Posted on 12/19/2017 7:38:13 PM PST by MtnClimber
One Sunday in November 20-year-old Alani Murrieta of Phoenix began to feel sick and left work early. She had no preexisting medical conditions but her health declined at a frighteningly rapid pace, as detailed by her family and friends in local media and on BuzzFeed News. The next day she went to an urgent care clinic, where she was diagnosed with the flu and prescribed the antiviral medication Tamiflu. But by Tuesday morning she was having trouble breathing and was spitting up blood. Her family took her to the hospital, where x-rays revealed pneumonia: inflammation in the lungs that can be caused by a viral or bacterial infection, or both. Doctors gave Murrieta intravenous antibiotics and were transferring her to the intensive care unit when her heart stopped; they resuscitated her but her heart stopped again. At 3:25 P.M. on Tuesday, November 28—one day after being diagnosed with the flu—Murrieta was declared dead.
Worldwide, the flu results in three million to five million cases of severe illness and 291,000 to 646,000 deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the totals vary greatly from one year to the next. .........
How does the flu kill? The short and morbid answer is that in most cases the body kills itself by trying to heal itself. “Dying from the flu is not like dying from a bullet or a black widow spider bite,” says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “The presence of the virus itself isn't going to be what kills you. An infectious disease always has a complex interaction with its host.”
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20110215/zinc-may-prevent-and-shorten-colds#1
http://www.health.com/cold-flu-sinus/4-things-you-should-know-about-zinc-and-the-common-cold
It is not a cure, but it does knock a down and you get better quicker.
Yes. Just a few additions. Cinnamon. Turmeric. Exercise.
And that Airborne stuff has been amazing for me on several occasions too.
There might be some crossover immunity between strains. Makes it a worthwhile thing for me almost every year.
Actually $40 for the quad version this year at Rite Aid in northern Michigan, where eggs are only 50 cents, btw and the cost of living is known to be very low.
It doesn't say that. You don't know that. They gave the antibiotics because her xray showed pneumonia, a gram strain would have been helpful but none of the cultures were back before she died.
It's just protocol to give the antibiotics under those conditions.
Our insurance covered our shots completely this year. Not even a co-pay. Went to a clinic they offered in the lobby of a local medical building and got it done there. No appointment needed, walk in. Pretty handy, actually.
I am not suggesting you haven’t had the flu. Only you know that.
There are a lot of people who think they have the flu when they get a cough and some sniffles. They stay home from work for a day and then they feel better.
That is NOT the flu.
If you have the flu you are in bed, sick as a dog, and you are not moving for a couple of days.
I work at a hospital and we’ve been packed since the begining of November. Evidently the flu shot given in New England was not as effective as those from the past.
My fingers are cracking from the sanitizer we use for hands. And I am about three floors from the nearest patient.
Its bad this year.
Absolutely incorrect. There are truckloads of evidence based results to show that many many spices as supplements are effective.
Additionally probiotics are the wave of the future, esp in allergy control.
You could not be more wrong. I did grad work in immunology, made monoclonal antibodies for a living for years, worked as a medical technologist for some 30 years. I understand the literature.
The most effective way to not catch the flu is to constantly wash your hands and take basic precautions such as not touching other gross people who carry the virus like a UPS truck.
Link? I don't believe this.
Additionally do you understand how they determine efficacy?
I think it would depend on the “damage.” If he were simply vaccinated with no side effects, you might not have a case.
You would be stunned at how many patients are given the wrong dose or the wrong med. Our hospital is rated as high as the Joint Commission will rate one. And we make mistakes. I hear about them during the morning meetings of managers. At least once a week. Or about 4,000 patient days. It seems small...but where perfection is expected its not.
If you visit most middle sized cities’ general cemetery you will see places where there are no headstones. It appears to be a green space in the middle of the cemetery.
Those are mass graves.
People today have NO concept of what that would look like. Consider that where there were 50,000 people in 1918, there are probably 150,000 today. And a City like NY where everyone uses mass transport...they would be filling up barges and dumping them at sea.
Completely untrue. Tell it to those with HIV or undergoing chemo.
It's not "weather" btw. That's about when it is going to snow.
The only way your body can prevent this process is by having circulating antibodies that recognize and attach to that virus, which physically prevents the virus from attaching to the cell receptors.
Quite often people manufacture those antibodies and the primary response is more than adequate. For instance I had measles, mumps and chicken pox as a child and overcame them all without a vaccine.
Vitamin D, in the form of cod liver oil, used to be used to treat TB patients. It has been found to change immune function in many ways which I am not going to elaborate here....but I did find this to support that statement.
Vitamin D deficiencies are real. I once had to take prescription vitamin D - something like 20,000 units every week for a few weeks.
Stop giving medical advice - you could harm people. Back your statements up with links to show your opinions are more than that.
“Haven’t they determined that the efficacy of the Flu Shot is ~10%?”
You can still get the flu after the vaccine. Your system gets overwhelmed. But the antibodies will lessen the severity. If you don’t have much exposure, you probably will not get the flu. I’ve had the flu once in 10 years and I get the vaccine every year. My doctor gets it every 3 years and he gets the vaccine. If you get the flu, get Tamiflu for everyone in the household.
It's NOSOCOMIAL. Not whatever you wrote.
All I know is that aspirin probably makes it worse and that’s what they had in 1918.
Not to mention more people in indoor spaces - kids going back to school, people wearing heavy coats and sweating like crazy while shopping in crowded overheated stores prior to Christmas.
True and also the “stomach flu” is not a type of flu. Many people mix that up
Awesome. Here in northern Michigan an appt is weeks or longer away. We live in a very rural area and there are just very very few docs, period. I work in the field and have a scary, unpredictable schedule more often than not. The pharmacist at our Rite Aid is a good friend so it was fun to have him do ours.
Our insurance would have covered it but only if we went to at least a nurse practitioner or doc for it. They didn't cover it at Rite Aid.
In short it was easier to just pay and get it than to try to make two appts (husband), copay, day off work, etc.
The state does offer some free vaccs, like shingles, here. I keep meaning to check into that more and set it up.
Can't wait to retire and have more time. This is my first day off in a long time and I am spending it online with coffee so far, having fed all the dogs and wildlife too. Lazy day is almost guaranteed for me today. LOL
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.