don't panic, but "SWINE FLU COULD SPREAD GLOBALLY"

Get well soon, I am just waiting for my dose as I seem to get every flu that is going around.

Might be worth getting some sugary sports drinks to keep the energy up (also good for the electrolyte balance if you are sweating).

But that would involve leaving the house and I'm officially quarantined. I basically have to survive on what's in the fridge until... Monday? Drinking cranberry juice because it has the highest vitamin C content of any juice. Apparently.

shit, kate, that sucks - hope it goes away w/a swiftness :(

eating scabs causes swine flu

Actually, it was drinking from the waterbottle of a plague infected person, but that's another story.

Hope that you've got supplies of ibuprofen there, would probably help with your headache and joint pains if you're not already taking them. And if you don't, mail me and *seriously*: I will post you some somehow.

If it's any consolation I think it might be good that we're in this early wave of sickness, cos who knows how it'll develop.

Not meant to sound melodramatic btw, just be good to get it over and done with.

I did actually recently buy a massive box of paramol which is getting me through this.

And it's funny - that's what I said to my mum. Better to have it now than in the second wave during wintertime, when it would be *really* miserable to be ill.

Good, glad you've got something! Hope the food holds out.

Get well soon Kate!

I keep feeling tired and sore and thinking I've got it, but actually I *always* feel tired and sore. Despite being constantly under the weather, however, I rarely get serious illnesses.

I posted on FB that I was up all night with a nasty raspy cough and my mum immediately emails me OMG DO YOU HAVE A THERMOMETER MAKE SURE IT IS NOT FLU.

I'm not even sick! I just smoked too much this week :/

Trust me, if you have it, you'd know. I honestly woke up on Tuesday morning in the middle of the night thinking I'd been shot in the head, it hurt so bad. And it's not "ooh, I feel a little bit tired and weak" it's "holy fucking shit, I can't actually move as far as the loo without stopping for a rest on the sofa."

I think (hope) I'm on the turn today. I actually managed to sleep through the night for the first time in about 3 days.

I keep thinking "oh, my fever's broken..." but then I start hallucinating again.

I think I'm going to punch the next person who I hear saying "don't worry, the only people who have died had serious underlying health issues". As if people don't have immediate family members with serious underlying health issues or anything.

i hope you get well soon, kate, it sounds miserable.

Getting the achey joints thing here, horrible isn't it? Feels like all my cartilage has turned to rust. Our three year old is totally zonked out again, but we've got some Tamiflu in for the little guy now.

cartilage of rust was so not fun, that seems to be settling down for the most part - headache is clearly up, too, but it has just moved down to my throat area instead. tonsils like tennis balls of pains is the symptom for today.

I managed to actually watch a film for an hour, which would have been impossible yesterday. now i need to lie down and recover from the excitement.

k8 do you want me to mail you some tamiflu & klonpin (to uh curb you from suicide)? I totally will!

friend had this two weeks ago. he said the aching / hallucinating was fairly severe, but not overwhelming -- the most surprising thing was the weakness. his bedroom was upstairs from the kitchen / bathroom and he said the trip down the stairs became a real issue. other severe thing was that while it broke after two days, it lingered for three weeks before he started feeling strong again

I actually have tamiflu waiting for me at a chemist half a mile up the road. And I'm too weak to walk from one side of the flat to the other. Klonopin no nononoo, cannot touch that stuff after having a little "problem" with it in the late 90s. Thanks for the offer, though, that's really sweet.

I think it's time to switch from ibuprofen back to paramol (mmm, codeine) and have another nap.

I swear to god, it's like I woke up suddenly 80.

Oh god, if I've got weeks of this stupid weakness I will kill myself, tamiflu side effects or no. Bah.

You can take ibuprofen AND paramol at the same time with no mad side effects (have been on both as prescribed by my doctor for a non-flu-related pain for three weeks now).

Is there any difference in symptoms between common or garden influenza and this swine flu thing, or is it really just the way it's knocking over people of all ages and spreading that's freaking everyone out? I've been floored with the flu a few times, so the thought of another bout of it, if it comes my way, isn't causing me sleepless nights. Should it?

I was recommended this by the doc as well, spaced at 2 hour intervals (first ibuprofen, two hours later paramol, 2 hours late ibuprofen etc.)

