Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

Fever helps against all kinds of illnesses but it can also be deadly, so having fever reducting medicine around is a smart precaution IMO. If you're otherwise healthy and are dealing with a mild seasonal infection and have got something important going on, I can see why people would choose to reduce symptoms at the cost of taking longer to recover.

Lots of people go overboard with this, though, like taking flu reduction medicine with every single cold or using medication to go to work sick. American media seems especially accepting of people taking "flu medicine" over rest and recovery.

View on HN

> Lots of people go overboard with this, though, like taking flu reduction medicine with every single cold or using medication to go to work sick. American media seems especially accepting of people taking "flu medicine" over rest and recovery.

This is not specific to America; it's a thing in the entire Western world, and probably beyond. Because it's not like we have any other choice.

There is no slack in the system. Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year, and they prefer to save those up for when painkillers and cough medicine don't cut it anymore. Same with children, because a sick child staying home is usually equivalent to the parent taking a sick day themselves - either way, they're not at work.

We can talk about media or people going overboard once it becomes acceptable to skip work for a week because of sick kid, or in order to not get everyone in the office sick too.

>Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year

Sick days are unlimited in my country (and of course don’t count as vacation or similar).

I think this is relatively standard for European countries, though not 100% sure.

They may be on paper, but I can't imagine taking one every time you have a runny nose or a sore throat. Everyone from your employer to social insurance[0] will start looking at you funny. It's just unexpected, even though it's how you're supposed to be handling infectious diseases to prevent spread.

[0] - Or whoever is backing the free healthcare in your country.

Yes, that much is true. Remote working for those in between cases is accepted, but it does reduce the practice to the luckier subset of office workers.

But flu isn’t just a cold, it’s a serious disease. If they are sick to the point they have fever then they can’t really afford to not rest as it has a cost in the form of longer health debt. And even short term, by letting the fever run and resting and being 100% operational can be more productive than being a zombie on medications for weeks.

Not to mention it is an infectious disease that they will spread to other people if they go to work.

By the time they can tell it's "the flu" and not just "a cold", they've been infecting everyone for days already.

Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away), it too will spread to other people if they go to work.

Some people colloquially call a cold "the flu", but the common cold is very different to influenza. Please don't spread misinformation.

> Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away)

“The cold” is actually any of a wide variety of different viral diseases (caused by various forms of rhinovirus, coronavirus [0], and, I think, a few other kinds of viruses), none of which are flu (influenza virus). It is not a less potent flu.

[0] so calling COVID-19 “a bad cold” is correct from a certain point of view, despite being substantively misleading.

Fair, I was under the impression that some strains of influenza viruses are in the mix too, but apparently they're distinct and not part of the cocktail (surprising, given how the other viruses found themselves bucketed like this - they evolved to lose potency over time; I'd expect influenza strains would be on the same trajectory).

Still, my main point holds - you usually can't tell by symptoms alone, whether it's a common cold or a flu. In case you get severe symptoms, by the time you can, you've already been infectious for some time. So either way, the right time to call in sick is when you first notice the early symptoms - stuffy/runny nose, cough, headache, elevated body temperature. But obviously nobody does that, because it would mean calling in sick at random a dozen or more times per year.

Post-lockdown COVID was the only time I know of in the last few decades, and a brief time indeed, when it was socially acceptable to react to potential symptoms at the right time.

"Common cold" is what we call flu/COVID/bunch of other stuff when symptoms aren't severe enough to bother checking. There is no "cold virus", as cold isn't a specific sickness but a destination; it's a catch-all for respiratory pathogens that evolve their potency away.

By the time someone is able to tell they have "the flu", they should've been on a sick leave for 2-3 days already.

People mix common cold with flu all the time. If you have the flu you usually can't even go out of bed, even with medication.

> Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year

I believe it's true in the USA, but not necessarily in Europe. It's quite normal that you have two infections a year, plus sometimes your kid catches something at a completely different time, so the law protects you in these situations.

Yes, but there's what the law says, and there's process, and there's expectations.

You can't just take a legal sick day each time you have a runny nose (good luck finding a doctor that fast), and even if you could, you'd quickly stand out. "Two infections a year" is an average for adults who power through remaining ones with painkillers and cough meds; if they didn't, we'd be talking 5+, probably closer to 10 if they have kindergarten-age kids.

It sounds like you just have a terrible employer. If I get the flu, I'm taking a few days off. If I feel poorly, I'm not working. Never been a problem with any employer. 5-10 sicks days a year is completely normal. You cannot be fired for this.

If you get the flu, and know it's a flu, you're a few days too late to take sick leave for it to be useful at preventing infecting your co-workers.

5-10 days of sick leave a year is perfectly normal, because that's how much people need to cover serious infections that cannot be easily powered through with meds.

Sounds like you have a pretty terrible employer. Of course there's an expectation that you're not taking sick leave for every minor cough or sniffle, but "powering through" infections is pretty absurd to expect from your employees.

> like taking flu reduction medicine with every single cold or using medication to go to work sick.

Basically how I grew up. I took painkillers and throat lozenges in my backpack to school.

Due to a condition I was born with, I was raised the opposite. No over the counter medication my entire life, with some exceptions. I usually decline pain management in ER, for things like broken bones, but for surgeries and stuff of course I have no choice as I go under.

I will take what the doctor orders though, to treat illness and conditions though thankfully at this stage there hasn't been many instances. Usually that's antibiotics.

Broken bones? A broken femur or a shin is hell.

Yeah it was pretty painful at first and at different times. Never like in tears pain though, just very distracting. I have broken two fingers and two collarbones, at different times, and a toe! Both collarbones were fully smashed to bits but did not pierce the skin, I had bruising for months.

I have an above average tolerance but I think what really helps is pain management techniques, which I believe can help all of us at different times of need. Chronic pain is a bitch, which I have, and not everyone has pain that is reasonably manageable, but even prescribed pain meds are really going to mess with you and I think it is worth avoiding if possible and not inhumane.

Is higher tolerance to pain even a real thing ?

I have been told that I have that, but I don't think it feels any less painful. It's not possible to know. I feel I am just a little accepting of it.

Broken femur is almost a different league though.

I have the same thought, it must be as it's accounted for in medical practice, but also how would I know? I only have my subjective experience to go by.

I think it is important to accept everyone's own experience of their pain though, I have no idea what someone else is feeling even if I have experienced the same event. Their experience and what they feel could be vastly different, our nervous systems behaving vastly different. It is not a morale failing to feel and be affected by pain.

Indeed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com