I had the flu a few in 2015. I went to the clinic up the street in The Kroger store. They tested me on the spot, came back positive and gave meTamiflu. It did the trick as most symptoms were gone and I felt great in two days.
This thread is making me rethink my kids’ dr’s AP pts this week. We moved and our youngest 3 have appts for being established as new patients. But, do I really want to take in 3 perfectly healthy, homeschooled kids to an office probably swamped with sick kids? Ugh…I really don’t think so. Maybe I’ll reschedule for the end of Feb. By then, maybe the worst will be over. (They had the flu shot, so that might help them a little, anyway.)
I didn’t get tamiflu when I had h1n1. By the time I went in, the 48 hour window had long passed.
I just started showing symptoms yesterday morning so the doc prescribed tamiflu. If I had been outside of that window it would have been just Motrin and rest.
Or maybe I still would’ve gotten tamiflu anyway because of my immune system.
M2apg, I’d personally reschedule.
Rescheduling done. They agreed and said their office is crazy. They said they expect it to be like this for about 6 more weeks or so.
Providers are urged clinically to use clinical judgement in prescribing Tamiflu i.e. reserve it for higher risk individuals: age <2, age>65-70, individuals with asthma, COPD, CKD, diabetes and other chronic co-morbid diseases or who is immunosuppressed or chronically ill. It doesn’t cure the flu, it just shortens the length of treatment by like…1.5 days. It can be a hard drug to take. Why add nausea and vomiting onto your flu symptoms if you don’t need it? I predict a flu strain with significant anti-viral resistance within the next few years due to overuse of Tamiflu. In our family, I would disagree with my H taking it (low risk), would definitely want my daughter to get it (asthma) and I would probably not take it.
However, I don’t agree with offices who tell people to just stay home either. This flu is scary and the pneumonia we are seeing in office is early and aggressive. We want to listen to lungs so we an appropriately prescribe antibiotics when we suspect a secondary pneumonia or intervene appropriately with a hospital admission for those who are just too weakened or dehydrated to continue with self-care at home.
Additionally, I find that young people in particular don’t know to appropriately care for themselves or others at home and I spend a good 5-10 minutes emphasizing: don’t go home and disappear into a room or let a loved one do so; check on them every 1-2 hours; provide frequent fluids, don’t let a loved one take a cough medicine at night and then sleep all night without getting up to get liquids, use the bathroom, move around a bit and cough; don’t hesitate to go to the ER if you struggle to breathe, feel your cough is worse,etc. etc.
My best visit to date was when a 16 year old berated her parents for not being intentional about getting the vaccine. She said “the first thing I’m going to do when I turn 18 is get my flu shot” lol!
This is a scary one folks.
We are all asthmatic in this household. In addition I have another even more serious lung condition. If anyone in our household gets ill and the flu is suspected, they are promptly started on Tamiflu. This is the first time all of us were given Tamuflu because D was suspected to have it. I think the doc is very concerned that D not get me or H sick.
This was the 3rd time I’ve taken a course of Tamuflu. It works great when I took it for s suspected course of flu. This time it worked great for D and it was a relief to see her improving from looking so hot and miserable. I had taken it within 48 hours for my prior courses and D just started it at the end of the 48 hour window.
I have never noticed any side effects from taking Tamuflu, nor did D or H. It was good D was staying at our home and we could be sure she ate and drank to have the strength to fight to recover.
Less. It shortens the duration for about 16 hours.
But there’s one group that Tamiflu definitely helps a lot: shareholders of Roche. Roche deliberately suppressed the evidence of side effects when getting the drug approved, and afterwards.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/21/medical-science-has-data-problem-284066.html
@carachel2 thanks for your post - I copied and emailed it to some Friends- thanks for sharing your insight
FWIW, I have had zero side effects.
@romanigypsyeyes that’s great! Some people have no problem. Some call us within hours with due to the nausea and vomiting.
There are definitely people who need Tamiflu and if your Dr or NP or PA feels you are in that group then by all means you absolutely need to take it, nausea risk or no.
ETA: I have a typo in my post above. Tamiflu shortens the length of SYMPTOMS by like 1.5 days. Not the length of treatment.
I’m wondering how previous exposure to certain flu strains is affecting immunity this year @carachel2 . When the H1N1 went around in 2009, it decimated my daughter’s high school. Only my husband and son got the vax because they rationed it, so my daughter got the flu like a third of her classmates. I thought I was doomed, but even after nursing her for a week, I didn’t get it. Her pediatrician thought it was because I’d had the Russian flu in the late 70s, which was related.
@Massmomm —that is a great epidemiology question and I have no answers!
This overstates medical consensus. All the studies on Tamiflu have been conducted by the manufacturer, Roche, and they have refused to release the data for some of them. But the data that has been released does not show a reduction in pneumonia or hospitalizations after administration of Tamiflu to people with the flu, nor does it show a reduction in symptoms for kids with asthma.
Here’s Cochrane on Tamiflu and Relenza: http://www.cochrane.org/CD008965/ARI_regulatory-information-trials-oseltamivir-tamiflu-and-zanamivir-relenza-influenza-adults-and
Moreover, the FDA has told Roche to stop saying that Tamiflu reduces complications from the flu.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20160331.054240/full/
^^^^Interesting.
After going through h1n1, I’m willing to take whatever small chance there is that tamiflu helps.
@“Cardinal Fang” —that may be true and without a doubt the makers of Tamiflu are bathing in the $$ this season. Most healthcare workers I know are not going to deny a high risk patient.
The question is whether the doctor recommends Tamiflu when the person is high risk, but doesn’t ask for Tamiflu. My husband and son have moderate asthma, and have never been recommended to take Tamiflu.
I think my very high risk lung condition biases our docs to recommend Tamiflu to minimize the chance I will get very ill and permanently lose lung function.
The times I’ve taken Tamiflu when we suspected I had the flu, it was like a miracle drug, even if my MD relative claims it was all in my head. I was grateful it helped me feel human again instead of being utterly miserable in every pore.
Unfortunately there is no evidence that Tamiflu has any effect on whether you get very ill and lose lung function.
Well, I will take what is offered (Tamiflu), even if the evidence is not clear that it helps rather than be a nihilist and resign myself to letting things run their courses. So far in these past 17 years, things have worked out pretty well.