Sicker Than a Dog Chills: Disaster Cleanup

  • Thread starter Thread starter wolram
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
The discussion revolves around several participants sharing their experiences with illness, particularly flu-like symptoms, including chills, diarrhea, and general malaise. One participant humorously recounts their struggles with household chores while feeling unwell, including an incident with a vacuum cleaner and flour. Others express sympathy and share their own experiences with similar symptoms, suggesting that the current illness might be a particularly virulent strain of flu or a norovirus. Participants discuss the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, noting that this year's strain is not well-matched to the vaccine, which may contribute to the widespread illness. Some share remedies like chicken soup and spicy foods, while others reflect on their own health history, including past flu experiences and the benefits of getting vaccinated. The conversation also touches on the challenges of managing illness alone and the desire for care and support during sickness. Overall, the thread captures a mix of humor, shared experiences, and health advice amidst the frustrations of dealing with illness.
wolram
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Messages
4,410
Reaction score
555
Chills, sick, diarrhea but i managed to do my house work, vacuumed and then sneezed a bag of flour all over the place, washed and it all blew of the line, all my pegs seem to have gone brittle and break, went to kick the vacuum cleaner cause it was not working well missed and
ended up on my ass, now that hurts, some one shoot me.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
wolram said:
Chills, sick, diarrhea but i managed to do my house work, vacuumed and then sneezed a bag of flour all over the place, washed and it all blew of the line, all my pegs seem to have gone brittle and break, went to kick the vacuum cleaner cause it was not working well missed and
ended up on my ass, now that hurts, some one shoot me.

I broke all your pegs, sorry :-p
 
Sorry to hear you're feeling bad. Sounds like the flu...I must say, your devotion to cleanliness is admirable. House work can wait - get better first! Drink a cup of chicken soup and take a long nap.

Hope you feel better soon!
 
Bad things never come in small bits, they always clump together.
 
After the first three words, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but it sounds like I have exactly the same thing. It's brutal.
 
russ_watters said:
After the first three words, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but it sounds like I have exactly the same thing. It's brutal.

Poor you, when i get ill i get angry it is best that visitors stay away, but i think today is an exception, i need nursing.
 
And what dick head invented the word diarrhea, even spell checker would not recognise my first attempts.
 
Sorry to hear about the flu, Woolie and Russ. I've been lucky so far this year. I usually don't bother getting a flu shot, and this year is no exception, though just yesterday I found out that the strain of flu that's making the rounds here was not included in this year's flu vaccine, so getting the shot wouldn't have helped anyway. (I'm going to wash my hands thoroughly after leaving this thread.):biggrin:
 
Flu? i do not get flu, i do not even get colds, what i have must be one powerful thing to get past my defences.
 
  • #10
wolram said:
Flu? i do not get flu, i do not even get colds, what i have must be one powerful thing to get past my defences.
Cholera? Black Death? Bubonic plague?
 
  • #11
My sympathy. This stuff going round is the kind that makes you wonder why there's only one toilet in the Loo - you have to choose which end.
 
  • #12
TVP45 said:
My sympathy. This stuff going round is the kind that makes you wonder why there's only one toilet in the Loo - you have to choose which end.

Can you imagine a family coming down with this at the same time, i am glad i live alone, even though i could do with some busty lady lady to mop my brow.
 
  • #13
I was down hard for a week and sick for another two. Tsu says it's the sickest she's ever seen me in over twenty years.

One of my customers has about 300 employees and had half of them out one day.

I was not aware of "brittle pegs" being a symptom but will write that down.
 
Last edited:
  • #14
Russ and Woolie, I hope you guys recover quickly!

I'm fortunate this season. Everyone around me has been ill sometime during the last 2-3 months, but I've managed so far to keep well. Aside from a bout of walking pneumonia about this time last year, I haven't had a serious illness for years. Perhaps it's all the hot sauce I consume.
 
  • #15
wolram said:
... then sneezed a bag of flour all over the place..

What were you doing with a bag of flour up your nose? :confused:
 
  • #16
wolram said:
Flu? i do not get flu, i do not even get colds, what i have must be one powerful thing to get past my defences.
Sounds a bit like the flu or cold (rhino) virus. Chicken soup is really good for nutrition and hydration. Also, add hot sauce to it!
 
