It was very much different than anything I ever encountered. I have had the flu 7 times in my life, the first being in 1979 when I was 10. It almost killed my mother and I. I'll never forget the scene of her putting me into a bath of ice water because my temp was over 105 all the while she is puking in the toilet. We both hallucinated, and I lost 25% of my body weight. I was out of school for 10 days. She saved my life. So I am very astute and in tune with what I catch. I also have an exceptional memory and can remember a lot about the seven times I have had the flu. I guess having that flu as a kid gave me a sort of PTSD about it all. You can always tell the flu, for me at least it always feels very similar. Fever first, then the body aches.
This covid crap is a slow creeper. Gets in your muscles first before your body realizes it's sick. It festers in there for a few days before the fever kicks in and the incredible fatigue. It also targets the part of your brain that regulates heart rate and blood pressure. For 3 days my BP and heart rate were out of control. For a while it seemed like my body would no longer actually breath automatically, for several hours I had to manually keep a steady rhythm of breathing. It was a very strange sensation and quite unnerving. It's also total upper respiratory, where flu usually goes lower and deeper.
Crazy thing is, I went like almost a decade without catching anything except food poisoning that I did to myself with undercooked chicken, Not a cold or flu or anything. Then in the winter of 2024 I got the flu my 7th time, caught a cold 2 months later, then a month later a horrible stomach virus, then a month later this covid. I'm getting slammed left and right for the past 8 months.