My son has the swine flu

My 12 year old boy has the swine flu. Im mad as a hornet right now. He has had a cough for a month. I took him to the Dr. on the 9th because he had a mild fever and a cough that had lasted two weeks. They said eh its the croup not a big deal in older kids. Said it lasts 3 weeks. Well he is still coughing. Came home yesterday with bloodshot eyes and not feeling well. He went from 100 degree fvr to 101.8 in 10 min. Gave him ibuprofen and sent him to bed. This morning I take him back to Dr. still has a 101.8 fever. I do not give him drugs this time choose to wait until after the Doc sees him.

New Doc this time.

Get this, his fever totaly goes away. It's back up now, but it keeps going back and forth.

Sends for chest xrays to check for pnemonia. Chest xrays show he has asthma no pnemonia. That is why he has been coughing. I was expecting weezing for an asthma attack so I had not thought to give him an inhaler. Why didnt the other DR? i dont know. Anyway, since that showed asthma, she had a flu test done. Sure enough he has the flu.

Why am I mad? Because of how many flippin hoops you have to jump through. In order for them to think flu they have to be seen in the er, 2 times at the Dr., or have 103 fever.

You have to have a chest xray before you can have a flu test.

Keep in mind I didnt go to see if he had the flu I went to make sure he didnt have pnemonia.

BUT if you do have the flu and need help you have to jump through all these hoops FIRST.

THEN oh he needs to start Tamiflu asap.

You can NOT get tamiflu before jumping through all those hoops. Even if you go to the ER....my cousins boy has it too.

Im all for helping my kid. He is my baby, granted a big one and the oldest of my bunch, but my baby none the less.

However, I cant help feeling like have been taken.

LUCKLY I have insurance. Here is the break down for just one of my 3 kids with insurance.

Dr. visit #1 $20
Dr. visit#2 $20
Tamiflu $55
albuterol $35
--------------------------
$130

I will get a bill later for the xrays and flu test. Estimating over $100 for those.


Unfortunatly, we are all doomed to get this, and my other son has asthma real bad too. So I am going to have to do all this all over again - the inhaler.

Its not like we are rolling in $$ for heavens sake. The economy sucks.

YEA Im mad as a hornet. There have never been so many hoops to jump through, and it has never been this expensive for the dog gone flu. I feel like Ive just been taken for a ride. I had no intention on taking the tamiflu route. I only did it this time because she scared the jeepers out of me. Now I feel like a fool. I have other moms swearing to me about tamiflu, and how wonderful it is. Maybe it is. But I have a family of 5, and people arent jumping up and down to build houses and commercial properties right now. Thats $260 just for the tamiflu. Not counting the xrays and nose swab you have to get before. I know that it only takes a few days off the flu, but they make it seem like your going to die with out it. Hell, a 21 year old girl here just died last week, and she was healthy as a horse.

Whats a person to do? Cheepest route is to get immunized, but we have all read the warnings on that.

This sucks.

As for symptoms, the first thing I noticed besides the cough, was that he had bloodshot eyes and was sitting very still - his body hurt all over. The sariest part is that the fever comes on strong and fast. Really fast.

im sorry i didnt understand very clearly,but well u can give lots of fruits or just "vitamin c" vitamin c is soo frikkin good,or spirulina,just give the boy lots of vitamins,and atleast try to look "good" like hes going to be allright,he may get the influence and fight with his soul,i was having mild asthma too,but ridiculous amounts of vitamin c every day and fitness payd off,i havent been sick for 2 years,before i was being sick all the time.
i know i cant really help but): concentrate good energy (:

reply to post by mrsdudara


Does he have a history of asthma?
Were his red eyes - itching or burning?

Can't/won't the bodies imune system beat this on its own if it is healthy?
I have thought for a few months that I have a bug, and yes I deal with mexicans day in and day out, so I tend to think it is piggy feaver but, who knows maybe the terrible case of tuburcullosis I gots too....
Sorry for that joke, I kinda do think I got pig flu, chest is all bubbly, has been for 2-3 months and I'm pueny weak, please tell me that the MD is not my only option if I do have it?...won't a healthy imune systym beat it?

