Can you tell I'm feeling sorry for myself?

[ewt]

[Poll #1073704]

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

How would I know if having a cold is better or worse with chronic pain? I can't remember what it was like without chronic pain, so I can't compare.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I can, but I'm also older now than I was then, so it's difficult to tell whether things would have changed anyway. The whole question is more complex than a simple poll can really examine, especially one written when I'm not feeling great...

[karen2205]

My internal dialogue would be that if I was ill enough to need to take a day off work I had a 'virus' or a 'bug' more severe than the 'common cold'.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that most of these are actually common cold; influenza is quite a bit beyond 'stay home from work' and into 'go see the doctor if at all possible' territory.

[karen2205]

*nods* - I can see that medically they would be the same thing, but my perception (possibly warped) of a 'cold' is 'annoying, gets sympathy, more tired than normal, but can cope with working through it'.

hope u feel better soon

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Dear,

I hope you will be feeling better soon! Love, Dad

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

[x] Cough that lasts for-bloody-ever.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

ooh, I forgot coughing! and sneezing! and stuff.

Oops.

[ali-in-london.livejournal.com]

Good timing! *sniffle*

The skipping work/social thing is slightly more complicated for me. I work in an open-plan office with a small groups of people in fairly close contact so I can generally assume that whatever I have others will have it before I become very symtomatic so staying home to prevent them catching it isn't going to work. However I will work from home in order to avoid exposing my collegues to my sniffing, coughing, sneezing and generally being mucussy at them.

Working from home is also a good halfway house when I'm well enough to do a few hours of work, but not well enough to face the commute, the office or the lack of convenient duvet.

I try to go in if at all possible if I feel physically and mentally up to it, but if I know I'll just be pitiful I'll stay home. I've no idea how my average of sick days compares to a "normal person", but I feel that for my overall levels of health (i.e. no chronic problems to deal with) I stay the right side of taking the piss.

I also have a "too ill for work = too ill for social" rule, unless either I'm feeling a hell of a lot better or if it's a once-a-year event. I've never had the situation where I've been ill at the same time as a social event I organised, so I don't yet have a rule for that.
A couple more for the list...

When I have a cold or other minor illness, I usually:

* Avoiding drinking beer or wine
* Make up huge mugs of strange homebrew hot drinks. The current one has honey, ginger, cinnamon, some weird powdered apple drink thing, hot water and a small quantity of butterscotch schnapps (somewhat counterintuitive to the above point, I know). Apparently you can smell it all the way through the house.
* Increase the quantity of garlic I use by a factor of 3.
* Whine. Sulk.

[vashti.livejournal.com]

My "usual routine" is doing not very much at all and staying firmly indoors, so I continue to do that when I have a cold - but with more huddling in quilts and feeling sorry for myself. I tend to take several times the RDA of vitamin C and drink hot ribena/lemsip a lot, and I press them on others who have colds in my presence.

Colds have always knocked me for a loop, possibly due to my rotten constitution: going out and doing things just isn't an option. occasionally I get a bit sniffly for no apparent reason, but that's not a *cold*. I think I had flu once when I was 18; I slept for a week and lost a stone in weight.

However! I am happy to report that over the last couple of years my susceptibility to colds seems to have dropped right off. The only thing I can think of to attribute it to is that I've realised how tiny Cardiff really is and started walking around it a whole lot - while this has increased my tolerance for walking and hills, I don't know that I'd describe it as "exercise".

[pfy.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

When I have a cold or other minor illness, I usually:

[x] wonder who filled my head with PVA glue, and how I failed to notice this.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

My first cold since getting diagnosed with diabetes and put on meds was "fun".. whole system was haywire, tired, achy, sugar crashes etc, no fun. And I tend not to get colds because of my patented cold prevention drink (freshly squeezed juice of one orange, add teaspoon of runny honey, top up with hot water, drink while hot, add asprin or paracatemol if cold symptoms threatening), except orange juice is too sweet for me now. Proves it used to work, at least..

Any extra illness is ten times worse if you're already an unwell person *hugs*

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Colds don't cause fever or joint/muscle pain; if you're experiencing that then you're more likely to have one of the various flu viruses that have started floating around already.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Well, it's hard to tell; I have joint and muscle pain on a daily basis anyway and they could conceivably worsen during a cold for any number of reasons, and I've gone and lost my thermometer so I can't tell if the alternating chills and warm spells are a bit of a fever or just wacky perception on my part.

Either way I have a concert to play today that I can't get out of, so it's lemsip and ibuprofen and lemon tea and hoping I'll be with it enough to play well. I'm really glad I took the day off on Wednesday now.

[temima.livejournal.com]

Bah, at least what arkady said made me realize that staying at home from work twice may have been a good idea.

But yeah, I have to see how my eyes are when deciding between 'suck up and deal' or 'stay home'.

One of my co-workers said I often have a deep cough even when I am not sick. Strange since I am a non-smoker, but I am wondering if it is the ventilation system not being clean.

Oh, and warm showers help me too.

[juliet]

Not sure how you define "minor illness" - I only get a cold about once a year, but I occasionally get what I describe as a sick headache (headache+nausea). That usually crops up later in the day, so I'll tend to work through it as far as possible & then go home a bit early (I know that it's not contagious, & it'll go away with a hot bath & a night's rest - it's to do with overtight muscles. If I get it more than once it's time for the osteopath.).

Today I have an upset stomach, which is a bit worrying as I very rarely get that and had it on Weds as well (thought it was period pain related then). Considering working from home as I'm a bit nervous about leaving convenient loo access for the duration of my bike commute...

If I have a cold, I stay home primarily because IME if I do that right at the start, & spend the day asleep/on the sofa/drinking hot drinks and water, it will be almost entirely gone the next day (colds don't seem to last that long for me). If I go into work, it will drag on for days & I'll be snuffly and incompetent for days. Works out better for all concerned if I take the day in the first place.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Other cold-related or cold-worsened symptoms which seem to parallel, and are exacerbated by, my allergies - painful, tired and itchy eyes, constant itching in back of throat and nose (as distinct from soreness, far worse IMHO), extremely loud, continuous and TIRING bouts of sneezing (which can cause headaches), sore face (partly caused my sneezing & tissue-rubbing, but not just).

Being ill when already run down always seems worse to me.

[keira-online.livejournal.com]

I find its rather irrelevent to stay off work to avoid infecting collegaues....I work in an open plan office, so I usuaully catch the cold from someone there anyways.

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

You forgot "My cold has a tendency to turn into a chesty cough and if not treated soon enough, into 2-month-long acute bronchitis." ;-)

I fully sympathyse, I am horrible at dealing with being sick. *hugs* Take care of yourself and hope you feel better soon.

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

I sometimes get "colds" that really don't affect me much more then just having a bit of a runny or blocked nose and maybe a cough a couple of times every few hours. As this is only a very minor annoyance I don't count them as being a cold, but I get this at least every few months.

This morning I woke up with a blocked nose and a cough. The cough lasted about half an hour and my nose got a bit blocked sometime this evening but blowing it cleared it. This is not being ill. Having said that, this would be a bad time for it to develop into a proper cold!

A proper cold has me feeling more tired, if not tired all the time, alternate runny and blocked nose and sore throat, probably a cough and general feeling crapness and more find myself more likely to end up depressed.