Flu tests for A/B now OTC, going in the suitcase

[LuvOrlando]

Just discovered that they made Flu tests that screen A & B along with Covid are now OTC, a Family member is headed to Europe soon and these are going right in the suitcase. This would have saved so much wasted family vacation time when I had little kids.

A box of 4 costs $39 from ihealth, I had some of those brand from the free Covid programs & 1 copay is more than $39 so this is a good way to help save $ and keep us out of Urgent Care and ERs this winter for unnecessary visits.... so glad things are opening up so people can better care for ourselves from home. I

 

[pezgirlroy]

Now we just need home tests for strep throat which would make life so much easier.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Now we just need home tests for strep throat which would make life so much easier.

Totally & strep can be serious, it can go to the heart and cause Rheumatic heart disease or Rheumatic fever. Some families get mostly belly illnesses, some ears and some strep. My kids had strep all the time and it would have saved so much school and work time off if a simple strep test could have been done virtually in the early morning, antibiotics started right away and then just done. One on my friends had a son who got strep all the time but never in his throat, his skin would peel off in strips like sunburn and her daughter got those tonsil pearl things from the constant infections and needed surgery but getting her tonsils out didn't make it go away, she just gets them in her throat now

 

[pezgirlroy]

Totally & strep can be serious, it can go to the heart and cause Rheumatic heart disease or Rheumatic fever. Some families get mostly belly illnesses, some ears and some strep. My kids had strep all the time and it would have saved so much school and work time off if a simple strep test could have been done virtually in the early morning, antibiotics started right away and then just done. One on my friends had a son who got strep all the time but never in his throat, his skin would peel off in strips like sunburn and her daughter got those tonsil pearl things from the constant infections and needed surgery but getting her tonsils out didn't make it go away, she just gets them in her throat now

They would save families so much time and money.

 

[kdonnel]

Now we just need home tests for strep throat which would make life so much easier.

Or better yet just make Zithromax over the counter.

Has there been shown an increase in antibiotic resistance in countries that have OTC antibiotics?

A simple appointment for strep costs so much in the US between what the insurance companies pay out and the copay paid by the patient, in the range of $100 - $200. And then there is the lost time that the medical provider could be helping someone who really needs help.

The problem with the rapid tests is how often they report a false negative. More often than not my kids would get a negative on the rapid and then we would get a phone call the next day that that despite the rapid coming back negative, the overnight culture was positive. Now we had to make another trip out with sick kids to pickup a prescription.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I agree, humans should be able to care for themselves in most routine things especially in a world where eggs are $5 and bosses don't wanna support child care issues. Maybe have a registry for household use like they do with Sudafed now so aberrations could be flagged. It would be so much more efficient especially in the interest of staying ahead of public health concerns. that can bubble a long time before being noticed. Right now there could be massive upticks in poor communities that go ignored because of the $ in medical copay/childcare/ lack of general practitioner access situation BUT if people could just care for themselves and things be monitored by an AI system like isn't that best? When I was little I could get strep tests at my school, how is that not best way to get care into communities, especially poor ones?

The whole push against antibiotics in treating humans is peculiar because the biggest offender isn't even humans, the biggest offender is the animal husbandry business so like why are they letting humans suffer? If new medications antibiotics are needed go invest in antibiotics, making humans suffer is the most idiotic conclusion ever.

Who is believing that in an age where a Covid MRNA vax was up and running in a few years it isn't possible to create dozens of new antibiotics???? Now we have AI systems that can do chemical engineering.... like huh?


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK114485/#:~:text=It is estimated that the,- and fourth-generation cephalosporins,

"Antimicrobials are used widely to prevent or treat disease in food animals. The major part of the usage is for prevention of disease, and their use has become an integral part of modern industrialized food-animal production, to the extent where nearly all feed for growing animals is supplemented with antimicrobials in various doses, ranging from so-called “subtherapeutic concentrations” to full therapeutic doses. It is estimated that the volumes of antimicrobials used in food animals exceeds the use in humans worldwide, and nearly all the classes of antimicrobials that are used for humans are also being used in food animals, including the newest classes of drugs such as third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, glycopeptides, and streptogramins (Aarestrup et al., 2008)."

OK, and yet I have an ear infection and am told to wait and see, mmmmkay.

This is a pet peeve of mine