I posted this under the H1N1 thread but wanted to post it again. Yesterday an 11 yr old girl died after having "flu-like symptoms". She was fine Friday and sick by Monday. By yesterday it had progressed to pneumonia. The dr had prescribed cough syrup with codeine which she had an allergic reaction to so this may have speeded the progress. She was in a private school with approximately 1000 kids and over 200 were out on Monday. No matter what type of flu it turns out to be, this progression is scarey! They said she was a healthy and athletic child.
How incredibly sad. I have heard of that happening in the lives of adults, where they just don't feel right, flu like symptoms and then they die.
Very scary! I have been sick myself. I will have to be careful. My dd had pneumonia once and it progresses quickly!
I live in Alabama and the last I heard our death toll for swine flu was up to 13 and at least 4 of those were pre-teen children. We were out this weekend and some girl was walking down the isle at the store coughing constantly and I thought Why can't these people stay home?
I think sometimes people think they are already sick, why not spread it around. In defense of asthmatics (I am one) I will start coughing before an attack and will have a cough for at least a week after a bad attack. I don't cough into the air like an animal and asthma is not contagious. Sometimes people look at me like, "If you'd stop smoking those cigarettes you wont be coughing". I don't smoke, never smoked so sometimes people have other things going on, not necessarily something contagious. Whether sick or not, it is always appropriate to cough into your sleeve or tissue.
I've been embarrassed the last week to be out and about as I've been coughing like a mad woman. It's just been allergies though. Started back on my Zyrtec and it stopped the coughing. I just knew people were wondering what nasty yuck I was spreading around. My youngest dd has asthma and her attacks are lots of coughing so we can feel your pain. AND, YES, must cough/sneeze into a sleeve or tissue. I was at the store Saturday and a man sneezed into his hand and immediately put his hands back on the cart handle. That made my skin crawl. The 11 year old that died, though very healthy, did have asthma. She also ended up with pneumonia and had a reaction to the codeine that was prescribed for her. Most of the deaths are from secondary bacterial infections that are being overlooked by the doctors. The H1N1 is still a very mild illness that most people, even ones with underlying health problems, are recovering from fairly quickly. Bottom line is that if you have to take your child or yourself to the doctor make sure that the doctor is considering everything including secondary strep throat infection and pneumonia. Also if something just doesn't seem normal for progression of an illness go quickly to the ER or call an ambulance. Amazing how many people wait to see if it gets better before getting any help. Always follow your gut instinct and get help immediately.
Don't forget that this is also the time of year that we start to see menegitis. It starts with flu-like symptoms and prgresses to death within 3-4 days. However, as I have mentioned before, the CDC is requiring that all flu-like symptoms be diagnosed and treated as H1N1 without testing. This means that misdiagnoses are going to be common and potentially fatal. I have a head cold. I can't really stay home from class tonight because we only have class for five weeks. Missing one night is tantamount to missing three whole weeks of a regular semester. I would stay home if I had the flu, but because it's "just a cold," I'm going to take meds to prevent sneezing a coughing right before I go. I'm also going to carry hand sanitizer with me so I can 'degerm' after any use of a kleenex (which I'm also going to bring with me). Fortunately there are only seven people in my cohort and we meet in a regular classroom, so I can sit a ways away from them. That being said: A lot of people in our society are such germ-a-phobes that they are actually more suseptible to getting sick because their immune system isn't used to dealing with day-to-day contamination. Regular mild exposure to bacteria is normal and useful.
"That being said: A lot of people in our society are such germ-a-phobes that they are actually more suseptible to getting sick because their immune system isn't used to dealing with day-to-day contamination. Regular mild exposure to bacteria is normal and useful." I have to remind myself that if I sterilize everything then we're more likely to be sicker than ever. So true that we need exposure to build immunity. Thanks for the reminder of Meningitis. Something alot of people tend to overlook.
The CDC is still requiring testing, but they are not doing H1N1 specific testing anymore. They are doing a normal influenza swab test (not a rapid testing) that tests for influenza A and B. If positive for A they are assuming it's the H1N1 because 99 percent of cases have been the H1N1. Just to clarify. I am hoping that this year will bring us LESS sickness than last year. Last year we had chicken pox, strep throat, flu, MONO, periorbital cellulitis, among other things. Ugh. We really can't afford to have a winter like last year.
Our school district and our campus medical center all released statements saying that the CDC is requiring them to diagnose all flu-like symptoms as H1N1. Our campus med. center specifically said that the CDC was not allowing them to test before the diagnoses.
Really??? That's strange. Not around here. Maybe it's the state you live in? Here they still are required to test, but not specifically for the H1N1. If they test positive for the influenza A then they are just assuming it's H1N1. BUT, they still have to run the flu test. In our lab it's called influenza A/B by PCR/IFLDNA, which determines what type of flu you have.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/identifyingpatients.htm Here is some good informtation. The CDC can not tell a doctor they can NOT test for it. However, they can make recommendations, and their recommendations are that the testing be prioritized to people with complicated immune systems or people with extreme symptoms. Which, makes sense, because when this first broke out it seemed EVERYONE was getting tested for the H1N1...even people with a slight cough or cold-like symptoms. Ugh. Our lab was SOOOO busy. There were a LOT of people whose tests were coming back negative because they were scared at the slightest nose drippings. lol Now the testing is more minimal.
No testing here either- any flu-like symptoms are being diagnosed as H1N1. A middle school boy died here a couple of weeks ago- from pneumonia that was linked to the H1N1 virus. MamaBear- my dd8 was recently diagnosed with allergies. Her cough was so bad and so frequent that people stared at us if we were out. It hit her just about the time H1N1 was becoming more than just a few random cases. It took about 2 weeks to get the cough under control with allergy meds. You can't just assume that anyone sho coughs has the flu. But you can certainly practice good hygiene!