Hooray?:

An ugly scramble is brewing over the swine flu vaccine - and when it becomes available, Britain, the United States and other nations could find that the contracts they signed with pharmaceutical companies are easily broken.

Experts warn that during a global epidemic, which the world is in now, governments may be under tremendous pressure to protect their own citizens first before allowing companies to ship doses of vaccine out of the country.

That does not bode well for many nations, including the United States, which makes only 20 percent of the regular flu vaccines it uses, or Britain, where all of its flu vaccines are produced abroad.

"This isn't rocket science," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "If there is severe disease, countries will want to hang onto the vaccine for their own citizens."

lol that'll learn you, U.S. profit-centric pharm companies

I don't think it's actually that much difference from normal influenza (actual influenza as opposed to the usual headcold/lurgy type thing) in terms of severity.

What is different is that most people have some kind of built up immunity to most colds and flu so that you only really get them if your defenses are otherwise down. Swine flu is new, no one has immunity to it yet, so it can strike otherwise totally healthy people with alarming speed and contagion.

I think today, or yesterday, was the start of genuine panic about this, at least in the press.

Having now had it, I have started to panic way less. It is not the end times. It's a week in bed. Worse than a head cold, but better than wrist surgery.

Fun?:

Hundreds of thousands of Americans could die over the next two years if the vaccine for the new H1N1 influenza is not effective and, at the pandemic's peak, as much as 40% of the workforce could be affected, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Worldwide, up to a third of the Earth's 6 billion population is likely to become infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization.

Although potentially frightening, the numbers are not dramatically different from the number of cases that might be encountered in a bad winter of seasonal flu. Even in an unremarkable year, an estimated 36,000 Americans die from complications of the flu.

The estimates, prepared more than a month ago but released only today in an interview with the Associated Press, are not based on an enhanced lethality of the new H1N1 virus, but rather on the lack of resistance to the virus in the general population and its continuing spread through the summer months, when flu viruses normally are less active.

Twenty states are now reporting widespread or regional flu activity, with the H1N1 virus predominating, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "That's very unusual at this time of year," she said. "It's a testament to how susceptible people are to the virus."

do i have it?

i had a sore throat on monday, no other illness.
yesterday i had more of a cough, but still nothing more.
today i awake with a tremendous blocked nose and more mild coughing,

not feeling tired as such, and my appetite is fine.

is this just a cold?

I think the defining factor is whether or not you have a temperature of 38 or above, in addition to any of those symptoms.

Mister CJ went down with swine flu on Thursday last week, and is still pretty bad. I succumbed to it on Monday, but my symptoms were much milder than his and I'm feeling considerably better already.

You should challenge it to a rematch. It would be good for people's morale to see this.

My wife had it for a week and a half. Symptoms weren't too bad. I didn't catch it at all. Very disappointed, as I wanted time off work, due to being lazy.

problem solved
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8196786.stm

I thought it said 'flying rabbits'.

first case found at my kid's daycare this week.

i mean today

i think i might have had it already???

YOU THINK?!?

i was sick, lady, and how

yikes.

a good friend of mine had it, and the pharmacist i work/ed for had it too

My grandmother (who has a chronic cough anyway) had it, she's fine now tho.

Like gbx I think I probably had it maybe 6 or 8 weeks ago. fuck I was ill. not diagnosed tho.

lol

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,656028,00.html

I saw a poster yesterday, revealing that swine flu is actually a "hoax" - the pharmaceutical companies and the governments are flying airplanes high in the atmosphere emitting a substance that leads to flu-like symptoms. Tell your friends!

Damned contrails.

where do spencer and laura h. stand on the swine flu epidemic

Much flu already in the local schools and spreading fast.

It is probably H1N1, but I don't think the local doctors are bothering to do the lab work needed to pin that down conclusively, since it wouldn't change anything they are doing.

All influenza is nasty, miserable stuff. Your muscles ache. Your head aches. Your eyes ache. You get chills followed by a high fever. Your nose runs like a hose. Your mucus membranes feel stripped and raw. It's all you can do to stand up and go to the bathroom. All you can do is lie there and take it.

I saw a poster yesterday, revealing that swine flu is actually a "hoax" - the pharmaceutical companies and the governments are flying airplanes high in the atmosphere emitting a substance that leads to flu-like symptoms. Tell your friends!

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:27 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark

thnx for the heads up!

i don't have health insurance -- this is gonna be grebt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n47aB9vJqzc