Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
The less effective your immune system is, the less violent the reaction to the flu will be.
Wow... that's brilliant. We should tell everybody with AIDS to stop boosting their immune systems too. Theirs are "really" less effective so they
should do great!
I am only speaking from personal experience here as a person with Leukopenia/Neutropenia (oh, an 18 years in the Emergency Medical field) but in my
humble opinion it's always better to have a healthy immune system when you are sick.
And I wasn't talking about sticking zinc up your nose. I was specifically referring to clinical studies that suggest antivirals such as Tamiflu and
the amantidine-class of medications are only marginally effective and at best only reduce duration of symptoms by an average of one day.
One day more of symptoms, in my opinion, is worth not risking a trip to the ER where you can either expose or be exposed to something nastier.
Here is a link to the Tamiflu page itself showing only a 1.3 day reduction in symptoms:
Tamiflu
[edit on 5/2/09 by emsed1]