@busdriver11 my bad. I’m just so used to anti-vaxxers popping up with that argument. Sorry bhs.
You can’t possibly know how much longer your flu would have been if you hadn’t taken the drug. That makes no sense whatsoever. I know people who have had various experiences of the flu without taking any drug.
The best data, which isn’t very good, says that Tamiflu shortens the duration of flu about 16 hours on average. The best data, which isn’t very good, says that Tamiflu probably lessens complications, for people at high risk. The best data says Tamiflu maybe lessens complications for people not at high risk, but it’s controversial.
If you don’t have health insurance, then I don’t care what you buy with your health care dollars. If you do have health insurance, then your health care decisions affect not only yourself, but the people who are paying for your health care.
Everyone in my nuclear family is very vulnerable and we are medically treated accordingly. Our providers and insurer agree with this classification. It has worked for us so far.
No worries @romanigypsyeyes I am definitely not an anti vaxxer. Get my flu shot every year as does every member of my family.
I have heath insurance through my company, which is self insured. I also pay for additional concierge health care. I do quite a bit of proactive care to detect and prevent the major problems in life. Tell me again, whom does that affect? Sounds like me and my company are paying for the little things in order to prevent the big, expensive problems. And that’s a bad thing?
Doctors are also supposed to be gatekeepers between patients and treatments, so that patients do not take useless or harmful treatments (like taking antibiotics for a viral infection). Lots of drugs are prescription-only for this reason.
Of course, that may not always work as well as it should, since doctors still prescribe antibiotics for viral infections due to patients insisting on it: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doctors-urged-to-stop-prescribing-antibiotics-for-colds-and-flu/
Stents for stable angina and arthroscopic knee surgery for torn meniscus are two other treatments that doctors perform by the tens of thousands every year even though the evidence shows they are no better than sham surgery.
Well, if you don’t want to take advice from Cardinal Fang, take it from the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/takingcare.htm
“Most people with the flu have mild illness and do not need medical care or antiviral drugs. If you get sick with flu symptoms, in most cases, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to get medical care.”
It goes on to make exceptions for those in high risk groups and lists symptoms to watch out for. Bottom line: the vast majority of people should stay home and don’t need anti-virals.
Don’t like the CDC’s answer? How about Harvard Medical School (we’re on CC after all)?
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/when-to-contact-your-doctor-about-flu-symptoms
"Most adults contact their doctors when they feel really sick. But that general advice doesn’t work very well for the flu. Why is that?
A lot of people think the flu is like the common cold, a minor and temporary illness. It’s not. Just getting the flu makes anyone feel really sick for a few days. You feel physically weak, you have no energy, you ache all over, you have a fever. But if you rest and drink plenty of fluids, it usually will pass. That’s why, even though you feel really sick, you usually don’t need to contact your doctor."
Again, it lists situations when one should seek a medical consult but again states that a visit isn’t recommended for most people.
I could list endless similar advice from well-regarded medical sites.
And again, I still believe that when to call your doctor and whether to respect his or her advice is individual. @Cardinal Fang, I totally respect your right to your opinion on this matter, but please acknowledge that the choices others make may be based on information you do not have. For example, it may be that, statistically, arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus is over-recommended and not necessary, but having put it off for many years and having done as many course of physical therapy as my insurance would allow, I can tell you that my quality of life is far superior post-surgery than it was before. I can walk down stairs without pain, stand for long periods of time, and exercise. Could I have lived without it - absolutely, I did for many years. Am I glad I did it…you bet. Medical decisions, like many other things in life, are not one size fits all.
This debate about whether to seek in-office medical attention or whether to request or take Tamiflu in the presence of flu-like symptoms is not cut and dry. There are also public health reasons to know the extent of a flu “epidemic” in any given year in order to understand the efficacy of the vaccine for that particular year. Without actual testing there is no way to know what is flu and what is a more typical bad upper respiratory infection. Yes, there are distinctions that most people cannot or do not understand, but you can’t know if you have actual influenza without testing. So, having lived through the flu this year with my D, and believing that her course of Tamiflu did, in fact, reduce the length of her misery, and that my prophylactic course MAY have prevented me from becoming sick or infecting others, I will continue to request that posters be entitled to share their experiences and opinions in this flu-riddled winter without judgement.
