riding with the flue good or bad ?

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bollo
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riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby bollo » Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:39 pm

hi all ok well we are right into winter now & i have had the flue on & off this morning i passed up a ride i like to do most Saturday mornings because i was feeling crap , my question is does riding with the flue make it worse ?
what i mean is when your sick should you exert that much energy ?
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Mulger bill
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Mulger bill » Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:53 pm

Real, honest to goodness influenza?
Stay home, keep warm, forget the bike until you can stand without your bones aching.

Heavy cold?
In the head, maybe. In the chest, never.
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AndrewBurns
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby AndrewBurns » Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:10 pm

I just prolonged my cold because I tried to ride with it, give yourself some time off and you'll end up riding sooner for it.
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Venus62 » Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:24 pm

Not a bad summary here. http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-g ... ve-the-flu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In short, allow you body to recover from the flu. I've definitely been guilty of returning to exercise too soon and regretting it.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Duck! » Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:49 pm

The flu is quite a different beastie to the common bug; when you've got it, you seriously know about it and just getting out of bed is a major achievement.

If you're crook with anything, it's best to back off for a few days & let your body put its energy into your immune system to fight the bugs.
I had a thought, but it got run over as it crossed my mind.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby LM324 » Sat Aug 03, 2013 3:22 pm

Don't ride. The last time I rode while I was sick I felt like vomiting at the end.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby bollo » Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:50 pm

i end up not riding today but hope to ride tomorrow depending on how i feel , have mae the meeting time 10am so to be not to cold should be all sun shine by then
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby biker jk » Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:35 pm

Probably a bad idea since it might still be very hot from the chimney being used. :lol:

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Leiothrix » Sun Aug 04, 2013 4:08 pm

You've only got a cold.

If it was the flu then this is not a question that you could be bothered even asking.

Saying that, don't do anything strenuous until you're better, or you'll only make things worse.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby bollo » Sun Aug 04, 2013 4:35 pm

well relaxed yesterday on the lounge all day , today rode 72k in the nice worm sun :)
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Wakatuki » Sun Aug 04, 2013 9:16 pm

I was once told the difference between the heavy cold and the flu.
A simple test is to have someone put a $100 bill on the floor if you can pick it up you have cold.
Speedy recovery either way. ;)

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bollo
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby bollo » Sun Aug 04, 2013 10:22 pm

thats a good call i guess i have a cold then lol
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Metor » Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:02 pm

The rule for me is fever. With fever I'll never ride. A ride might even make me feel better when it is just a cold.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby g-boaf » Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:44 pm

The best thing you can do is rest up and let your system devote its energy to killing the virus and not infecting everyone else.

I've been knocked over by the 2nd cold in two months and I'm not happy about it. The wonders of public transport and martyrs who wheeze and cough over everyone to prove how great and hard working they are. :(

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Farmer Elvis » Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:07 pm

Metor wrote:The rule for me is fever. With fever I'll never ride. A ride might even make me feel better when it is just a cold.
+1 :evil: and ride hard

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby bollo » Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:46 am

well for me it wasn't a cold certainly a flu 6 days in & 5 off work & still feeling the pain not good
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby DoubleSpeeded » Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:05 pm

bollo wrote:hi all ok well we are right into winter now & i have had the flue on & off this morning i passed up a ride i like to do most Saturday mornings because i was feeling crap , my question is does riding with the flue make it worse ?
what i mean is when your sick should you exert that much energy ?

apparently winter/temperature does not have anything to do with flue and colds.

they are both virus caused.. low temperature causes hypothermia...

the myth with winter is caused by people being indoors more and close proximity and having windows closed more in winter, according to research.

it is possible to get a cold and flue in summer

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Mulger bill » Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:33 pm

Doesn't being cold tend to lower ones resistance to infection or did I dream it?
...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby DoubleSpeeded » Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:49 pm

Mulger bill wrote:Doesn't being cold tend to lower ones resistance to infection or did I dream it?

Does being cold affect your immune system?

Answer:
No. There is a long-held old belief that being cold can cause infectious illnesses like the cold and flu and/or can "lower your immune system". This belief began before people knew what caused the colds and flu. Once germs were identified as the cause, any of the prior thoughts on what caused colds, flu, and pneumonia did not immediately go away, and many people still cling to those beliefs, even today.

Science has disproved this with double blind studies and we now know that these illnesses are not caused by cold weather or by being cold. That is coincidental since the cold and flu season is in fall and winter in the Northern Hemisphere and people made that connection when there really was no association. See the related question below about why the flu has a season if it has nothing to do with the temperature (hint: it is the humidity).

There are some studies that have indicated that the immune system response and activity can be negatively impacted by hypothermia. This may be true, however, it is often misunderstood what hypothermia is in medical terminology. That means that the core body temperature has gone well below the normal and your body systems and organs will begin to fail when that happens, including the immune system. The core temperature must be reduced significantly for this to happen, however, which is not easily done. Our bodies are extremely efficient in keeping our core body temperatures stable as that is a requirement for proper physiology of the human body.

Hypothermia is not just being cold or in the cold. It takes long term exposure to extreme low temperatures or immersion in cold water to take the core body temperature down to a hypothermic state. This would usually only occur well after extreme exposure situations with peripheral body parts frostbitten and damaged. We are not talking about just going out without a coat on or being chilled.

So, the answer to the question is no.


where i highlighted ... is when we were growing up our mothers used to say "wear something warm or wear shoes on tiles or...... You'll catch a cold"

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Mulger bill » Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:22 pm

Thanks for the follow up DS, filed in the "Things learnt today" folder :)

Shaun
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clackers
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby clackers » Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:46 pm

We often call a cold 'the flu'.

Someone once told me that if there's $50 on the ground but you don't feel like picking it up ... then that's more like influenza ... aching muscles, etc.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby DoubleSpeeded » Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:31 pm

Mulger bill wrote:Thanks for the follow up DS, filed in the "Things learnt today" folder :)

Shaun
Yep, so next time someone around u starts coughing and wheezing, Beware.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Pedaling » Sat Sep 14, 2013 4:20 pm

Hi all,
Thought I caught a cold last Friday, so I stayed off the bike all last weekend.
I began to feel better on Monday so I commuted all week to work, 60k round trip, and trained with the club on Wed as I felt much better. Although I started to feel worse on Thursday and Friday.
I got home last night (Friday) and knew I had the flu, shivering, fever, the works. I am laid up all day again and probably tomorrow.
Question is; how do I know when it is ok to start riding again?
I have been training my but off for my first crit race in two weeks, so I want to get back to it ASAP.
So how long?
Thanks all, great thread btw.
Cheers,

Darrin.
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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby michaelten » Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:54 pm

I was told every day of fever equals three days off the bike.

The flu going around at the moment really hangs around, I had it for almost 2 weeks.

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Re: riding with the flue good or bad ?

Postby Pedaling » Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:55 pm

Thanks Mick.
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