  • #17
wolram said:
Chills, sick, diarrhea but i managed to do my house work, vacuumed and then sneezed a bag of flour all over the place, washed and it all blew of the line, all my pegs seem to have gone brittle and break, went to kick the vacuum cleaner cause it was not working well missed and
ended up on my ass, now that hurts, some one shoot me.
Plastic exposed to sunlight will embrittle, and cold temperature will also cause plastic to be brittle. Wood pegs will absorbed moisture and deteriorate.

Don't kick the vacuum cleaner. If you make contact, you might break a toe or sprain an ankle, which is only slightly worse than busting one's bum.
 
  • #18
Astronuc said:
Sounds a bit like the flu or cold (rhino) virus. Chicken soup is really good for nutrition and hydration. Also, add hot sauce to it!
Almost everything is better with chili sauce/relish. As for colds/flu, hot (spicy) stuff can help clear sinuses, help you break a good sweat to bring down a fever, and if it's made with chili peppers, it's loaded with vitamin C. I can't remember the last time I had a cold or flu. It's probably because I eat so much hot stuff. Or maybe my memory is going...
 
Last edited:
  • #19
wolram said:
Flu? i do not get flu, i do not even get colds, what i have must be one powerful thing to get past my defences.

Well I hope you get over your nottheflu-and-notacold quickly, then.
 
  • #20
When I was a grad student, if I felt a cold coming on, I used to go get a Double Death Burger. It had two beef patties soaked in tobasco sauce and cooked and served with jalapeños. It was a great way to treat a cold. :biggrin:

Now I have even better stuff - like turbo's habanero relishes, Dave's Insanity, MadDog Inferno, or Blair's sauces.
 
  • #21
Astronuc said:
Sounds a bit like the flu or cold (rhino) virus. Chicken soup is really good for nutrition and hydration. Also, add hot sauce to it!

I hate chicken, the guy who invented chicken soup wants shooting, ham and chicken are the devils food, and now i fell even worse my belly is playing tunes that no symphony would play.
 
  • #22
lisab said:
Well I hope you get over your nottheflu-and-notacold quickly, then.
may be i would if i had a nurse.
 
  • #23
It could be food poisoning. A few months ago, we had a meeting for the whole Western division at my work. We had lunch catered. Thirty-six hours later we all got horrible symptoms, diarrhea and vomitting for a day, then headache and muscle cramps for another day.

The amazing thing to me was that all of us (over 30 people) had the onset of symptoms within 10 or 15 minutes of each other. Whatever it was, a virus or a bacteria, it was very punctual.
 
  • #24
wolram said:
may be i would if i had a nurse.

Hope that your nurse arrives quickly, dear debilitated one.

Have kiwi's and some eau de vie. It doesn't help but if you think it does, it helps a lot.
 
Last edited:
  • #25
Astronuc said:
Now I have even better stuff - like turbo's habanero relishes, Dave's Insanity, MadDog Inferno, or Blair's sauces.
I'm glad you like the chili relish. I'll try to save a final jar of the red habanero relish for the next time you can come to Maine. My wife and I both got home rather late last night and decided to fix an easy meal of pan-fried hot dogs and rolls with fried onions, habanero relish and mustard. Mmm! :-p
 
  • #26
Andre said:
Hope that your nurse arrives quickly, dear debilitated one.

Have kiwi's and some eau de vie. It doesn't help but if you think it does, it helps a lot.

Thanks Andre, but for now i am happy breaking any thing that annoys me it is so therapeutic,
but i am getting tiered of even busting things.
 
  • #27
wolram said:
Thanks Andre, but for now i am happy breaking any thing that annoys me it is so therapeutic,
but i am getting tiered of even busting things.
I rarely break things for satisfaction, but one time when I was fishing with my brothers-in-law in a remote area, one of them got real sick of his closed-face Johnson reel because it kept getting backlashes in the line. He hung it on a dead tree by the pond we were camped at and he and my other brother-in-law plinked away at it with their .22 cal pistols until I walked up beside them and sent it into oblivion with my .357 Colt Python. Now that was fun.
 
  • #28
wolram said:
Thanks Andre, but for now i am happy breaking any thing that annoys me it is so therapeutic,
but i am getting tiered of even busting things.

Sorry to hear that and think of all the extra cleaning required.

Perhaps try this for therapy until Evo ...erm...your nurse arrives.
 
