<p>I think the key is good handwashing. I get a flu shot every year because I am a nurse. I am required to. It makes me ill, but it is infinately better than getting the flu. I am on my second cold" that morphed into bronchitis, tred the zinc but it was a waste. I am concerned about the noro virus and it is on the upswing. Despite my failure with the zinc, I am going to ask where I go for my natural supplies to ask what I can do to minimize the effects of the noro virus if I get it. For example probiotics. Many cancer centers are using integrative medicine, I prefer to combine the two.</p>
<p>Everyone talks about handwashing being THE KEY. Actually, the CDC maintains that the vaccine is the best way to avoid the flu, since the most common form of transmission is inhalation of droplets, NOT CONTACT.</p>
<p>Of course it is important to wash your hands and avoid touching your face. But if someone coughs or sneezes in your vicinity and they are infected, handwashing is futile because clean hands will not protect you from inhaling droplets.</p>
<p>OK, so maybe it s just good luck or a strong immune system.<br>
When I did have the flu, it was a bad one–so maybe that helped me.</p>
<p>ucb: “Vitamin D can be gotten by just exposing your skin to enough sunlight (but not enough to get sunburned).”</p>
<p>LOL–Where do you live? CA? In many parts of the US, it is now “January.” 
We call this “winter.” The sunshine is very weak and we don’t expose our skin at all for fear of frostbite, not sunburn. In the winter it is so cold that we hardly go outdoors at all. This can lead to other ailments like “SAD” and “Cabin Fever.”</p>
<p>I still take vitamin D in the winter because it is cheap and I BELIEVE it helps. The placebo effect is REAL–no one can argue with that. (But someone on cc probably will. . .)</p>
<p>ok so wear a mask, but still think good handwashing is key as the virus lives on surfaces too and you can get it that way. And I know its not the flu but norovirus can live on surfaces for two weeks.</p>
<p>Question</p>
<p>Flu germs: How long can they live outside the body?</p>
<p>How long do cold and flu germs stay alive after infected people cough and sneeze all over everything?</p>
<p>Answer</p>
<p>from James M. Steckelberg, M.D.</p>
<p>It varies, depending partly on where the germ-laden droplets fall. Experiments with specific cold and flu germs have shown potential survival times ranging from a few minutes to 48 hours or more. How long such germs remain capable of infecting you in day-to-day life is harder to say.</p>
<p>Germs generally remain active longer on stainless steel, plastic and similar hard surfaces than on fabric and other soft surfaces. Other factors, such as the amount of virus deposited on a surface and the temperature and humidity of the environment, also have effects on how long cold and flu germs stay active outside the body.</p>
<p>It’s easy to catch the flu or a cold from rubbing your nose after handling an object an infected person sneezed on a few moments ago. But personal contact with an infected person — a handshake, for example — is the most common way these germs spread.</p>
<p>The best way to avoid becoming infected with a cold or flu virus is to wash your hands frequently with soap and water or with an alcohol-based sanitizer. Also avoid rubbing your eyes or biting your nails. Most importantly — get a flu vaccine every year.</p>
<p>If it is too cold to collect sunlight on your skin for vitamin D (or you follow your dermatologist’s recommendation to avoid all sunlight due to fear of skin cancer), you can do as the Inuit do – eat fish.</p>
<p>[Oily</a> Fish: Your Route to Vitamin D - SkinCancer.org](<a href=“http://www.skincancer.org/healthy-lifestyle/vitamin-d/oily-fish-your-route-to-vitamin-d]Oily”>Vitamin D - The Skin Cancer Foundation)</p>
<p>
I usually get flamed when I say this, but in my opinion it’s unpatriotic to fail to get a flu shot.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t use the term unpatriotic, but I think getting a flu shot is the responsible thing to do and I’m sorry there is so much pseudo-science going around such that people think that the flu shot is a bad thing or that “natural remedies” are magical because they are natural. Nature’s a *****.</p>
<p>Whenever his patients tout some kind of cure as superior to known and documented safe and effective treatments simply because it’s “natural,” a doctor I know says “so is rattlesnake venom, and poison mushrooms.”</p>
<p>Just popped by this thread to see what was being said, and my other reading materials agree with most of you … 1) get the flu shot if you can, 2) wash your hands thoroughly, and 3) if you are at risk or want to be extra cautious, wear a mask when you travel in crowded places.</p>
<p>I want to add, since many of you are traveling to college visits, to avoid touching the TV clicker in your hotel rooms! Ugh, most disgusting germ holder in the room … if you can wash it with some germ killing wipe, great, but if you must use it, put it in a clean plastic bag. When I read that TV clickers carry the most bacteria and virus particles, all I could picture was all the nose pickers, tooth flossers and eye touchers that used it while laying in bed the night before I checked in to the hotel.</p>
