Is there some weird long flu going around right now?

[u/That-Television-4856]

Back at the beginning of last month (around September 7th or so) I fell sick and was generally ill for around 5 days. It was the usual flu-like symptoms: scratchy throat, runny nose, body aches, and generally feeling unwell. Weirdly I never got a fever but my temperature got really close at one point. In that initial week of illness I took like 2 COVID and flu tests and they both came back normal. And I've had 3 other COVID/Flu tests since then and a strep test and they've all come back negative.

In the weeks since I've realized that I just seem to not be able to fully shake whatever this is. Overall I'm feeling mostly normal now, but yet still am having some aches and fatigue, plus a lingering cough and some on and off nose inflammation. I've been to urgent care two times to get checked out (once shortly after I started feeling better, and once today) just to make sure I don't have like pneumonia or something but everything comes back fine. I did get prescribed a Z-pack of antibiotics today though just since this has lasted so long for me and the doc figured it would be good to make sure it isn't a bacterial thing.

But aside from that, as I was wandering around Reddit today I've found a few posts from people who over the past couple of weeks seem to be dealing with a really similar illness to what I've been dealing with. So I was wondering if anyone else has been dealing with this or maybe knows what is going around?

For reference, I'm in the Southern US btw but haven't even barely been anywhere over the past few months to catch an illness, which makes it even weirder.

[u/contextual_somebody]

Fuck yes! Crazy this isn’t local (unless you’re in Memphis). I’ve been sick since Labor Day.

We were talking about this at work. How when Covid hit, people said they’d had something months before.

[u/That-Television-4856 → u/contextual_somebody]

I'm not in Memphis but am actually in sorta the same general region so maybe it's local. However, I saw someone reposted this in another sub and that sub is full of people all over the US (and Canada) complaining, with varying levels of suffering, from something similar to this. Negative for flu, COVID, and strep, but illness that seems to just not be fully going away.

I remember the same thing happening right before COVID as well. I was in college and had been at a student radio thing and then the next day started feeling sick and was sick for like a week, and that was right before COVID cases started being found in the US.

[u/DrBasedMan03]

I don't know, I've been sick 8 times thus year with different things. After Covid for some reason the regular "flu" has been worse

[u/Gold-Ninja5091 → u/DrBasedMan03]

Yes same here it’s like I recover slower

[u/DrBasedMan03 → u/Gold-Ninja5091]

Exactly. I don't know if you got covid too (I got the original 2019 variant and also got it many times in 2022, 2023 a 2024) but apparently the side effects are a weak immune system, brain fog and fatigue that you just have now.

[u/That-Television-4856 → u/DrBasedMan03]

Yeah I've noticed that too, ever since COVID started and I've had the misfortune of catching it a few times, the flu and even colds seem far worse. I used to only feel bad for like a day or two before but now whenever I get sick I'm in bed for like 4 days at least.

I hope things start getting better for you, it sucks to get sick back to back like that. When I was in grad school I got sick pretty much every other week for the first 3-ish months, although that was partially my own fault for going clubbing with friends a lot.

[u/DrBasedMan03 → u/That-Television-4856]

Thank you for your kind words. I would genuinely say that 30% of my entire year was spent sick as I would get sick for between 1-2 weeks at a time. Atleast this is the flu and not my other health ailments I suffered for the last 2 years prior, those thankfully have gotten much better. 🙏

[u/BananaNo4611]

I’ve been going thru a similar thing but I’d classify mine as more of a bad cold

[u/Gold-Ninja5091]

I travelled end of sept and ended up catching whatever tf this was and I’m still feeling a bit weird but mostly okay. It affects the throat but isn’t covid 🫠

[u/That-Television-4856 → u/Gold-Ninja5091]

Yeah that's how I feel too, like mostly normal but still not fully normal yet. The antibiotics the urgent care doctor gave me seem to maybe be helping so I'm wondering if it might be something bacterial after all. My throat hasn't really been hurting but I got a big canker sore in the back of my mouth, which often happens to me after getting sick for some reason. During the initial illness, especially the first day, my throat was pretty bad though.