I am sorry for yuor situation! I have a few x-tra cans of new in the box albuteral I could donate to ya U2U me your Add

oil of oregano, reishi mushroom or mushrooms in general. Warm organic lemon water(distilled water) 3 times a day. No heavy foods. Fruits and vegetables only and a decent amount of distilled water daily.

I make sure all my kids get plenty of vitamins. Thanks though. He is going to be fine. That is part of what makes me irritated. We have had some mean and nasty flu bugs. This is nothing. Some of the kids around here are getting a 103 degree fever with this. It comes on fast like, in under an hour. Still, I dont see any reason for the tamiflu. My regular Dr. would not have had him take it. But he was not in today.

Both of my kids (6 & 3) had swine flu last spring. They went through 3 rounds of antibiotics (3 different kinds) and BOTH ended up with pneumonia.

The good news is that they are both fine now.

I would recommend getting his lungs checked at least twice, 2 weeks apart, once the cough completely disappears. There was a point when we thought my son was completely over it -- only to have him crash a few days later.

It can be scary. Especially when it's a child.
Good luck -- I wish you all the best.

Sorry that your son got sick.

It's always scary when one of your little ones gets sick.

Everyone was predicting that once school started that there would be a spread of H1N1.

Most of the things that I've read say that it's a pretty mild flu. Hopefully he'll be up and running in no time.

reply to post by mrsdudara


Hope your wee ones are ok. Keep them hydrated, TLC.

best wishes,

Mike

Garlic, raw fresh garlic,

If he can't stand that, which he most likely can't.

Boil a whole chicken bones and all add loads of fresh garlic and onions.
Let it brew.

...And you are not only going to allow them to inject your son, but volunteer to inject yourself and the entire bunch as well??...

Wow..

If anything, I'd like to think ATS members were more aware than average. Do you not realize what the vaccine does? Perhaps you should do a bit more research?

In the meantime, garlic, Vitamin C and Colloidal Silver all work wonders.. but you must act quick.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

- Mea

I sincerely hope he gets well soon!! Take care, and let us know how the rest of your family gets through this situation too. (take care of yourself, especially....if you get sick it will make things even worse trying to care for the rest of your family!)

fmf

I was down for weeks with a horrific flu, two days of raw garlic knocked it, I swear by it.

Garlic's Special Properties

Fresh garlic has many active constituents including alliin, allicin, alliinase and unique sulfur compounds. Allicin and the sulfur compounds of garlic are the ingredients primarily responsible for garlic's potency as an antibiotic, anti-viral and a fungicide and for its use in treating high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, and for helping to prevent certain types of cancer, as well as its use as an immune stimulant. Allicin is a strong antibiotic agent produced when the alliin and alliinase are merged together, as happens when a fresh garlic clove is crushed or chewed.

Good for MRSA too

www.earthclinic.com...

I am so sorry to hear that, I know that it is difficult. My 9yr. son had the flu a couple weeks ago (along with 1/2 of his school). His Pediatrician didn't give him tamiflu, instead he prescribed bed rest, motrin, and tylenol for fever and plenty of liquids. It hit him all of the sudden with fever, dizziness and upset stomach. The good news was that he recovered very quickly and was back to school quicker than most kids that were given tamiflu. With that being said, I wish your son a speedy recovery and please keep us updated.

Thank you all for the home remides.


Doc, I'm not sure if he could have gotten over it on his own. Im just glad I know what to do for his cough now. Poor thing hasnt slept well in a month.

lpowell, That is what the Dr. warned me about. It comming back as something worse either infection or pnemonia. I worry about him because he was hospitalized with RSV when he was an infant. These things hit him hard.

Originally posted by lpowell0627
Both of my kids (6 & 3) had swine flu last spring. They went through 3 rounds of antibiotics (3 different kinds) and BOTH ended up with pneumonia.

The good news is that they are both fine now.

