thanks for your responses here. we finally have a doctor in the house! we don't generally go see a doctor at all if we suspect a virus...including the flu.
just got back from the doctor... it's swine flu. she said since i'm a really healthy overall individual, i should be able to fight it with OTC medication. B/c it's been four days since my first symptom - taking the flu shot won't help me. she told me to stay in my house b/c i'm highly contagious right now. i told her i had a dinner planned with my pregnant sister and her husband tomorrow and she nearly tackled me to the ground to tell me not to go anywhere near my pregnant sister. So i guess i'll be alone at home for the next few days.
Sucks, but at least you know what it is and hopefully it goes away in couple days. I've been sick since Sunday, went to doctor yesterday, they said I wont get the results until Friday or Monday?? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.
Gf's two kids are sick now going on day 3. Fever (100-102), headache, aches etc. She is taking them to the doc today so maybe we will find out what they have. I think she is coming down with it too. Anyone got plans this weekend? My weekend schedule just got erased
My understanding is a big thing with the swine flu is if you feel like you are improving and your symptoms are going away...and you start deteriorating getting sick again...then you are in big trouble and need to get to a doctor asap. Something about maybe a bacterial infection has taken hold. Or, if you have a previous health issue on top of getting the flu, then you should see a doc. Or, obviously, if you just want to be diagnosed. But, I'll be damned if I'm going to a doc only to get diagnosed and be told to take OTC meds and get plenty of rest/fluids.
Didn't they recently come out and say you are contagious up to a week after the fever breaks? That is a lot of school or work to miss but I'm sure they don't want you up there infecting other people. It's probably going to be longer than the next few days...unless you are up for getting other people sick potentially.
Of course, no one would care if that's all it was. The problem is that it has shown a lot of properties of much more deadly flus (like affecting young, healthy people comparing to the elderly). And if it does turn out to be one of those, it will kill a hell of a lot more. Prevention is always going to be overkill if the disease doesn't turn out deadly. But the purpose is to be ready in case it is.
Wait, I'm confused. If the CDC are the only ones that can do the test and it is expensive...what the hell test did my kids' pediatrician do to confirm that they had H1N1 in just a few minutes? They came back and said that both of them had strain A and one of them had strain A & B (but they thought the strain B was a false positive since the eldest didn't have it and he has a suppressed immune system).
Confirmed "swine flu" One kid was tested because his temperature has been consistently over 102. The other was not tested but common sense tells me she probably has it too.
With any luck, H1Ni will continue to put up low fatality numbers, but to compare these two numbers now is worthless because H1N1 has only been around since the tail end of last year's flu season.
like I said, it was not even as bad as a normal flu when I had it a week ago. This thing has been so overblown it's unbelievable.
sorry for the late reply, but as you can imagine the office is a little busier than usual this year... Mrs valdez- infants can receive "regular" flu vaccines after 6mo old (the H1N1 vaccine isn't officially available yet but likely will also be 6mo old minimum). also the first year a child under 8 gets a flu shot, they should get a second shot 1 month after the first - again only the first year the get a shot. the H1N1 vaccine likely will only be 1 shot - but until it's actually available, i'm telling all parents that these recommendations may change. since children under 6mo old are too young to get their own protection, it is recommended that "caregivers" get vaccines - which in my opinion is all household members unless there is some sort of severe shortage. Raven Lunatic, Dave78 - the H1N1 is part of the influenza A group and right now about 70% of people with "A" are H1N1, and so your doc may have meants your kids likely have H1N1, based on statistics, but I don't know of any office based H1N1 testing kits - too expensive. yeah - it's a little early to think these numbers will hold -
Develop flu like symptoms at work (hospital) body aches, headache and fever. I left early yesterday and a PA wrote a rx for relenza diskhaler?? I felt like a 18 wheeler ran over me. 12 hours later I feel a lot better fever reduced no sore throat, less of a headache, hardly any muscle aches.. I also am taking theraflu. Also parent's please ask for a mask for the children if they are coughing. That will go a long way of reducing the chances of spreading the flu.
Finally got "confirmation" it was swine flu....wasnt that bad for me. Didn't have the body aches. Pretty ridiculous it took doctor a week to tell me though.
A confirmatory test for swine flu is a PCR based analysis. This is similar technology to what crime labs use, so I would say it is pretty impressive that it only took one week.
Well I have no idea if it was a confirmatory test, I just said confirmed because it was my guess. I was never told I might have swine flu when I left the doctor. They just said they would call with the results.
