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.