I would recommend getting his lungs checked at least twice, 2 weeks apart, once the cough completely disappears. There was a point when we thought my son was completely over it -- only to have him crash a few days later.

It can be scary. Especially when it's a child.
Good luck -- I wish you all the best.

I got hit last spring as well. Identical symptoms as the poster's son. The hacking cough went away after about 4 weeks. . 4 weeks!

I have a very strong immune system and usually break any fevers overnight. I had a fever off and on for about a week before the pneumonia symptoms set in.

Plenty of fluids help reduce the fever if you can keep them down. .



[edit on 9/22/2009 by clay2 baraka]

I hope your son recovers quickly! The cough is the big part of it for many.
It was for me.

I was about to start a thread about it, but may as well put it here; I could not get 2 doctors to give me a test for H1N1 because I was not running a fever. They both did not believe I had it because not once did I have a fever.

But I did start off with rapidly developing cold symptoms that developed into a bad cough within 24 hours, and I have been fighting that cough almost 2 months now. After continually coughing up gross crap for weeks, I finally got a doctor up in Washington state (I had to drive a ways) to agree to test me. The test showed I have it, but I am recovering.

I nebulized and took colloidal silver all of these weeks, and I truly believe that this is what saved me. I had some days where I felt I could not breathe well.

The doctor went on ahead and prescribed an antibiotic which I will go ahead and take.

I am praying for your sons' quick recovery. I know that this is scary and not fun, but it will be OK.

There's some real info on this virus you need to be aware of, unfortunately getting this info from your Dr seems to be luck of the draw.

There are different variants of the virus with very different courses of infection. Oddly enough the short and sudden variant is the one that seems to kill people. That one comes on very quickly, often with no fever or other severe symptoms and then the immune system ramps up very suddenly and within hours the patient has a high fever and severe breathing difficulties. In other patients the immune response does not occur and the result is a mild illness which last for a few days to a week with a full recovery.

The long time line variant is the variant which hit some of the small Mexican villages. People also had the short and sudden version but most of them had this weird, longer lasting type. The long version is mainly respiratory in it's effect and seems to leave it's victims with secondary infections such as pneumonia and staph infections. These patients were treated with antibiotics and most of them recovered. The fatalities in those villages were all either from the short and sudden immune system overload or secondary pneumonia.

If I were you here's what I'd do (and my kids and myself have been in this exact situation so I know that of which I speak).

1. Talk to your doctor about the respiratory effects and secondary infections. It's very easy to verify by checking some of the case history in the media from La Gloria, as an example. Even though your child might not be showing signs of pneumonia at this time the addition of antibiotics to his or her treatment will break the long time line cycle that seems to keep the flu and it's secondary infections from rotating through your child's system for months.

2. Make sure your child bathes every day even if he or she doesn't feel well. Just be careful about water temperature and fevers. For reasons unknown the virus leaves people susceptible to staph infections in a big way. Other than antibiotics the best prevention is to keep any external staph under control. Keeping internal staph from increasing it's levels into an active infection requires keeping the body in balance - yogurt and other digestive balancing foods are a good idea.

Other than getting medicines your child might need you'll probably realize after a while that running he or she back and forth does little good overall. They can only treat symptoms and try to make the victims comfortable. Just be very vigilant about watching for any breathing problems, they come on fast and hard w/ this bug and if that happens you need to get to a hospital. Don't be afraid to call for an ambulance in that type of situation either - the application of supplemental oxygen should be your only goal and concern at that point.

Good luck.

[edit on 22-9-2009 by ecoparity]

reply to post by lpowell0627


Exact same experience here. We had never experienced anything like it. However it was early on in the scare last spring so we were never tested.

MrsDudara, it sounds like you have a good handle on things but I'll keep your son in my prayers.

Best Wishes to your boy for a speedy recovery MrsD.
I'm glad you have insurance to help with the bills, imagine what it would have been like if you didn't have it? Sorry you were frustrated with the whole process but at least now you know more than you did before and can help him better.