  • #29
Andre said:
Sorry to hear that and think of all the extra cleaning required.

Perhaps try this for therapy until Evo ...erm...your nurse arrives.

An intelligent nurse now that would be worth being sick for.
 
  • #30
Sorry to hear you're both sick, Wollie and Russ. Yep, that sounds like the flu bug that's going around right now. The med students here have been dropping like flies, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed they don't give it to me. It's going to be a bad year for flu...the flu shot this year isn't protective against the predominant strains going around. And while vomiting and diarrhea are uncommon flu symptoms in adults, it seems this year's strain(s) are accompanied by both.

Of course, it could also be a norovirus or rotavirus.
 
  • #31
Moonbear said:
Of course, it could also be a norovirus or rotavirus.
Unless Evo gets it. Then it would have to be a notavirus. She's pretty contrary that way.
 
  • #32
turbo-1 said:
Unless Evo gets it. Then it would have to be a notavirus. She's pretty contrary that way.

:smile:
 
  • #33
Evo has a notanabcessedtooth. And is notadying. :cry:

Oooh, I'm sure I saw the notagoshawk on my way home from work the other day!

WollieRam and Russ, so sorry you are sick. :frown:
 
  • #34
Evo said:
Evo has a notanabcessedtooth. And is notadying. :cry:
Notanother one? :frown:

Oh dear - get thee to thy dentist!
 
  • #35
It usually takes about seven days to get rid of cold, but if you take the advice offered in this thread I'll bet you'd be better in a week.
 
  • #36
Astronuc said:
Notanother one? :frown:

Oh dear - get thee to thy dentist!
Same one. I've been busy...:redface:
 
  • #37
tribdog said:
It usually takes about seven days to get rid of cold, but if you take the advice offered in this thread I'll bet you'd be better in a week.
Granny Clampett used to attribute such speedy recoveries to the efficacy of her "home remedy".
 
  • #38
Moonbear said:
Sorry to hear you're both sick, Wollie and Russ. Yep, that sounds like the flu bug that's going around right now.
Thanks. And while I tend to doubt it can come on so fast, I was at a meeting Thursday where the guy we were meeting with said, 'yeah, we have something like 10% of our staff out right now with the flu...' Gee, thanks.
 
  • #39
russ_watters said:
Thanks. And while I tend to doubt it can come on so fast, I was at a meeting Thursday where the guy we were meeting with said, 'yeah, we have something like 10% of our staff out right now with the flu...' Gee, thanks.
This particular strain can come on like gang-busters, Russ. My wife had to have a root canal yesterday and half of the dentist's staff was out, and they all got sick within about a day's time. Apparently, this strain is very effective at overwhelming the body's defenses very quickly. If it ever morphed up with the Asian bird flu, we'd have a pandemic on our hands with high mortality.
 
  • #40
I am so glad that I got my flu shot this year. Everyone at work did, our company paid to have medical staff come here and give us free flu shots and free cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure screenings.
 
  • #41
Evo said:
I am so glad that I got my flu shot this year. Everyone at work did, our company paid to have medical staff come here and give us free flu shots and free cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure screenings.

Don't be too lax about this. This year's flu shot apparently isn't protective against this nasty strain going around. Don't know if it will lessen the severity of it if you get it, but it's not going to stop you from getting it.

But some years the match isn't optimal and this year is one of them. The B strain and the H3N2 strain in the 2007-08 vaccine aren't well matched to the predominant circulating viruses, an unfortunate reality which may be contributing to a surge in H3N2 flu cases in the United States in recent weeks.
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5idZD1mtfNcnVbv_sTpY00qFWSEQA

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #42
Evo said:
I am so glad that I got my flu shot this year. Everyone at work did, our company paid to have medical staff come here and give us free flu shots and free cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure screenings.
This year's flu vaccine does not protect against the very virulent and fast-acting strain that his hitting our region this winter. Medical nannies are saying that getting flu shots increases one's overall immunity to these viruses, but I don't know about that. Flu viruses mutate so fast that the long lead-times involved in producing every year's batch of vaccines make it seem like we're fighting last year's threat every year.
 
  • #43
russ_watters said:
Thanks. And while I tend to doubt it can come on so fast, I was at a meeting Thursday where the guy we were meeting with said, 'yeah, we have something like 10% of our staff out right now with the flu...' Gee, thanks.

