Because I am still All The Sick

[commodorified]

Poll #17162 The Worst

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 75

View Respondents

What is Ther Worst Viral Thing? (Based on personal loathing, not actual/potential severity)

View Answers

Head cold, the runny kind
5 (6.7%)

Sinus cold, the stuffy kind
9 (12.0%)

Tonsils/strep
6 (8.0%)

Chest cold
6 (8.0%)

Stomach bug
27 (36.0%)

Influenza (get your flu shot, everyone!)
22 (29.3%)

ETA: "stomach bug" includes viruses causing *both* kinds of digestive distress. Possibly I ought to have said "digestive system" rather than "stomach", but I am the sort of person who would rather clean up after Norovirus for a week than discuss the topic for ten minutes, sorry.

Comments

[recessional]

A good bout of influenza can include symptoms of all of the above, plus fever high enough to cause aches and brain-malfunction.

The answer is clear.

[watersword]

I assume "stomach bug" is code for "vomiting" and therefore gets my anti-vote. The rest can be endured and slept through, preferably with pharmaceutical assistance, but vomiting is not something you can quietly wait out.

[clanwilliam]

You missed Norovirus: both ends at once plus fever.

Fortunately, the Irish mammy's cureall of flat 7Up actually works on that.

[commodorified]

Noro is meant to be included under stomach bug.

[commodorified]

See, sinus colds give me a vicious post-nasal drip which causes a hacking cough that lasts several days and cannot be slept through except in total exhaution or in a sitting position, and has occasionally caused me to sprain ribs. Wheras I tend to get stomach bugs lightly and passingly, so for me they're a lesser evil.

[xinef]

Agreed. The only "good" (less bad?) thing about stomach bugs is that they don't tend to last more than a day or two, whereas colds, coughs, etc usually last several days up to weeks.

[commodorified]

My lesser hatred is based on being religious about getting my jabs, I confess.

[nineveh_uk]

Stomach bug, no contest. While rhinovirus and its friends and relations have had a severe impact on my health and life over the years, whereas I very seldom get stomach bugs and have never had lasting effects from one, the intensely awful experience of vomiting makes me dread it in its own special way.

[recessional]

I got unlucky two different flu seasons and got the full flu in spite of the jabs. (Which I get for free because Asthma.)

The nausea wasn't quite as bad as the times I got norovirus (I managed not to actually throw up), but while norovirus had me camped out in the bathroom et cetera, in both cases the sheer overwhelming misery of the high-fever and the way that full doses of all available meds merely brought everything down to "I can fall asleep again"/bad cold level (intense headache, sore throat, full chest congestion, full nasal congestion + post nasal drip) plus the way my HIPS ached no matter what I did . . . eeeyeah. It's just the sheer knock-me-flat weakness and misery of it, really. It feels like someone turned the gravity up.

The first time, as I was coming down with it, I decided to have a shower because showers make me feel better. When I got out I had to sit on the floor and lean my arm against the under-sink cabinet in order to dry my hair enough to crawl back into bed, where I remained bar pee-breaks and stumbling upstairs to get more ice-water, for the next 48 hours. (I actually have no memory of those two days beyond a blur of "sleep, wake up in pain and coughing and too hot, take drugs, drink water, go to bathroom, sleep, rinse, repeat").

The second time wasn't quite as bad, but still knocked me out for a week and a half. That year the littlest sister ended up in the hospital because her bout of the flu came with stomach trouble so bad that she couldn't keep water down and needed IV rehydration.


. . . so everyone get your shots! And hope you don't catch an outlier. >.>

(eta: also I have to admit - while I loathe nausea and related stomach stuff deeply, my stomach is so goddamn sensitive and so responsive to my moods etc that at this point while miserable stomach stuff is as familiar to me as colds are to most people, which I suppose may have the salutary effect of making morning-sickness non-traumatic if it ever becomes relevant.)

[commodorified]

UGH. I haven't been that sick to my recollection since the tonsils left; before that I used to come down with the full house - infected throat leading to infected sinuses and lungs, high fever, - about twice a year.

I'm not sure I've HAD the flu, actually, but I figure it's probably comparable, which is to say dire.

[recessional]

It's pretty dire. It's also unfair because even after you've stopped being classically symptomatic - that is, you're no longer stuffed up or fevered or pukey, and unless you're asthmatic like me you've probably stopped coughing - you're actually not recovered for all the way up to another week - or more if you're unlucky. You're weak and easily tired and vulnerable to secondary infections liek woah.

I've had strep, noro, food poisoning, Exciting Psychosomatic Whatsis (which in my case was severe abdominal pain plus distress for no apparent reason) and regular colds, and I can say hands down that the two rounds with the flu are the most miserable I've ever been, and heartily recommend not getting it.

[watersword]

Fair cop.

[lexin]

Influenza FTW. Or, rather, not.

I once got influenza while away in Wales, and it was just the worst thing.