I believe someone else on this thread said that there was a shortage of Tamiflu in their area because parents of children with mild symptoms were insisting the doctors prescribe it. If not indicated, these doctors should not be letting parents of healthy children with mild symptoms pressure them into over prescribing a drug that is now in short supply for people who may actually be in the high risk group.
I just contributed to a gofundme for a child who is a friend’s child’s classmate. 4 years old and fighting for his little life because of the flu. He just had an ECMO (which I had never heard of until today).
The pictures are heartwrenching. (And I won’t even get into the ridiculousness that is needing a gofundme to save your kid’s life without going bankrupt.)
I don’t know if tamaflu helps or not, but when my daughter had the flu in January and I was 2000 miles away, I really wish she could have had it (she was about 12 hours past the deadline). I was reading about people dying from the flu, she was not doing well, and if someone had told me there were magic jelly beans, or tamaflu, or that scoping her knee would help, I would have said yes, just do it.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/2/1/16960758/flu-vaccine-effectiveness
CDC releases first data on how well the flu vaccine is working this season in America reporting that the flu shot was 36 percent effective overall but the vaccine’s effectiveness against H3N2, the most commonly circulating strain, was lower - 25 percent. In a good year, the flu shot’s effectiveness hovers between 50 and 70 percent.
The article talks about how whenever H3N2, a strain of the influenza A virus, is the dominant flu type in circulation, the vaccine doesn’t perform as well. Part of the reason has to do with eggs and how the H3N2 mutates during vaccination production. More explanation in the article.
We got my daughter to Urgent Care on a Monday evening. She had no fever at that time. They diagonosed an ear infection and put her on amoxycillian.
A few hours later her temp shot up. We treated the high temp and waited for the meds to kick in.
My mom radar must have been on, because I called in to work the next day, even though she’s 15 and has stayed home sick alone before. I got her to the pediatrician at 2 pm. At that point, her temp was 103.6. He diagnosed the flu and got her on Tamiflu. That was Tuesday afternoon.
By Friday morning, she was her old self. She went to play practice on Saturday and returned to school on Monday.
I’m guessing the Tamiflu did its job well.
^^^^Glad your D is better, bjk mom. I don’t know for sure if I had the flu. At first I didn’t think so, because my temp was only 100.2. But shortly thereafter, it hovered around 101 and 102.6 with Tylenol/Aleve on board. It was not the worst I’ve ever felt, but certainly some low grade misery for 5 days, and a cough of several weeks’ duration.
I woke up with a very sore throat yesterday, but so far, no fever. Sigh…
On a news report this past week, I heard that they are maybe five years away from coming up with a universal flu vaccine, one you wouldn’t have to repeat for several years. It works by attacking a characteristic common to all flu strains. That would be awesome!
Here’s hoping MLH. That would be incredible.
son (30) came down with fever, chills, dizziness, worst sore throat ‘ever’ et all Tuesday. Went to doc on Wed am, on Tamiflu, and fever gone by Friday. The one big plus according to his doc ws that the Tamiflu would knock out the sore throat with a day, and it did. However, not liking the side effects of Tamiflu.
His fiance, a teacher, has a student hospitalized in ICU due the flu.
My stepsister told me today that because Tamiflu “kills children,” she would rather have her kids “tough it out” if they get the flu. All I know is, Tamiflu (in our case) has worked for my son. No fever since Friday, acting his normal self.
Tamiflu has reported rare side effects of psychosis and hallucinations in children. Under Tamiflu’s influence some Japanese kids killed themselves, a couple of them by leaping from high buildings. This is rare, but not unknown. American kids have also hallucinated under the influence of Tamiflu:
http://6abc.com/health/family-says-tamiflu-may-have-caused-their-childs-suicide/3017488/
Lots of drugs have serious side effects; we have to balance the risks and the rewards. Psychosis in children is a rare side effect of Tamiflu.