What is the official name for that bug that's going around?

Sounds like the Boogie Bug to me.

Doctor recommends to do a little dance, make a little love, and get down tonight.

feel better now

It is probably just the current mutation of the very common rhinoviruses that cause the ‘common cold’. Each slightly different virus affects the upper respiratory system in slightly different ways. This one seems to cause some inflammation of the vocal cords, resulting in laryngitis.

I know you’re looking for serious answers, @Dutchess_III, but since @hearkat‘s sounds as good as any, I’ll simply say that in ancient times before the Internet and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, my dad just called it “the crud.”

Hope your husband feels better soon!

Lord, @Pachy! Me too! I swear he’s taken an ad out on the front page of some famous newspaper, We get to the family reunion (his family) and instantly it’s “So and so told me you were sick! How are you?” My dad’s wife called to find out how he was. Everytime some one calls he tells them how sick he is! SUCK IT UP DUDE!

Actually, I was wondering if it was some strain of the whooping cough. It’s pretty unusual for someone his age to get a common cold. I haven’t gotten it. Well, I was sick a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t recall seeming to be on death’s bed like hubs seems to be!

It is going around. I know several people that had it. I also know many people who have had the flu and others a cold. I really think the cough one is a bacteria that some people seem to be able to fight off on their own, but the other day a doctor friend of mine who had it said he believed it was a virus. I still don’t think so though. However, I don’t know someone who had it who took antibiotics and was better within 72 hours, because no one seems to be prescribing antibiotics for it, so I really don’t know, it’s just my gut feeling. The laryngitis one is different than the cough one though. Are you saying he had both? The laryngitis I think is a virus.

I looked up the US flu map (what you described is not the flu) and the southern US has been hit the hardest. About 50% of the cases are H1N1 from when I looked a couple weeks ago.

I haven’t been sick, knock wood, but I have been even more paranoid than usual. I was in airports with people coughing around me, turnpike stops, places with tons of people who are sick, but are out because they need to go somewhere. And, then there is my gym, this pisses me off so much, because the muscle guy can’t miss one day.

I was at the GYN for a checkup last week and he has a big sign with a green monster on it in the office saying if you are sick please reschedule your appointment in consideration of pregnant patients. I love him for that. I’m not preggers, but I still don’t want to get sick.

Colds are viruses tho.

There’s no official name other than “cold” or “rhinovirus”. Influenza, though,gets identified into separate strains. And H1N1 has made a recurrence. The swine flu is popping up all over, four and a half years after it went around.

Although most everybody who regularly gets a flu shot got an H1N1 shot in 2009, sometime, so I wonder, doesn’t the vaccine last more than a couple years?

@Dutchess_III Are you directing that to me? I know a cold is a virus. Laryngitis is usually a virus.

I know people who have a bad cough without the congestion of a typical cold, but they do cough some stuff up and their cough is much worse at night and early morning. That to me is likely bacterial. My test is if it lasts longer than 7 days and is not getting better, it is justification to try an antibiotic, colds usually last a week with lots of congestion. They often start with a sore through for 24–48 hours and then it goes away and the congestion begins. Total duration of a typical cold 7 days.

The flu, a virus also, usually is horrific for 4–5 days. Can’t move out of bed, high fever, sometimes some coughing, usually no congestion. Even with the debilitating flu, the majority of people are already getting better by day 5,6, or 7, so they know they are getting over it.

But, you are saying people have the laryngitis and a very bad cough? Not too separate illnesses?

@zenvelo I’ve wondered how long the immunity lasts also from the flu vaccine. I have to ask my mom if she knows. People are told to get flu shots every year because each year the vaccine might contain different strains, but that does not answer what if I got a shot in 2009 and this year they have the exact same strains in the vaccine am I still protected so I don’t need the shot?

Back when H1N1 first came around probably less than 100 million people took the vaccine, so a lot of the population is not immune. I don’t take the flu shot so I’m probably not.

Yeah, @JLeslie. It doesn’t seem to be two separate illnesses. I think the chances of almost every one getting the same two separate illnesses would be slim. The laryngitis might even be caused by irritation to the vocal chords just from the coughing. Glad you could spell ‘laryngitis.’ When I tried, spell check wanted to turn it into tarantula. A tarantula in your throat would be bad too, tho.

@Dutchess_III Well, I hate taking antibiotics for no reason, so I usually give an illness a good week, unless it is most likely strep (sore throat more than 48 hours with high fever) which I go and get a culture for I don’t guess.

Coughs typically take 3 weeks to clear viral or bacterial, even when all other symptoms are gone even if you know for sure it is bacterial, took the antibiotic, all other symptoms gone, you feel much much better, but still coughing jags for a couple more weeks. You know you are getting better when the coughing is not happening as much, and when it is only happening in the middle of the night and when waking up. Eventually, even that barely happens, and finally all better. Basically, the crap in your lungs collects while you lay down in one position and then when you shift in your sleep or sit up it triggers the coughing to bring it up.

Gross. LOL.

Plague, pestilence, epidemic, infectious disease, black death.
I had a form of the black death a few weeks ago. haha

Samantha

>:-D

Grunge.

Miley Cyrus.

I had it and thought it was the flu, but the doctor I saw at Urgent Care over the weekend said mine was bronchitis and gave me an antibiotic and some cough syrup. My symptoms were unproductive cough, sore throat, fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, aches. Felt like I was dying on Friday night, which is what prompted Urgent Care on Saturday. I spent two days on the sofa not moving, just drinking water (felt like razor blades) and taking the drugs he prescribed. Today I feel 1000% better. Still sick, just not like I’m going to die, lol!

yes I am a total drama mama and a horrible patient!

You guys are cracking me up! OK, I had a cold. Rick got it and, according to him, it turned into the Grungy Black Death Pestilence.