The stomach flu is not the regular flu.

I got the stomach flu awhile ago. It was a great diet but I do not recommend it. In fact, remnants of it came back to haunt me a couple weeks after I 'recovered,' while I was trying to enjoy my vacation to Las Vegas (where I almost got trapped forever and ever). I seem to manage to catch awful diseases a little bit more frequently that I would like.

When I was in the middle of the worst of the illness (stuck in the bathroom), I was glued to my phone, searching WebMD and Google to make sure I wasn't actually dying, because I sure felt like it. I'm actually surprised I lived through it. In my search, I found out that stomach flu isn't actually the flu, it's gastroenteritis. WebMD said:

"No doubt you've heard people complain they have "stomach flu." You may have complained about it yourself after a bout of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea that seems to come from nowhere. In fact, though, stomach flu is a misnomer. There’s no such thing. The flu, influenza, is a respiratory infection that affects the lungs."

The flu is a virus that mimics a cold, except way worse.

A few of my friends tried to tell me I should have gotten a flu shot, but the flu shot wouldn't have helped. The flu shot protects against the real flu, the respiratory infection, not stomach irritation. Flu shot or not, I would still have been susceptible to the stomach flu (gastroenteritis). The more you know!