Swine Flu news and updates thread

My heart goes out to all who are sick. I pray you recover quickly. If you have difficulty breathing, don't hesitate to get medical attention right away.

We post a lot of news and opinion on this thread, but I believe our main concern is to have love and compassion for those who are battling this or if more than one, these viruses and infections.

We wholeheartedly support anyone directly affected by this coming pandemic.

God speed recovery.

reply to post by notcrazyinaustin


My parents got to have whiskey for cough medicine and mint growing up. Kroger's Super X used to have a cough syrup that was 40% alcohol.

I'm really not liking hearing about the contributing health problems-

news.yahoo.com...

Texas-an aunt with copd
Tennessee-my mom has copd

Found this to be a interesting...

Because I live in Tennessee...Avian Flu hits 2 Places In Tennessee...

3 links...

www.thepoultrysite.com...

www.reuters.com...

summary article to both stories...

blog.al.com...

Didn't know we had avian flu floating around the USA much less this close to home...It does say it is a different kind...H7N7....

Still is not very comforting...

MSNBC website reporting 3rd U.S. death in Washington state...

"A man in his 30s is the third person in the United States to die from complications of swine flu, Washington state health officials said Saturday."

3 additional deaths in Mexico today bringing that total up from 45 yesterday to 48 today.

And we had the report today of the Costa Rica death.

This thing is far from over.

I don't know why I can't edit any of my post...???

On my last post I said it was H7N7...I meant H7N9...

It says preview post or edit post...It does not say to post...or repost...???

Oh well...

reply to post by sapphirearaidia


I think you just click on 'edit post' after you have made the changes.

Health Official: Swine Flu-Related Death Reported in Washington State

The latest victim was described as a man in his 30s with an underlying heart condition.

Just an idea...

There seem to be a lot of people on this forum with symptoms that match this flu.

Is there a way to do a poll to see just how many on this site are affected? I'm just thinking that if we did that then we would be able to get a % based on total registered site users as a rough guide to the actual numbers of people affected in the US and UK. It might be more accurate than any official % figures and could be a useful indicator of whats really going on.

I'm curious if anyone took my advice and searched around their local news sites for "underlying condition", "pneumonia", "organ failure", "edema" and if anything interesting came up.

Like I said, if you're one of the unfortunate ones who get the really bad piggly wiggly you'll end up with "underlying health conditions" even if you were healthy before.

I'd really like to know if raising the body temperature helps in some cases. The Indians would take you into the sauna when you were this ill and they used to heal things the White Men would pretty much always die from.

I won't discount the spiritual side of it, there's definitely something other than pharmacology in the Indian medicine, the kind of quantum connection type stuff that earned the label "big medicine" the honest way.

Most of them followed the same ritual, they'd get the sweat lodge nice and broiling, put the patient in and keep giving him or her water and various herbal medicine and the attendants would usually spend hours if not days building complex sand drawings or similar endeavors. This was sold to them as part of the big magic by the medicine men but in reality it was probably to keep them busy so they'd leave the patient alone and allow time for the heat to kill off the infection. We men do tend to be impatient so there was a need for something special there.

Grandmothers from the WW2 generation had some big medicine of their own too. Half of it wouldn't do anything other than make you fear getting sick and having to taste all the snake oils but the power of belief in the human mind works just as well as most anything else.

If you were lucky enough to have one of these Grandmothers still around 50 quilts was not only possible, it was pretty much guaranteed and they would all be made by someone in the family or close to it.

[edit on 9-5-2009 by ecoparity]

reply to post by ecoparity


My guess is that many people will be said to have complications of asthma.

I think you have a great idea taking the pulse of the people on ATS to see how many believe they have had the H1N1.
Let me be the first to say myself and my 4 family members all had what I believe to be H1N1 in the beginning of April here in Northern California.

reply to post by ecoparity



I can't bring myself to look at too many obits. I just took my kids to their bus driver's funeral. He had organ failure from a heart problem. My mil can't get her asthma under control. The steroids are making her blood sugar stay high.

Walgreen's is busy now. Wouldn't that mean they did need a scrip for the mild form?

My husband heard there's a case close to Cocoa Beach, FL. He's there to take pics of the shuttle launch. I asked him to try to chat up the press. They've come from all over the world. Makes for a nice mix.

K-Mart is providing Lysol in the restrooms for the first time.

Originally posted by ecoparity

Originally posted by notcrazyinaustin
reply to post by Whatthehell?

 

This is exactly what I'm going thru right now...exact same symptoms, and it hit me pretty quick. I just took my temp and it's only 99.6...but I keep getting hot/cold.

I'm glad you are feeling better...I'm in bed right now drinking lots of water..will make some soup later and just hope I get to feeling better quick.

[edit on 9-5-2009 by notcrazyinaustin]

A lower than normal body temperature is a sign of a bacterial infection. This flu virus has some unique genetics which effect the way the immune system reacts to it. Starting some preventive antibiotics might be a good idea.

This is strange and may be a key to the way this flu has such a devastating effect on some people. It might be interacting with the thyroid, lower than normal temperature is a sign of thyroid malfunction, kidney failure and systematic failure. Make sure you are hydrated.

Another thought that comes to mind is that a lot of flu viruses are unable to make the jump into humans because our body temperature is lower than the animals which host the virus. H5N1 was unable to survive in a body cooler than a birds until a mutation enabled it to survive at 98.6. I see a few possibilities:

1. The virus is attacking the thyroid system, kidneys, etc and lowering the temperature as a result.
2. The immune system is lowering your temperature in an effort to combat the virus (the virus will mutate to adapt to this if that is the case).
3. The virus is lowering your body temp because it was designed to. This mechanism may explain how it creates the secondary pneumonia. Also, by short circuiting the defensive fever the immune system uses to try and kill an invader it may be preserving itself.

