History Main / DefinitelyJustACold

* Zigzagged in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries''. The illness that Genie gets ''is'' Definitely Just a Cold, but the problem is, when genies get colds, [[PowerIncontinence they can't control their magic]]. ''Big'' problem. So while Jasmine has to watch over a sick genie whose magic threatens to level the city (and in one scene, launches about ten {{Baleful Polymorph}}s at her in a row in a fit of sneezing) Aladdin has to find a gemstone that can cure in a forbidden temple guarded by a divine, golden guardian, without Genie's help. (Fortunately, the guardian [[RiddlingSphinx prefers brainteasers to physical fighting]].)

* ''Manga/{{Ooku}}'': Emmonosuke keeps getting headaches which he attributes to the stress of being Tsunayoshi's chief advisor and the intrigues that go with politics. [[spoiler: He dies of an aneurysm the day after he [[DeathBySex finally makes love]] [[DecemberDecemberRomance to Tsunayoshi.]]]]

* In ''Series/TwentyFour'', the [[spoiler: cheater gets a bloody nose. He thinks it's just a bloody nose and, if he tells his anything, he says it's only a bloody nose, but it keeps going. It's the early manifestation of a fatal virus.]]

Actually, the more obvious it's not a normal illness, the less likely they'll mention it. Even if your cast includes some of the most helpful doctors or mind readers, the character won't bring it up for quite a few episodes in a row, constantly making the excuse they're just a bit under the weather. This manages to convince their [[IdiotBall unusually thick friends]].

%% This page has bee alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

->''"The first three 'symptoms you should not ignore' were: rectal bleeding; loss of height; and sudden blindness! ''Who ignores sudden blindness?!'' Who sits in the office at lunchtime going 'Oh, who turned out the lights? Oh, no, I can't see a thing, it's awful, I'm no use to anyone today. I'll answer phones, that's all I can do, that's all I'll be good for today. Oh, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss.'"''

One of the characters has come down with something. They may be having mysterious fainting spells, or losing time, or too weak to stand, but whatever the symptoms, it's clear it's serious. If the influence of mystical power is implied, you would think they'd have cause to worry and confide in their friends about their suspicions. Or at least wonder why they're sick.

* Asa Shigure from ''VisualNovel/{{Shuffle}}'', who denies there's a problem even as she's intermittently losing consciousness in the hospital. She can easily cure herself with a simple spell, but she ''doesn't want to hurt her mom's feelings'' [[spoiler: because Ama is an ArtificialHuman who went through horrible magical experiments in her past.]] [[spoiler: Asa's insistence on not using her magic powers leads to a borderline SuperPowerMeltdown, and Rin has to TakeAThirdOption by ''stabbing himself'' to force Asa use her magic on him.]]

* In ''Animation/LeafieAHenIntoTheWild'' Leafie starts exhibiting signs of illness when her son is a teenager. It starts with a sneeze but she ignores it. Hens are not meant to live in marshes. [[spoiler:In the end Leafie dies in a HeroicSacrifice by letting herself be eaten, because she knows she wouldn't survive the winter anyway]].

* In ''Film/CabinFever'', Marcy discovers some tender red marks on her back while washing her face. [[AsYouKnow There's a flesh eating disease going around, by the way.]] But Marcy instead seems to believe these marks came from her friend Paul fondling her too vigorously when they recently made love, and even chastises him for this. To add injury to insult, Marcy had (unbeknownst to either of them) just infected Paul with the deadly disease, because she insisted they [[ButWeUsedACondom didn't need a condom]] because [[BlatantLies she claimed she was healthy]].

* In ''Film/FindingNeverland'', Sylvia Llewelyn Davies tries to pass off her illness as a cold, but she doesn't fool her son Peter, who lashes out about being lied to.
* ''Film/TheKillerThatStalkedNewYork'' (a 1950 film {{Very Loosely Based|OnATrueStory}} on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_New_York_City_smallpox_outbreak 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak]]): Sheila needs to lean against a lamppost to stay upright, but still turns down help from a police officer. She proceeds to nearly faint, so he walks her to the health office next door to see a doctor. She then tries to sneak off before seeing the doctor. Dr. Wood gives her some medicine and instructs her to see her own doctor. Her condition keeps getting worse, but she doesn't seek medical attention until more than a week later, and then only because she had accidentally left her medicine behind when she ran from the police and needed more. She goes back to Dr. Wood, and is shocked when he tells her that she has smallpox, despite the massive vaccination campaign due to the outbreak that she couldn't possibly have missed.