<p>p.s. I met a nice man on a plane once that offered me a Chlorox wipe to wipe off my armrests and tray … we were instantly friends on that trip. He gave me a few extra wipes ‘to go’ that I put in my zip-lock bag so I could use it in my hotel room. Luckily, many of us have those 1-quart bags with us now as we need to use them for lip gloss and lotion in order to get through security.</p>
<p>I’m not much of a germaphobe, but yesterday I went to one of those grocery stores which has the scales for produce-you have to enter the identification number of the produce you have selected, then you see the price and print the price tag.</p>
<p>I couldn’t help but think of all the grubby fingers which had been using these digital scales, and I didn’t have any wipes handy. I kept thinking, “DON’T touch your face,” because that’s something I do all the time, inexplicably.</p>
<p>I find this stuff to be healing and supportive of winter health. Plus it smells heavenly (to most ppl but not all). I do have one friend who finds the eucalyptus part unpleasant. [Young</a> Living | Thieves Essential Oil](<a href=“http://www.youngliving.com/thieves-essential-oil/Thieves-Oil]Young”>http://www.youngliving.com/thieves-essential-oil/Thieves-Oil)</p>
<p>No I don’t sell the stuff or have any connection w/ the company. I discovered it at a conference where the Young Living folks had a booth and were diffusing the oil. I simply could not leave without it - it was the best thing I’d ever smelled. I had no idea of its antiseptic qualities at the time and only learned about them later. It has been shown to decrease mold, virus and bacteria.</p>
<p>[Sue</a> Chao Thieves Study](<a href=“http://www.secretofthieves.com/study-sue-chao-thieves.cfm]Sue”>http://www.secretofthieves.com/study-sue-chao-thieves.cfm)</p>
<p>[Got</a> Mold? Essential Oils… more than basic Aromatherapy](<a href=“Private Site”>Private Site)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08real.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08real.html</a></p>
<p>I just now found the above articles with a quick google search. Think I’ll get it out and use it more =)!</p>
<p>
It may come in handy if you need to rob some plague victims.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl has a point. Nature can be a *****. The flu is natural, after all.</p>
<p>I don’t know that anyone (or not many) is saying not to get a flu shot. But the OP said she couldn’t get one, so people are trying to offer ways to reduce the risk as much as possible under the circumstances.</p>
<p>Latest tip that I read – stay at least six feet away from anyone you know to be sick. Not always possible to do, however . . . </p>
<p>I like the idea of wiping down the airplane armrests, or anything that one might touch on the airplane – that’s one I hadn’t thought of before.</p>
<p>Oh, and the hotel room TV remote – never thought of that either – yuck!</p>
<p>Recently, when boarding a plane, I witnessed the woman in the row ahead of me go through an elaborate wipe-down disinfecting procedure of her entire seating area before finally sitting down in her seat. Less than one minute later the traffic of still-boarding passengers backed up and stopped in the aisle next to her. And the young woman standing directly beside the chlorox lady’s seat was sniffling and sounding kinda sick. And while standing there she let out an almighty sneeze, thoroughly contaminating the formerly germ-free seated woman.</p>
<p>It was unfortunate, but at the same time mildly amusing to those who witnessed it to see someone who was so over-the-top obsessed have the fruits of her obsession undone in under a minute by a totally random event.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^yuck!</p>
<p>Coureur … that poor woman! She needed to befriend that man that gave me the Chlorox wipes. I hope she was just germ-OCD and not protecting herself because she was recovering from something terrible and knew her immune system was way down. And to the woman who sneezed all over the place … boo.</p>
<p>Another germy place … bathroom toilet/sink handles and doors. I use my own sleeve if I don’t have a paper towel. Nothing like washing your hands and re-contaminating them by touching the door on your way out.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder about taking Chlorox wipes on an airplane. I am going to Florida in two weeks and I get sick really easily. I will take extra clear plastic bags for the TV remotes! </p>
<p>I don’t touch any surface in a public bathroom: doorknobs, latches, faucets, etc. I use toilet paper or towels or my sleeve. I always use my own pen when signing paper receipts in stories and I try to use a Kleenex to hold the stylus to sign the receipts for purchases with the credit card swipe machines. I clean my hands and door handles after getting gas. I always wash my hands as soon as I get home from being out anywhere.</p>
<p>I have read that you can coat the inside of your nostrils with Vaseline or Neosporin when flying on an airplane and going through airports, though I haven’t tried that. (Washing your hands thoroughly before and after application, of course.)</p>