Swine flu or just a cold??

Several people I work with showed up this morning with a sniffle and a sore throat.  To my knowledge none of them have a cough or a fever, which I read are the major symptoms of the swine flu.  I have a sniffle/stuffy nose and a headache, but no sore throat, cough or fever.  I'm also exhausted, I slept from 6.30 to past eleven this evening. I'm mostly concerned that we are in the early stages of swine flu and that the major symptoms just haven't manifested yet.  That would be a huge disaster since we teach English to hundreds of teenagers who have come from all over the world.  A swine flu outbreak would basically shut down the school and send our kids' parents into a panic. 

Does anyone know if swine flu has mild early symptoms or if the main ones just appear suddenly?  This isn't really cold or flu season, but it has been very damp and chilly recently, so maybe we just have a cold? 

Thoughts or advice?  Please set my mind at ease....

Mine started mild on the first day, the kind where you sort of dismiss it, but then got worse. I think my first symptoms were just the sniffly nose, sneezing, and a slightly sore throat.

In the next day or two, worse sore throat, worse sneezing/sniffling, starting to cough, and headache with fever. It didn't all come on severe right away but grew out of a mild first couple of days, for me.

Having said that, yours could still be simply a cold at this stage. The next few days are the only way to tell, if things worsen you should call the NHS number.

I had a very mild case and it came on suddenly. I woke up with a very sore throat & a splitting head ache that lasted for 3 days, I was exhausted and slept about 5 extra hours each day for 3 days, the first day I had sniffles and I had body aches for 2 days...Oh and I was wheezing when I breathed for 2 days as well and then my chest felt tight for 2 days after that. Overall I was exhausted but not really ucky sick, it was more of an annoyance than anything else.

You can check your symptoms online or by calling for diagnosis & they will prescribe Tamiflu if needed. I didn't bother since overall I felt it was pretty mild.

Mine began with the exhaustion, hours and hours of sleeping (it started on my day off - I slept right through!) and the headache. OMG, the headache.   I'm finally on the mend now and I've never had the really sore throat at all, nor a cough - but everything else?  You bet.

Yeah the headache was a brain-killing one. The exhaustion I'm finding is still lingering. During the actual illness the body aches plus weakness and tiredness is so bad you have no energy. My ex is a big, strong, strapping man, but he said his legs were buckling with weakness on a six minute walk up the street. He was still out and about before taking seriously that he was sick; we both were until we realized we were dead on our feet.

Well, even the mild symptoms you guys describe sound worse than what I have.  Here's hoping.  But if it gets worse or I get more symptoms I'll call the hotline.  I actually don't feel too bad at the moment, just sniffly and very, very hungry.  I think I'll have a snack and go back to sleep. 

Thanks for the replies! 

Hope you feel better historyenne, and that maybe it's just a passing cold, you never know, could be gone tomorrow. 

So...Swine flu eh?

Yesterday (my birthday) the cough I'd been having took a turn for the worse, and I developed diarrhea, not knowing that either of these were symptoms of swine flu, I just carried on as normal(ish) assuming I had a cold, I noticed I wasn't very thirsty, normally drink around 3L a day and didn't have any water at all. Moaned at my boyfriend that I was really achey and made him give me loads of back rubs (IA, UP )

Today I wake up, still have diarrhea only now I have a temperature, cough is much worse, producing dark green disgusting phlegm, and I'm fevery. Begin to suspect not just a cold, so do the online symptoms thing and it's swine flu - bugger.

I've asked my boy to get me the Tamiflu and my boss is still raging at me.

Hoorah!

P.S feel really really tired, walking around flat is exhausting.

Oh, cheesebiscuit, that's awful.  I hope you get through it quickly   

Thanks for the wishes, MB.  I'm feeling OK this morning, we'll see how the day goes. 

Oh, cheesebiscuit, that's awful.  I hope you get through it quickly   

Thanks for the wishes, MB.  I'm feeling OK this morning, we'll see how the day goes. 

heh heh, god knows how many people  I infected at Sundae on the common

Glad you're feeling not too bad Hopefully this thing will pass quickly

We all got teh full glory of being swabbed (and blood tests for me and Andrew) so we know what we had was definitely swine flu, and the thing is that other than the cough, which we all had, our symptoms varied pretty wildly.

What actually got me first was a sore chest, cough, sneezing, runny nose and crushing fatigue.  I'm not the type to get a fever (I once had gladular fever a blood test picked up because I had no fever) and only got a low-grade one.

Deffo had the dodgy tummy (Andrew never got that, he had basically a cold and would never had known it was swine flu if the rest of us hadn't been ill and he hadn't had the tests).

Just now, however, I've got a cold that, excepting the fatigue, is comparable to the swine flu I got, so it's so hard to know.