid stuck in my body, not coming out

i didn't get a flu shot this year because i'm too severely depressed to leave the house... only time i've left the house in the past two weeks was to go to coffee with friends. lying around the house being miserable all the time is difficult enough without this illness. i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

i guess the upside is that i don't actively wish i were dead and i'm not having too many blackpilled paranoid thoughts about humans being the real plague and all of these illnesses being nature's way of trying to defend itself, which in the past i did a lot. i mean i still have those feelings but i don't _identify_ with them.

Just went through 4 days of fever, intense headaches, really painful coughing and having basically zero energy. I'm feeling a bit better this morning (it's currently merely like a bad cold), but I feel like the fever is slowly coming back again.

This was the first time in several years I didn't get a flu shot, not sure why, I basically just forgot to do it.

Does getting a flu shot but still catching the flu reduce the severity of the symptoms? My daughter got this year's flu shot and still got the flu and it suuuuuucked (for her).

yes it does, in fact the CDC just removed that page

Sad lol/sigh, we've entered an era where information is removed from a website because it's *accurate*.

i didn't get a flu shot this year because i'm too severely depressed to leave the house... only time i've left the house in the past two weeks was to go to coffee with friends. lying around the house being miserable all the time is difficult enough without this illness. i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

i guess the upside is that i don't actively wish i were dead and i'm not having too many blackpilled paranoid thoughts about humans being the real plague and all of these illnesses being nature's way of trying to defend itself, which in the past i did a lot. i mean i still have those feelings but i don't _identify_ with them.

that's real Kate, I've been going thru something like that recently. you know what actually helped? flowers. someone sent me flowers for my birthday and it snapped me out of this kinda. so when they died, I bought more. it really does help.

feel better everyone xx

Fuck

I wanna go get the jab this week, prolly do a covid shot as well, why not

Sorry CaAL, flu sucks.

I did the flu/covid one-two yesterday, was slightly worried about feeling crummy today because it has knocked down a few friends this year but apart from some loginess last night and a sore shoulder I'm all good.

Yeah, that was my experience this year too (about three weeks ago). I usually get flattened for a day or so by a COVID and flu booster, but it wasn't so bad this year.

Got double vaxed with the new Moderna flu shot for the over-50s today. Feel great, never better.

I got my covid and high-dose flu shots last week. I'm traveling over Thanksgiving to San Diego to see my family and my family is coming here to SF to stay with me for the birth of my grand-nephew over Christmas. I'm not used to saying grand- anything but we are all excited

uh oh, now I feel terrible

I have been dragging my feet on getting mine because I feel absolutely gutted for 24 hours. Fever, chills, deep bone pain, everything hurts, my *hair* hurts, it sucks ass but better 24 hours of misery than two or more weeks of actual infection

My experience of the flu shot over the last few years has been way worse than a Covid shot, it wipes out the rest of the day, but yes way better than the actual flu.

We got Human Metapneumo virus this year. That was a week of misery and a long recovery. There’s a RAT test for it but no shot. I’m signed up for vaccine trials and got disqualified for a trial for hMPV for having had it. I’m still annoyed being out of the country meant I missed out on an RSV trial, it was a does regimen trial so I would have been administered with something.

Respiratory viruses suck and I want more vaccines. This winter has been brutal. (NB we have a toddler and I’m convinced they have a biolab at daycare).

I'm having all the symptoms quince lists and more. This is really harsh. I'd definitely advise not planning anything for the following day if your'e getting these shots.

*quincie

it’s not the flu but i have had a streaming nose and irritating cough twice in three weeks now. this one came on suddenly on a work trip, and resulted in a sleepless night, dabbing at my nose with bog roll - the invention of balm tissues is one of the great innovations of modern times - and am knackered, sneezing and sniffing around the place like some sort of plague victim.

GPs haven’t been in touch to give me my annual flu jab and first thing i’m doing tomorrow is giving them a call…

medically dosing with paracetamol and cans of leffe blond on the four and a half hour eurostar back…

uh oh, now I feel terrible

― Josefa, Monday, November 2, 2026 9:50 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Got the double dose yesterday, flu & covid... I feel pretty crummy as well. It even hurt to floss my teeth this morning

I’m planning to take tylenol in liver-melting quantities

apparently this year's fax is maybe not ideal but still recommended (this year’s dominant flu strain is an H1N1 virus carrying a mutation known as G155E)

“We make vaccines for flu the same way we made them in the 1940s; we use very old technologies that require a long lead time,” says Adalja.

This year, their forecast was off. “This particular variant really emerged after we already had chosen what was in the vaccine,” notes Osterholm, meaning that this year’s vaccine is a weaker match against infection.

But, Osterholm says, the question is not about whether the vaccine works or doesn’t work, but about it being less protective. Being vaccinated is like “having your seatbelt attached against the flu. It protects you against severe disease, hospitalization, and death.”

I’m biting the bullet and getting mine this evening. Planning on taking a sick day tomorrow.