<p>I read there are 40-50 people hospitalized in Washtenaw (where UofM is) and that many of them are young, healthy people who were not vaccinated. There are more than a dozen in ICU according to an article from a couple days ago and many of those patients are young adults. My own county has had three recent deaths, all three of which were people in their 20’s. I think so far there have only been six deaths total in the state, but I am reading (and the doctor said today) that this strain is really kicking the crap out of healthy young people. The number of deaths here isn’t really alarming, but the number hospitalized, the speed with which flu spiked here, and the proportion of young healthy people among them, is catching attention here. When I heard about it I just got a really bad feeling about my fiance not being vaccinated and that was why I made him get the shot last week.</p>
<p>I can understand why the young people are being disproportionately affected, people don’t take this seriously. None of my teammates at work got flu shots, indeed they told me fourteen times they were against them when I got mine, so when I go back to work covered in fiance’s germs (and probably my own) they are probably all going to get sick and I’m not allowed to take any more time off right now. My friends are not taking my fiance’s illness seriously, when I said he was seriously ill this morning they were concerned but when they found out it was flu they stopped worrying and acted like I was being silly. Where did people get the idea that influenza and a cold are the same thing? If only they could see, the only time I’ve seen a young person as sick as he is right now is when my sister got H1N1 in the 2009 outbreak and that was BAD. She went from fine to deathly ill in 30 minutes, in the time it took to fall asleep in the armchair she was horribly sick.</p>
<p>I just had dinner with a friend after her daughter toured the college here. They lost their younger daughter to H1N1 (then MRSA pneumonia) in 2009. Eleven years old. Playing volleyball on Tuesday, dead on Friday. </p>
<p>This is bad. I’m a pediatrician, so I don’t see adults, but the teens I’m seeing are the sickest, though our first local death was a younger child.</p>
<p>The problem is, people tend to call all kinds of less severe sicknesses “the flu”, which means that the popular perception is that “the flu” is a much milder sickness than the real flu.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of the chickenpox vaccine. My mother came down with shingles right after my first child was born. She was horribly ill and in such pain. As soon as the chickenpox vaccine came out, I got it for my kids because there is a likelihood that they will never get shingles if they never have chicken pox.</p>
<p>The person I sit next to at work was bragging today about how she never gets flu shots… and I am sure I will end up doing her work if she gets sick. :(</p>
<p>ucb, I think you’re right. I always heard of the “stomach flu”, but that isn’t flu at all but usually just a stomach virus or food poisoning that is gone in 24 hours.</p>
<p>Or they got it on the bus or subway on the way to the doctor’s office (or CVS Minute Clinic). Kids wipe their noses on their hands and then grab those metal poles. If you don’t wash your hands as soon as you reach your destination, you are a sitting duck for whatever germs that kid was spreading.</p>
<p>One of my kids got sick over and over while working at summer internships in a central city (and taking mass transit every day). Then, after she got a full-time job in a city (where she would also need to use mass transit daily), she decided to be scrupulous about handwashing after getting off the bus or subway. I don’t think she’s had a cold since. In two and a half years.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the strain in Texas is more virulent or not. It sure seems so based on the number of deaths, but it could just be a population with fewer people willing to get flu shots. Of course, with all the publicity, people are running to the Health depts for the vaccine and several of them have run out. Pharmacies still have them. I insisted D2 get it about 10 days ago even though no one had FluMist. She has a needle phobia, but also gets asthma with upper respiratory illnesses, so I basically coerced her.</p>
<p>My sister posted on Facebook that she woke up this morning with the flu, but I’m betting she doesn’t really have the flu or she wouldn’t have been on Facebook. </p>
<p>Last night was bad. I again had to consider whether he needed to go to the hospital. He took the promethazine around 10 and went to sleep and seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, but at 4am he woke up mid coughing fit and couldn’t catch his breath. He stopped coughing but he was breathing really fast and couldn’t get back to normal. According to the drs instructions he can only take the promethazine once per day at bedtime and the benzonotate three times during the day, so there didn’t seem to be anything I could give him. But I looked all over the Internet and everything says the dosage for his promethazine is one teaspoon every 4-6 hours and it had been 6 so I gave him another dose. After that he laid down again and his breathing slooowly normalized and he fell back asleep. I was up half the night listening for his breathing. He slept soundly until 9, woke up in another coughing fit, but an hour after some Advil, benzonotate, and tamiflu he seems okay. He has an appetite and says he feels better than yesterday. He looks the same to me. Time will tell. I’m exhausted, this has been terrifying. I’m hoping he will be much improved by the time he goes to bed tonight so he doesn’t have another 4am episode.</p>
<p>I helped with a genealogy project where we entered data from the 1918 newspaper obituaries. It was horrible to see all the 18-30 year old young people who died, often mother and father within a few days of each other. So many orphans left, and old people, but sometimes it took everyone in a house over the course of a couple of weeks. I kept having to blink away the tears.</p>
<p>Sending my empathy Ema’s way. H is one of those guys who does not mess around when he gets sick. He gets all the symptoms and gets them bad. At best it is no fun for either of us. And it can be downright scary. </p>
<p>Arabrab, my grandmother used to talk of that 1918 epidemic. She lost a cousin to it, and there were scary times for her immediate family as well. She was only 6 but it had a huge impact on her.</p>
<p>Now I wonder if i have ever had the flu?
Ive had food poisoning & Ive had colds which have gone into bronchitis because I have asthma, but I don’t get as sick as what is being described as the flu, as I don’t get anything that lasts more than 3 days. But I take Yin Chiao chieh tu pien at the first sign of anything usually.</p>
<p>Washington residents have a slightly higher vaccination rate for the flu(47%) than nationally (45%). Childhood vaccine rate is lower though, I believe.</p>
<p>emeraldkity, you may never have had the flu, if we’re talking about influenza, the disease you get a shot for.</p>
<p>With the flu, typically you get sick very quickly. You know how with a cold, you start feeling bad over a couple of days? With the flu, you’ll be fine in the morning, and by the evening you’ll be flat on your back aching all over without even the ability to muster the energy to open your eyes.</p>
<p>If you have the flu, you’ll typically have high fever, you’ll be weak, you’ll have a headache and you’ll hurt all over. And it lasts over a week.</p>
<p>If you haven’t had those symptoms, you probably didn’t have the flu.</p>
<p>Ema, I hope your BF is over the worst of it. This sounds terrible for him and frightening for you. You’re doing a great job nursing!</p>
<p>I’ve never had influenza, but I have had rotavirus/stomach flu/food poisoning a number of times. </p>
<p>The day or two in bed (after several hours emptying the digestive tract) is similar to influenza, I think: a complete willingness to die, if given the choice between that and having to move.</p>
<p>I think that is why so many people confuse influenza with “stomach flu”. But stomach bugs, while awful, are generally over in a day or two. Influenza goes on for a week or more.</p>
<p>One of the only times I burst into uncontrolled sobbing during my married life was one morning when I was in the middle of the “I’d rather die than move” hours of a rotavirus, and my husband (a physician!) leaned into the spare room where I was damply moaning, and said brightly, “I’m leaving now. See you this evening.”</p>
<p>Instead, he spent the day with our lovely, healthy toddler at a park. The marriage survived.</p>
<p>My kids and I have had all recommended vaccines except the flu vaccine. I am now wondering if we should get it. Just checked with insurance and it’s free. </p>