* In ''Film/{{Slither}}'', the increasingly deforming marks, welts and swelling caused by infestation with the alien worms are invariably excused as "bee stings" or "bug bites". Even when the bearers of the bug bites are shambling around like zombies, eating dead neighbors, or turning into amorphous tentacle monsters.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': After Barbara is poisioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E1PlanetOfGiants "Planet of Giants"]], she initially attempts to write off her symptoms as some sort of minor illness.

** Early in the mission, junior CDC team member Sarah begins to exhibit a hand tremor, which senior scientist Julia incorrectly interprets as a symptom of infection until Sarah tests herself and appears clean. Sarah blames fatigue, and the viewer is likely to attribute it to delayed fear reaction from a particularly trauma-filled day. But in the closing scenes of "274" she pops pills in her quarters, and reveals a large vertical scar on her back.

* Parodied in ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' with a increasingly ill-looking man with a severe cough who insists it's just that (while sad music plays in the background). Until one day his love interest shows up at the train station to meet him and he's not there. Then he shows up looking perfectly fine. The Edwardian costume drama film it's supposed to be from is called ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Man Who Has a Cough and It's Just a Cough and He's Fine]]''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', Rudolph is hospitalized, and is implied to have been there for awhile. He tells Kris he's just in for some tests because the doctor found "some crap," but insists it's nothing to worry about. However, it's heavily implied that it very much ''is'' something to worry about, and he knows it, but he's downplaying how serious it is, at least while talking to Kris and Noelle (both of whom are kids, the latter of whom is his ''[[DaddysGirl daughter]]'').

* ''VideoGame/PokemonConquest'' has Hanbei use a similar excuse on Hideyoshi when asked why he's coughing up a storm. Kanbei doesn't buy it and for good reasons. His real life counterpart was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died from it.

** Repeated by her in a later part of the game where she thinks she slept wrong because her neck and shoulder feel stiff. Turns out [[spoiler: [[BodyToJewel her skin is crystalizing into a huge exsphere]]]].

* Hanna of ''Webcomic/HannaIsNotABoysName'' has vomited blood, become visibly weak and even passed out cold on his job and still insists he's fine.
* This is subverted with Belkar from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. After his [[RestrainingBolt Mark of Justice]] is activated, he experiences severe vomiting and can barely walk. Haley is about to ditch him as a liability, when the group crosses the boundary of a memory charm. Now none of them can remember that Belkar activated the Mark of Justice, and his sickness is written off as a bad cold or similar.

* In ''Film/{{Slither}}'', the increasingly deforming marks, welts and swelling caused by infection by the alien worms are invariably "bug bites". Even when the bearers of the bug bites are shambling around like zombies, eating dead neighbors, or turning into amorphous tentacle monsters.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

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%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

-> ''The first three "symptoms you should not ignore" were: rectal bleeding; loss of height; and sudden blindness! ''Who ignores sudden blindness?!'' Who sits in the office at lunchtime going "Oh, who turned out the lights? Oh, no, I can't see a thing, it's awful, I'm no use to anyone today. I'll answer phones, that's all I can do, that's all I'll be good for today. Oh, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss."''

* Joe near the end of the ''[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Gatchaman]]'' series.
* Watanuki in ''Manga/XxxHolic'', when his friendship with the ghost woman is making him extremely ill, to the point of coughing up blood, insists that it is "just a cold"--even when Doumeki repeatedly asks him if he's sure his symptoms don't have to do with "spirits and stuff."
* In ''Literature/DeepLove'' [[spoiler:Ayu]] believes it's a fever when it clearly isn't. [[spoiler:It's AIDS.]]
* In ''Manga/BokuNoHatsukoiWoKimiNiSasagu'', Kou suffers numerous headaches after [[spoiler: the car accident]], but he brushes them off saying he's just tired. [[spoiler: They're symptoms of brain hemorrhage, that end up making him faint and enter brain death state.]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/CabinFever'', Marcy discovers some tender red marks on her back while washing her face. [[AsYouKnow There's a flesh eating disease going around, by the way.]] But Marcy instead seems to believe these marks came from her friend Paul fondling her too vigorously when they recently made love, and even chastises him for this. To add injury to insult, Marcy had (unbeknownst to either of them) just infected Paul with the deadly disease, because she insisted they [[ButWeUsedACondom didn't need a condom]] because [[BlatantLies she claimed she was healthy]].
* In ''Film/FindingNeverland'', Sylvia Llewelyn Davies tries to pass off her illness as a cold, but she doesn't fool her son Peter, who lashes out about being lied to.
* In ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', a scientist who works with viruses assumes this, much to the world's detriment.

* ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: The Planet Plague'' has Tash, feeling [[VirusVictimSymptoms hot and irritable and with a growing rashy lump on her arm]], assuming she just has the flu. In fairness her brother has it and she thought she'd just been inoculated with a preventative vaccine for it, and she asked a doctor - but since that doctor had been the one to infect her [[spoiler: with TheVirus intended to turn her into a BlobMonster]], he said it was nothing that wouldn't clear up on its own.
* In ''Creator/StephenKing'''s [[DoorStopper sweeping novel]] ''Literature/TheStand'', events start out with a [[FreakLabAccident security systems malfunction in a lab]] letting an [[SyntheticPlague engineered biological weapon]] to get loose. In the earliest stages, the disease (which would come to be known as Captain Trips) would look just like a cold, with flu, cough, sneezing, sniffles, and stuffy noses. Within a few days, the symptoms would escalate to deadly levels. Many characters think that they caught a cold, and before long...
* Jem to Tessa in ''Literature/TheInfernalDevices'', when she asks about his health.
* Melle when she's first suffering the effects of [[spoiler:the Drum wasting gift]] in ''[[Literature/AnnalsOfTheWesternShore Gifts]]'', but it quickly progresses past her ability to power through the increasing weakness of body.

* In ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'', the [[spoiler: cheater gets a bloody nose. He thinks it's just a bloody nose and, if he tells his anything, he says it's only a bloody nose, but it keeps going. It's the early manifestation of a fatal virus.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "Epidemiology", a number of guests at the college's Halloween party come down with a mystery ailment whose symptoms include fever and stomachaches. Rich, a doctor, claims the symptoms point to food poisoning which the dean told him to rule out. Then, Star-Burns enters the quarantine area and is grabbed and bitten by the infected Pierce who has a bloodthirsty look on his face. Rich then rules out food poisoning. Though, funnily enough, [[spoiler:it technically ''was'' food poisoning, caused by infected taco meat the Dean bought from an army surplus store -- which, of course, is why he wanted that ruled out. It's just that the symptoms of ''this'' type of food poisoning -- implied to have been created intentionally as some sort of bioweapon -- are less "vomiting and diarrhea" and more "becoming a TechnicallyLivingZombie".]]
* In ''Series/{{Helix}},'' which revolves around a CDC team dealing with an outbreak of TheVirus at a remote ResearchInc.
** Early in the mission, junior CDC team member Sarah begins to exhibit a hand tremor, which senior scientist Julia incorrectly interprets as a symptom of infection until Sarah tests herself and appears clean. Sarah blames fatigue, and the viewer is likely to attribute it to delayed fear reaction from a particularly trauma-filled day. But in the closing scenes of "274" she pops pills in her quarters, and reveals a large vertical scar on her back.
** Also in "274," after being infected by PatientZero Peter, Julia herself goes into denial and tells team leader Alan she fainted in the shower due to fatigue, later projecting and thus accusing Sarah of being a ZombieInfectee herself.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': After Barbara is poisioned in "Planet of the Giants", she initially attempts to write-off her symptoms as some sort of minor illness.

* Shion of ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' insists to the other characters that her fainting spells are just fatigue. [[spoiler: It's really symptoms of a condition that comes with coming into contact with U-DO, the same condition that her mother was afflicted with.]]

* In ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'', Almaz goes with this excuse when he gets infected by an incurable curse that is slowly killing him. [[spoiler: He gets better as long as it's not the bad ending.]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonConquest'' has Hanbei use a similar excuse on Hideyoshi when asked why he's coughing up a storm. Kanbei doesn't buy it and for good reasons. His real life counterpart was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died from it.
* At the end of ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the gameplay notes that the main character is very tired. [[spoiler: He dies a couple of days later.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'', the town of Coffinwell is afflicted with a curse that makes many of the townspeople ill. Catarrhina, the wife of the doctor who helps the heroes stop the contagion, frequently coughs and mentions feeling faint though excuses it every time. [[spoiler:Naturally, she's the only one who dies from her illness.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', Rudolph is hospitalized, and is implied to have been there for awhile. He tells Kris he's just in for some tests because the doctor found "some crap," but insists it's nothing to worry about. However, it's heavily implied that it very much ''is'' something to worry about, and he knows it, but he's downplaying how serious it is, at least while talking to Kris and Noelle (both of whom are kids, the latter of whom is his ''[[DaddysGirl daughter]]'').