If you are up to it and well hydrated you might want to try raising your body temperature while monitoring it to make sure you don't endanger yourself. An electric blanket or hot bath should work. Try and raise your temp to normal or a bit higher, if you set off a fever make sure it doesn't go above 101 or so. See if you start to feel better within a few hours.

O.K. before we go jumping off the deep end about kidney failure, and the virus may be attacking the thyroid, how about we take a less dire approach.

If I took my temp and it was extremely subnormal, I would check to see if the thermometer was working. I would also verify by another means axillary which will be the least accurate route (97.6) is normal or rectally which is the most accurate (99.6) is normal. If you are going to take your temp. orally, make sure you do not have anything to drink or eat at least 10 min. prior to temp. check. The hypothalamus regulates the body temperature. Do not get into a hot bath to try and raise your temp. A couple of things can happen. You become too dehydrated and pass out. You are going to vomit, nauseous at least. Vomiting is going to cause further dehydration. You can have a febrile seizure if body temp goes up too high. There may not be a way to stop a fever from going over 101.0 without the use of fever reducing drugs, which will take a good 45 mins. to begin lowering your temp.

I will suggest this however, please drink something other than water. You could be experiencing low sodium or low potassium. Medically speaking hyponatremia, hypokalemia, you can google to get info. Basically if either one is too high or too low it can be life threatening. Because the heart is electrical it works on what is called a sodium potassium pump. Too little, or too much can be a critical situation, which can lead to life threatening arrhythmia's and eventually can result in a heart attack and/or heart failure. This is why when we suffer from severe fluid loss, it is vital we replace with proper electrolytes, gatorade is a good example.


Finally, having the illness is difficult enough without wondering what may or may not be happening to our body. Could we please be a little more aware of how vulnerable some readers may be?

reply to post by ecoparity


This is a complication that comes up and could mask symptons in their area. The TVA's disaster has created a respiratory problem for east TN.

Originally posted by MimiG
I think you have a great idea taking the pulse of the people on ATS to see how many believe they have had the H1N1.
Let me be the first to say myself and my 4 family members all had what I believe to be H1N1 in the beginning of April here in Northern California.

What makes you think that what you had was H1N1? Why not one of the other flus that is circulating, like the H2N3 that mutated again and is now recirculating? There has been quite a bit of influenza A this season being detected in general.

***

No symptoms here. I have a nasty cold that wants to go into my chest. My children have had it for about 2 weeks and are still fighting the cough. No flu this season. One round of norovirus in December after a family reunion (woo-hoo).

Swine Flu Hits 26 Health Care Workers - May 8

Here is some disturbing info from the AFL-CIO report. So if this does become a pandemic...who is going to show up at the hospitals to care for the sick?

In April, a report by the AFL-CIO and several unions, including the United American Nurses (UAN), revealed that health care workers are at risk because many of the nation’s health care facilities are not prepared to deal with a pandemic. The committee’s chairman, Rep. George Miller, also said anther recent survey of nearly 200,000 U.S. health care workers found that

57 percent of these workers had not been provided training on pandemic flu. More than half of these workers felt that their facility was not “ready for most things” that could arise in a flu pandemic. And only 33 percent thought that most health care workers would report to work during an actual flu pandemic.

reply to post by paxnatus


The low body temp symptoms have been discussed on the back end since mid February. When the CDC calls a virus "novel" they don't mean it's "slightly unique", these people see samples of every up and coming bug in the World. You have to translate what they're saying within the context of their world, something they aren't very good at to be frank about it. There is a dictionary of reported symptoms from this thing and a slightly shorter list of things we're seeing reported in common by a large number of the infected.

This virus is doing things the most experienced researchers available have never seen before. When you add that to the relatively basic genetic structure of a flu virus the mystery gets very strange in a big hurry. The same exact bug from the standpoint of a genetic assay is acting completely different depending on who has it and even the "who" hasn't shown a discernible pattern.

From day one I've left out a lot of details, more than I've posted because I respect the power of the mind to influence the body and I don't want to scare the hell out of people or create physiological effects in the victims.

I'm going to treat everyone as an adult who knows how to take a temperature or hopefully has someone in the house who is capable. If they can't handle that then there's really not much my advice is going to do for them.

We're getting close to the 20 day mark in the time line for some people. The medical system and official groups have done all they're going to do and believe me when I tell you they aren't sharing a lot of information that could make a difference in who recovers from this and who does not. I'm in the same boat, I've been ill for almost 20 days and still have no clue if I'm infected. I'm doing a lot more than the Dr who didn't seem to give a crap advised me to do to try and get healthy. I'm researching and treating myself in addition to what they're doing because the reality is that most Drs in our society barely spend five minutes with you and practice "cookie cutter", "malpractice safe" medicine where the priority is to get you in and out in a hurry and stick to the official guidelines, period.

How many times do I have to tell people things that show up in the news a day or three or a week later before I earn the smallest amount of trust that I might just know a little bit about the subject at hand? I'm not saying I'm beyond reproach and feel free to question everything anyone says by all means but it's starting to feel like a one way conversation around here sometimes.

reply to post by ecoparity


Well I've been following this and other flu threads, and I for one am listening.

ok if you really want to scare yourself...read the citizens guide to a H1N1 pandemic..a glimpse of what life will be like during the pandemic, and after....

Projections expect 253,000 people to die in California
alone, and 10,713,000 people are expected to
fall ill in that state.