So much for modern medicine....

[sbell111]

I bought a little bottle of hand sanitizer for my desk drawer.

That was the beginning and the end of my 'flu preparation'.

 

[Tinijocaro]

Keep in mind that now that H1N1 is out there in most every community, many tests are coming out false positive. The boy named "Skinny" who died recently had two false negatives before he finally tested positive-pneumonia and kidney failure. His sister is in critical condition with same symptoms, so far she tests negative for H1N1.

 

[ICF]

never had a flu shot and doubt I get one this year.

 

[Mrs.Reese]

I like another poster am not going to get any vaccine they put out. My concern is how much testing can really be done in this short window of time. There was a vaccine for a swine flu in the 70's and it caused more than good.

 

[luvmy3]

All of my kids will be getting the vaccine just like they do every year. Dh and I will if it becomes available to the general adult public. The goal is to keep it away from our ds who has asthma. DD had the flu back in June and luckily it did not spread through the rest of us, I doubt we could be so lucky again. I don't plan on panicing it but I am concerned and will do what it takes to keep anyone in my family from getting it.

 

[PatsMom]

I've had a flu shot every year since I enlisted in the Air Force in 1977. Haven't had the flu since I was a kid either so I am either lucky, have a good immune system, or the shots work. Not sure which it is. I do plan to get my regular flu shot this fall and also to get the swine flu shot when/if available. I am diabetic and have COPD so I will be on the list of those given priority.

 

[Tinijocaro]

Is there any reason to think that this flu will be any worse than a seasonal flu any other year? My DD had the H1N1 in June (or maybe late May, I forget). She missed 2 1/2 days of school and was basically exhibiting bad cold like symptoms with one fever spike to 104. All in all, not a terrible sickness here. Neither DH nor I picked up the virus. As a general rule, we don't get many vaccines and being healthy folks who aren't in any high risk categories, we never get the flu vaccine. Even when one is developed for this, we won't get it. Hopefully things won't get any worse then they were this spring, which all in all didn't seem to be too bad.

This flu is going after young people instead of just the very old and the very young. It is in full force during the summer, which is not ever the case with seasonal flu. As it turns out, even though it is very mild at the moment for most people, it has a quality that is very idfferent than the seasonal flu.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8148709.stm


Swine flu 'hits airways harder'
Swine flu samples
Swine flu has killed at least 500 people

H1N1 swine flu attacks the respiratory system in a more sustained way than the standard seasonal virus, research in animals shows.

Tests showed swine flu multiplies in greater numbers across the respiratory system, and causes more damage.

And instead of staying in the head like seasonal flu, it penetrates deeper into the respiratory tissues - making it more likely to cause pneumonia.

The University of Wisconsin study appears in the journal Nature.

It also suggests that swine flu may mimic the flu virus which caused the great pandemic of 1918, in which millions died.

The 1918 virus also had a greater ability than standard flu to cause damage to the respiratory system.

The researchers carried out their work on ferrets, monkeys and mice.

They also analysed samples taken from people who survived the 1918 pandemic and found that they seem to have extra immune protection against the current virus - again suggesting similarities.

However, the Wisconsin team stressed that swine flu produced, in the vast majority of cases, only mild symptoms, and is still sensitive to anti-viral drugs.

Complete analysis

Professor Ian Jones, a flu expert at the University of Reading, said the latest study provided the complete analysis of the swine flu that researchers had been waiting for.

He said: "For a number of measures it shows that the new virus is more serious than seasonal H1N1 but that, nonetheless, the major outcome to infection is recovery.

"For the few cases of severe infection the data should help in the clinical management of hospitalised patients.

Professor Wendy Barclay, an expert in virology at Imperial College London, said: "It must be borne in mind that typical circulating human strains of H1N1 have been associated with rather mild illness in recent years, and that the swine origin H1N1 may be behaving in these animal models more alike the type of H3N2 viruses that caused a pandemic in 1968."

Swine flu is estimated to have infected more than a million people worldwide, and to have killed at least 500.

 

[daisax]

....the saving grace for this pandemic was supposed to be the fact that we have much more sophisticated medicines available to us than they did back in 1918.

Well, we have antibiotics. They may save some people who would have died in 1918.

But the fact always has been that with the equivalent of the 1918 level outbreak the medical care system would collapse all the same. Once you get hundreds of thousands of healthy adults getting ill and dying within 48 hours, it's impossible for the health care system to keep up, because there are only so many beds, and so many people available to hook patients up to ivs, and only so many iv bags, only so many ambulances and people to staff them, and only so many days supplies would keep on being delivered.

The main advantage of modern life might actually be mass communication, and the willingness of the government to impose quarantines and citizens to respect them.

Again, that's all worst case scenario, where the pandemic takes off, the flu shots have been unsuccessful and the strain mutates to something far more deadly than what we've seen so far.

It's kind of like a meteor hitting -- in the end the best approach may simply be digging in and staying home and riding it out, just as they did in 1918.

But we're a long way from having to panic about it. Buy some extra pasta or something each week in your groceries. It will be hurricane/blizzard season soon enough and it's not like it will go to waste.