Actually, it's quite possible. He was probably already infected from his staff. It's only about a 2-5 day incubation for flu, so yep, quite possible you were infected on Thursday. Of course, it's so widespread right now, you really could have picked it up anywhere.
 
  • #44
The Spawn of Evo got that really bad flu a few weeks ago. She said she has never been sicker in her life and she's had scarlett fever and a few other weird things.

So far, even after taking care of her, I have not come down with it and no one in my office has had the flu. Odd out of such a large office. It seems the vaccine is working.
 
  • #45
Evo said:
The Spawn of Evo got that really bad flu a few weeks ago. She said she has never been sicker in her life and she's had scarlett fever and a few other weird things.

So far, even after taking care of her, I have not come down with it and no one in my office has had the flu. Odd out of such a large office. It seems the vaccine is working.

Earlier in the flu season, the other strain was going around (the H1 influenza A strain), which the vaccine does protect against. That might be the one your daughter got. Right now, it's an H3 strain going around, and the vaccine doesn't protect against that. It has really only just started running rampant in the last couple weeks (the flu season has been going on for a while now). If you look at the CDC site I linked to above, you can look at the weekly influenza reports week by week and see the pattern of cases and how widespread they are steadily increasing.
 
  • #46
Moonbear said:
Earlier in the flu season, the other strain was going around (the H1 influenza A strain), which the vaccine does protect against. That might be the one your daughter got. Right now, it's an H3 strain going around, and the vaccine doesn't protect against that. It has really only just started running rampant in the last couple weeks (the flu season has been going on for a while now). If you look at the CDC site I linked to above, you can look at the weekly influenza reports week by week and see the pattern of cases and how widespread they are steadily increasing.
I don't know, this was really bad.

Are there any reported cases of people that got the flu vaccine getting this flu? I know that there are different "keys" for the vaccines, but it seems this strain is not different enough.
 
  • #47
Evo said:
I don't know, this was really bad.

Are there any reported cases of people that got the flu vaccine getting this flu? I know that there are different "keys" for the vaccines, but it seems this strain is not different enough.

It's quite different. That's what the CDC is reporting, that the vaccine is a poor match for the H3 strain going around right now. It's a good match for the earlier H1 strain that predominated in January. In the last two weeks or so, there's been a shift toward the H3 strain, and it's been running rampant.

CDC cites it is too early in the season to determine the most prevalent circulating strains this influenza season and it's match to this year's vaccine. To date, CDC sample of 197 influenza viruses shows that 87% of the influenza A H3 viruses identified are the A/Brisbane/10 strain. A/Brisbane/10 is a genetic drift of the Wisconsin strain included in this year's vaccine. To date, nintey-three percent of the influenza B viruses identified are B/Yamagata, a strain not included in this year's vaccine.
http://www.scdhec.gov/health/disease/acute/flu.htm

That report is requesting physicians have any patients who had flu vaccine and show up with flu symptoms be tested to confirm it's a flu infection. I think it's too early to know if the vaccine is helping. In past years, the vaccine has helped lessen severity of symptoms even when it hasn't been completely preventative, but it's too early right now to be sure since these H3 and B strains are only really just getting a foothold.

I just think the wisest thing right now is to assume you're not protected and take precautions as you would if you weren't vaccinated, just to be on the safe side if it's not working.
 
  • #48
Evo said:
Same one. I've been busy...:redface:
I have pliers! :biggrin: Seriously, an abscessed tooth could lead to cardiac problems if the bacteria gets into the blood stream and finds its way to the heart valves.

It's good to get a flu shot annually. My sister, the pediatrician, mentioned a study that indicates that a decade or so of flu shots is good for the cardiopulmonary system. I'll have to find out more about that.
 
  • #49
I've been incredibly lucky - I've never had the flu. But a few years ago a coworker went on chemo and was imnumocompromised, so I decided to start getting them.

I don't regret my decision. But a nurse told me that if someone hasn't had the flu by age 40 or 45, they should not start getting the shot.

I haven't heard that from any other source - is it true?
 
  • #50
How can you not have had the flu ever in your life? You must be magical.
 

Similar threads

Ten most overpaid jobs in America No scientists on the list
Replies
7
Views
31K
Physics Non-academic career options for the theroetical physicist
2
Replies
80
Views
68K

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top