If you’ve come down with it already, you know from experience — this season’s flu bug has been brutal for some.

An emergency room doctor in Calgary is sounding the alarm that the flu season has hit hard and hit early — saying the sheer number of hospitalizations proof of how bad it is.

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“Because we’re seeing it this early, we’re worried it may bode poorly for the flu season,” said Dr. Eddy Lang, University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine department head for emergency medicine. Lang works in the Peter Lougheed Centre emergency room.

“Ultimately, we’ll be seeing many more hospitalizations than we have many other previous years.”

The symptoms are tough on patients, too.

“When you have influenza, you’ll know it because it usually means a sustained high fever as well as severe muscle aches,” Lang said. “People often describe [it as] being hit by a bus because every muscle in their body hurts.”

When you break down the statistics, it appears Calgary is the epicentre for the flu in Alberta.

According to Alberta Health Services’ latest numbers, 205 people have been hospitalized because of the flu so far this season, with 147 of those in Calgary.

Lang said it’s putting a strain on already overwhelmed emergency departments in Calgary hospitals.

“The hospital is full and patients — many of them with influenza and complications of influenza — who need a hospital bed upstairs are being held in the emergency room because we aren’t able to find beds for them,” Lang said.

“That seriously limits our ability to care for new and incoming patients.”

Lang said the best advice is if you feel the flu coming on, stay home instead of going to work as the bug is very contagious in the first few days.

According to Lang, the flu usually lasts five to seven days, but coughing and runny nose symptoms can stick around for a while longer.

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