 

[mhsjax]

This flu is going after young people instead of just the very old and the very young. It is in full force during the summer, which is not ever the case with seasonal flu. As it turns out, even though it is very mild at the moment for most people, it has a quality that is very idfferent than the seasonal flu.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8148709.stm


Swine flu 'hits airways harder'
Swine flu samples
Swine flu has killed at least 500 people

H1N1 swine flu attacks the respiratory system in a more sustained way than the standard seasonal virus, research in animals shows.

Tests showed swine flu multiplies in greater numbers across the respiratory system, and causes more damage.

And instead of staying in the head like seasonal flu, it penetrates deeper into the respiratory tissues - making it more likely to cause pneumonia.

The University of Wisconsin study appears in the journal Nature.

It also suggests that swine flu may mimic the flu virus which caused the great pandemic of 1918, in which millions died.

The 1918 virus also had a greater ability than standard flu to cause damage to the respiratory system.

The researchers carried out their work on ferrets, monkeys and mice.

They also analysed samples taken from people who survived the 1918 pandemic and found that they seem to have extra immune protection against the current virus - again suggesting similarities.

However, the Wisconsin team stressed that swine flu produced, in the vast majority of cases, only mild symptoms, and is still sensitive to anti-viral drugs.

Complete analysis

Professor Ian Jones, a flu expert at the University of Reading, said the latest study provided the complete analysis of the swine flu that researchers had been waiting for.

He said: "For a number of measures it shows that the new virus is more serious than seasonal H1N1 but that, nonetheless, the major outcome to infection is recovery.

"For the few cases of severe infection the data should help in the clinical management of hospitalised patients.

Professor Wendy Barclay, an expert in virology at Imperial College London, said: "It must be borne in mind that typical circulating human strains of H1N1 have been associated with rather mild illness in recent years, and that the swine origin H1N1 may be behaving in these animal models more alike the type of H3N2 viruses that caused a pandemic in 1968."

Swine flu is estimated to have infected more than a million people worldwide, and to have killed at least 500.

"it is going full force this summer" and yet NONE of my family, friends or their friends or family have gotten the swine flu. Also, I don't have the numbers on hand, but I believe that the good ole regular flu kills ways more people than the 500 that this flu has killed. Not that it is a good thing when anyone dies from the flu. Just an example of how the media is over hyping this stuff. they must be in the the drug companies. I just don't by it. Also, the one year I did get a flu shot I was sick as a dog. I actually got a mild case of the flu 2 years ago and it was nothing compared to how I felt after I got my one and only flue shot. I will take my chances.

 

[LisaR]

I don't get flu vaccines.
I figure with everything I've been exposed to in 26 years of nursing, I probably have a pretty good immune system.

Truly, I refuse to respond to the media's overhype of this.

I was always under the impression that it was mandatory for nurses (and doctors) to get the flu shot. I am not sure why I assumed this but I did. I find it interesting that it is pushed by the medical community but it isn't mandatory in the medical community.

I don't get flu shots either and I don't have any intention of getting the swine flu shot.

 

[luvmy3]

"it is going full force this summer" and yet NONE of my family, friends or their friends or family have gotten the swine flu. Also, I don't have the numbers on hand, but I believe that the good ole regular flu kills ways more people than the 500 that this flu has killed. Not that it is a good thing when anyone dies from the flu. Just an example of how the media is over hyping this stuff. they must be in the the drug companies. I just don't by it. Also, the one year I did get a flu shot I was sick as a dog. I actually got a mild case of the flu 2 years ago and it was nothing compared to how I felt after I got my one and only flue shot. I will take my chances.

I can tell you that it has been in full force around here this summer, right before the school year ended. There were over 100 kids out with flu symptoms in my kids school alone by the last week of school and the pharmacies couldn't keep the children's dose of Tamiflu in stock.

 

[honugirl]

Wouldn't it have made more sense for people to not use tamiflu and relenza while it's tame so it wouldn't become a drug resistant strain for the fall? That's something that's always puzzled me. Those drugs may be effective now, but if it mutates and then hits with a killer strain, they may not be effective at all which puts people like me at great risk.

 

[delilah]

I've had a flu shot every year since I enlisted in the Air Force in 1977. Haven't had the flu since I was a kid either so I am either lucky, have a good immune system, or the shots work. Not sure which it is. I do plan to get my regular flu shot this fall and also to get the swine flu shot when/if available. I am diabetic and have COPD so I will be on the list of those given pority.

I've had a flu shot every year since the first swine flu scare in 1976 or so. I don't recall having had the flu since I was a young child, not even in 1968. My mom told me that I "almost died" of the flu when I was a baby, and, sure enough, there was a severe flu epidemic that year. I am a physician, and I am required by my hospital to be immunized. I probably have direct exposure to hundreds of people who have the flu every year. So far, so good.

On the other hand, my son is 11, and has had the flu several times, most recently on his birthday (in February), in 2007. He missed his own birthday party. He has given in a taken the flu shot the past two years. And guess what? He didn't get the flu.