First there was the dreadful sore throat that felt like I was having my tonsils removed with a rusty spoon, followed within a very few hours by the dreadful pain in every bone, including every individual tooth, every bone in my spine, my hips, my knees, my feet, my hands and every individual hair on my head. Everything hurt. My legs were a particular misery as I had a pain from my heel to my hips, like sciatica. I hurt so much I was in tears.

Then I got a cough so severe that the hurt of everything listed above rose x 100 every time I coughed and I had to hold my head to stop the top of my skull from flying off. Plus there was a post nasal drip as described by commodorified, which made me feel sick, stuffed up my nose, made the pain worse and caused my cough to increase to the point that I dribbled a little bit of wee every time I coughed and I felt as if the top of my head were flying off.

I would have sent my friends to fetch cold medicines, but every one of them had caught it, too. We were a very sad little crew that year.

Two days into the illness, I had to travel home by train. I practically crawled off that train and got into a taxi. I didn't care how much it cost, but there was no way on god's green earth I was going to be able to get home by public transport. The taxi driver looked a bit worried that I was going to fill his taxi with germs, but I was adamant that I was taking a black cab from Euston all the way to Leytonstone and bugger the expense. Even then I had to carry my suitcase up the stairs to my flat, and that about wore me out.

Even months later, my brain was scrambled and I was putting the remote control into the fridge, losing my way to places I knew perfectly well and forgetting my keys all over the place.

It was then I decided that whatever the charge, I was getting a flu jab every damn year. I'm never, never, never going through that again.

[izzy]

Life Tip: if you don't get your strep throat seen to in time, it spreads and you get a bonus ear infection for playing. It is not awesome. (Also, one of the symptons of strep is vomiting, so double yay there.)

[st_aurafina]

I have had actualfax influenza and it is all of those things plus vertigo and I am never skipping my vaccine again. Even if it only gives partial protection.

Ugghghh. Never again.

Harimad here

[(Anonymous)]

For the proportion of [misery] to [actual illness + how sick you seem to others], stuffy head cold wins. You feel loggy and spaced out and fuzzy, but to the rest of the world there's nothing wrong.

My untreated strep actually felt worse than my untreated pneumonia, at least during the active phase. The utter misery of sandpaper dry and uber sensitive throat tissues was terrible. OTOH, it takes 4-6 months to fully recover from pneumonia, so it may not be a clear win.

If you do insist on working your cold into a full-blown case of pneumonia (and stupidly getting 75% of your office sick while you're at it), I strongly recommend being a guest in a high-end hotel while it happens. So, so responsive and an infinite supply of hot water.

[recessional]

So much sympathy on the travelling while having influenza; my first bout with it three days in I had to fly from northern BC to Vancouver Island. Originally I was supposed to fly to Vancouver Airport and then take the bus-and-ferry back over to the Island, but my mother went "NOPE" and got me on one of the little airport-to-inner-harbour float-planes.

It was absolutely fucking awful. I even had to use my airsickness bag on the descent into Vancouver. And yet, the guy in the seat next to me didn't stop trying to flirt until I actually threw up. I mean it didn't actually make anything worse because I literally just didn't pay any attention to him, but I remember sitting there going "I look like death, I have cold sweat at my temples, I've been curled up in a miserable ball with my headphones in my ears the whole flight, I'm not even looking at you now, and I'm holding the airsickness bag: WHAT PART OF THIS IS ALLURING?"

Then I likewise crawled into a cab and into my apartment, tried to eat some ramen, realized the only thing I wanted was the broth, drank the whole thing and passed out in bed. My roommate was O.O

Anyway. /share

[recessional]

After having influenza I fully, fully understood how a high-infection epidemic could wipe a community out.

[lexin]

Oh, that sounds horrible. And to be flirted with on top of your troubles - what makes men do that kind of thing?

[lexin]

I had that in 1991. Dribbling blood and pus from my ears FTW, and falling over randomly because my balance was shot to shit.

[lexin]

Absolutely. I think I came the nearest to death I have ever come with influenza.

All of the above?

[james_g4clf]

Every cold I get goes head cold - sinus cold - chest cold, so I couldn't tick just one.

But Delhi Belly is worse. Luckily forty years of business travel, partly in the tropics, has done wonders for my alimentary immune system so I mostly avoid it.

[recessional]

I could not figure it out. Like it didn't even bother me because I was too miserable to care, but it BAFFLED me. I remember sitting there with two parallel thought-streams: 1. Am I going to actually throw up? and 2. What in the name of GOD is actually attracting you to the idea of even talking to me right now? Like do you just literally feel so entitled to female attention that you're not even looking at me, you just went "ah, a female person, I will talk at her and she will pay attention"? I AM SO CONFUSED.

[watervole]

I say chest cold - it isn't worst to experience, but with me, it has a chance of leading to costochondritis which is nastily long-lasting and debilitating.

Flu is actually the worst at the time.

You think some of the others are worse, until you get flu, and then you remember what it's really like....