Swine Flu Anyone Come Down With It Yet?

[debmidge]

How did you think you contracted it?

How long did it last?

How sick did it make you?

Were you ever as sick as this before as you can remember?

Did you take Tamiflu (or the other anti-viral medication)? Do you think it helped?

Do you have other health issues which contributed to you succumbing to Swine Flu?

Do you have other health issues which contributed to your illness being worse than it normally would have been?

What were your first symptoms? What other symptoms did you encounter during your illness? (Is this a flu that affects breathing (bronchial) or stomach (vomiting & diarrhea) OR both?

Other than Tamiflu or other anti-viral medications, did you take any over the counter medications that made you feel better?

How long did the flu last for you?

If the swine flu shot was out prior to you being sick, in hindsight, would you have gotten this shot?

[tarnalberry]

I haven't had it, but a bunch of my friends went to PAX (huge gaming convention in Seattle), where the swine flu was confirmed to have gone around. None of them described it as being the plague, but they did describe it as a pretty darn awful flu. High fever (but the regular flu has that too), and generally feeling cruddy. No one particularly described lung issues, but secondary infections to a viral infection aren't hard to come by. None of them described the flu as lasting all that long (all of them were up and about and feeling fine within a week), and I don't think any of them had any particular other health issues, outside of one friend who just usually gets lung infections when she gets sick. I think the swine flu shot still isn't quite out (like, the news reports just said yesterday that the two manufacturers making it had their versions approved).

Ironically, a recent study suggested that hand washing - while still a very important thing - doesn't necessarily stop the spread of H1N1, since it's almost exclusively transferred by air. And that the end of the fever doesn't mark the end of transmittability - it's about a week after getting healthy that people stop shedding the virus. Be that as it may, my brother in law and his girlfriend came to visit after spending two days at PAX, and my pregnant, underfed-due-to-nausea body is somewhat more at risk of catching things, and they didn't transfer anything to me. I do not know if either of them ended up getting sick or not.

[minniejack]

You know the thing I absolutely hate about H1N1 is how close it mimics all the symptoms of how celiac affects my kids.

I think both my teens have come down with it, but of course, the 1st question I asked each of them was, "What did you eat? Did you get into something you shouldn't have?"

Both were sick for about a week and seem to be better, now. At least with the flu, we didn't see the extreme ADHD type symptoms or anger issues. So the flu was a lot easier to manage than gluten! DS14 kept showing me his symptoms on his cellphone and insisted he was dying from the swine flu.

symptoms site from Emorgy University Open Original Shared Link

[Fiddle-Faddle]

Our pediatrician assumes we had it, because we had friends over for dinner who came down with it the next day (they were diagnosed by blood tests). Three of us came down with the same symptoms a few days later.

NONE OF US HAD A FEVER.

We started with sore throats, and then had intermittent headaches; the sore throat also seemed to get better, then worse, then better, then worse, etc.

My son was only out of commission for less than 24 hours. My daughter felt fairly lousy for about a week; she was the only one who developed a nasty cough. I felt lousy for about a day, and spent most of that day CRAVING orange juice (and downed 64 ounces, and felt like it wasn't enough!). I felt a little under the weather for the rest of the week, but nothing horrible. My hubby and oldest son never got it.

Our pediatrician didn't bother having us come in, and he didn't bother with blood tests or Tamiflu. (I didn't bother calling my doctor about my symptoms.)

He said that, in his opinion, "swine flu is just a boring FLU, and that it's not the Ebola virus, with bleeding from the eyeballs." He also does not recommend the swine flu shot, as he doesn't believe that it has been properly tested.

Our friends who started the impromptu flu party had the same symptoms that we did, except for the dad. The mom had it worse than the others, and was very frightened. When she called her doctor, he sent her to the ER, who gave her fluids and sent her home again. She later told me that she wouldn't have been so frightened if someone had just told her that she would feel like she had a really lousy flu, but that it wasn't dangerous. She also has some active autoimmune issues, so I would expect that would have contributed to her having a more severe case.

In our family, we have all had worse viruses. I'd characterize any intestinal virus as much more severe than this one. Even my friend who went to the ER said that if she had to choose, she'd take swine flu over an intestinal (vomiting) virus, any day.

In retrospect, I'm glad that I did NOT get the swine flu shot. This way, I KNOW I've been exposed to the virus, and I expect I have at least as much immunity now as I would have gotten from a vaccine, without any side effects, without reactions to adjuvants or preservatives. In addition, since I was sick, I stayed HOME. Had I gotten the swine flu nasal spray, I would have gone to work--and would have been shedding live virus cells, possibly infecting people with depressed immune systems. (One of my colleagues went through chemo, and two others have autoimmune disorders that are not under control.)

[still tiredofdoctors]

My home health nurse is guessing that I had it. I was too sick to get out of bed to go to the doctor.

I had only gone out once -- and was really not around a lot of people. Because our house has toxic mold, though, we're living with my mother. My nephews are here after school, and my granddaughter goes to day care 1/2 days three days a week, so we call this place "germapalooza".

I am still using the Lysol wipes on all of the phones, light switches, door knobs, bathroom fixtures, kitchen appliances - anything that has the potential to be mutually used!

I have a LOT of underlying health issues that predisposed me to getting it, though.

My symptoms? I had some body aches, a pretty awful headache, sore throat and fever for about 3 1/2 - 4 days. I ran a fever and it must have gotten high enough to set off my epilepsy on the last day. Although the seizure was a grand mal, it wasn't nearly as severe as they have been in the past.

The onset was fast. I felt fine at bedtime and woke up in the middle of the night feeling kind of horrible. It left JUST as quickly. I know for SURE that I have been much more sick in the past. This was hard on me, I think, because of the other things I'm fighting, but I just slept it off. I realize that I'm fortunate that I can do that. A lot of people can't.

I took Mucinex for some sinus congestion, Advil for the headache and fever and Cepacol lozenges for the throat. Numb was good. I didn't take Tamiflu because by the time I realized that it was actually a flu it was too late. No point.

I didn't get any secondary infections. Then again, I've been on Zithromax since December and I take two grams of Rocephin IV through a port twice daily.

I didn't get the H1N1 vaccine, nor a flu shot. I was instructed by my physician that under no circumstances should I get either. I didn't ask why, but I am figuring it is because my body is fighting so much that it doesn't have the strength to produce antibodies to the vaccines anyway.

I guess that's everything