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)

i'm swearing by this stuff

the flu can juggle my biggity balls right about now

the regular ppl flu, not the piggie kind atm

Also, in flu news, my wife's aunt has been in the hospital for almost 2 weeks due to kidney failure and low blood pressure that was aggravated by the flu. We don't know if she's going to make it.

Sinus twinges and brain fog: prodrome or nocebo effect?

HI DERE

on that tamiflu, this set off my neck somehow? the flu itself is unpleasant but i can't move my fucking neck or upper back without pain, so that's fun.

you sure you don't have meningitis?

no fever, no headache, no nausea, tested positive for flu. the neck thing is an issue i've had in the past; they suggested my system is just run down. but yeah, it occurred to me too. 24 hour muscle spasm is no joke

I've heard Tamiflu kinda wrecks you

Got it twice in December/January (or it was the same bug with a two week pause). Just overwhelming tiredness all the time.

I've never had the flu but I've been feeling weird and shitty since Sunday so I hope that's not that it is.

.. what it is, even.

I know I've had a stiff neck during certain past colds or flu--maybe from sleeping funny while trying to breathe? I'll have a nice hot toddy when I get home tonight, but right now that feels like incredibly long time away.

nah, you'll know when you get the flu, you wake up feeling fine and by the afternoon you are a sweating jelly lying on the floor hoping for a swift death

i didn't know! just felt rundown and beat up. Got my goddamn flu shot on Friday, diagnosed with the flu next monday. bad timing, shoulda got mine earlier.
i am neti potting 2 or 3 times a day and gargling with salt water at the same time. not being very productive.

it could be worse... my grandfather got the flu in 1919 and told my dad he went from walking home feeling fine to collapsing in the street, coughing up blood in less than an hour (he lived, thus I exist to relate this tale)

yikes
yeah, everything can always be worse. i am hoping for better shortly but first a nap

I have quit sugary everything and coffee and staying up late and have been feeding this bitch kale and tomatoes and beans

I feel more likely to live I just don't want to like this

the possible side-effects list of the steroids i am taking is quite scary (however after 2 out of 5 days dosage i already feel better so fingers x-ed)

sure would like to be able to sleep through the night without waking up eighteen times.

Is deej calling u

thankfully, no

rap thread nightmares?

recurrence of a spine injury that i thought was past that appears to have been exacerbated by the flu, if you wags must know; kinda in constant pain and having serious issues turning my neck.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Amypoehler.gif

I've heard Tamiflu kinda wrecks you

― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, January 30, 2018 1:00 PM (yesterday)

it mostly can cause some nausea and vomiting, but the real issue with tamiflu is that the data we have suggests that it is almost completely useless. it has been shown to decrease symptom duration by about a half a day, but hasn't been shown to decrease complications, hospitalizations, or death. one of the best rackets we have going in the medical profession

But it's really expensive!

yeah, it was a hundred bucks for me. fucking hell, i'm pretty rundown.

Amantadine's not effective against flu anymore, huh.

ok lol actually feeling much much better today, nevertheless spent all morning at homerton hospital getting just-in-case tests for TB as the belt-and-braces chest xray my GP suggested concerned them

IMO a false alarm -- for example i have no cough at all* -- but better safe than sorry

*or not until i'd spent 30 mins on the sputum-inducing saline nebuliser

TB-WATCH: 1st tests (skin and ew ew sputum) fine, blood results next week, "slow sputum" under obs for 6 weeks -- at worst it has been caught super-early and i go onto antibiotics (for six months!) but it is all very treatable so hurrah 😷 😷 😷

TB onset is slow and steady, but it just keeps going getting worse and worse for months. At least your GP isn't an incompetent fuckwit who just sends you away saying you've got bronchitis multiple times until you can barely breathe. Good luck.

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