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Alan of ''Webcomic/TheDreamer'' has an ominous cough, and has sweat on his brow, but insists that he's fine.
* This is subverted with Belkar from Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick. After his [[RestrainingBolt Mark of Justice]] is activated, he experiences severe vomiting and can barely walk. Haley is about to ditch him as a liability, when the group crosses the boundary of a memory charm. Now none of them can remember that Belkar activated the Mark of Justice, and his sickness is written off as a bad cold or similar.

* Zigzagged in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries''. The illness that Genie gets ''is'' Definitely Just a Cold, but the problem is, when genies get colds, [[PowerIncontinence they can't control their magic]]. ''Big'' problem. So while Jasmine has to watch over a sick genie whose magic threatens to level the city (and in one scene, launches about ten {{Baleful Polymorph}}s at her in a row in a fit of sneezing) Aladdin has to find a gemstone that can cure in a forbidden temple guarded by a divine, golden guardian, without Genie's help. (Fortunately, the guardian [[RiddlingSphinx prefers brainteasers to physical fighting]].)

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/District9 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/prawn_flu.png]]]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/{{District 9}}'': Wikus is exposed to an unknown black substance in possession of aliens, which causes him to drip black from his nose, vomit black fluid, lose fingernails, and look like he's suffering pneumonia, and shits his pants. He ignores the symptoms because he's trying his best to make a good impression after a recent promotion. He refuses treatment so as not to look weak or incompetent to his superiors.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Parodied in ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' with a increasingly ill looking man with a severe cough who insists it's just that (while sad music plays in the background). Until one day his love interest shows up at the train station to meet him and he's not there. Then he shows up looking perfectly fine.
--> '''Woman:''' Look, I thought you had TB!
--> '''Man:''' TB? No, I'd have mentioned that. God! No, it's just a cough.
--> '''Woman:''' Right... [[SophisticatedAsHell wish I hadn't let you do me now.]]
** The Edwardian costume drama film it's supposed to be from is called ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Man Who Has A Cough And It's Just A Cough And He's Fine]]''.
* In the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "Epidemiology", a number of guests at the college's Halloween party come down with a mystery ailment whose symptoms include fever and stomachaches. Rich, a doctor, claims the symptoms point to food poisoning which the dean told him to rule out. Then, Star-Burns enters the quarantine area and is grabbed and bitten by the infected Pierce who has a bloodthirsty look on his face. Rich then rules out food poisoning.
** Though, funnily enough, [[spoiler:it technically ''was'' food poisoning, caused by infected taco meat the Dean bought from an army surplus store -- which, of course, is why he wanted that ruled out. It's just that the symptoms of ''this'' type of food poisoning -- implied to have been created intentionally as some sort of bioweapon -- are less "vomiting and diarrhea" and more "becoming a TechnicallyLivingZombie".]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In ''Film/{{REC}}'', the little girl in the movie isn't infected with latent zombiism... she merely has angina! Honest! Of course, the cast do eventually put two and two together and confront the mother about it, who is [[spoiler:bitten to death by her daughter as the infection finally takes hold]].

** During a Diagnosis mission, Joshua tries to claim nothing is wrong with him. The nurse is not fooled. Neither is Gabe. [[spoiler: Much to Gabe's dismay, he has Werner's Syndrome.]]

* In ''Animation/LeafieAHenIntoTheWild'' Leafie starts exhibiting signs of illness when her son is a teenager. It starts with a sneeze but she ignores it. Hens are not meant to live in marshes. [[spoiler:In the end Leafie dies in a HeroicSacrifice by letting herself be eaten, because she knows she wouldn't survive the winter anyway]].

** Though, funnily enough, [[spoiler:it technically ''was'' food poisoning, caused by infected taco meat the Dean bought from an army surplus store -- which, of course, is why he wanted that ruled out. It's just that the symptoms of ''this'' strain of food poisoning -- implied to have been created intentionally as some sort of bioweapon -- are less "vomiting and diarrhea" and more "becoming a TechnicallyLivingZombie".]]

** Though, funnily enough, [[spoiler:it technically ''was'' food poisoning, caused by infected taco meat the Dean bought from an army surplus store -- which, of course, is why he wanted that ruled out. It's just that the symptoms of ''this'' strain of food poisoning are less "vomiting and diarrhea" and more "becoming a TechnicallyLivingZombie".]]