Look, I want you to take this seriously
Jan. 14th, 2014 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrianemOn Monday, December 30 I developed a scratchy throat about mid-afternoon. By Monday night I was coughing and headachy. Over the next two days, the aches and fever appeared and worsened, along with my cough. Thursday, I saw my doctor, who prescribed Tamiflu, even though we were pushing the 48 hours from symptom onset window of efficacy. Friday morning I woke up coughing up the green gunk that indicates a secondary bacterial infection - three days into what seemed like a mild flu. And I'd had a flu shot.
Three days. Listen, it isn't the flu itself that kills you; it's the secondary bacterial infection, bronchitis or pneumonia, that the flu has stripped your lungs of their natural defenses to fight. That green gunk is what kills you. Luckily, my doctor was on board with even dormant asthma putting me in a high risk category, and immediately put me on antibiotics. I am mostly better, but my lungs are still recovering, two weeks later.
Do not ignore your illness. This flu doesn't present as obviously a flu. If you start to come down with what you think might be a nasty cold, go to the doctor anyway; that 48 hour window is critical to having help to fight the flu, or having to hope your immune system is up to the task all by itself. And from what I've been reading, most usually robustly healthy people are ending up with that secondary infection.
Make no mistake, this is an epidemic, and it is killing people. Please go to the doctor if you get sick!
Three days. Listen, it isn't the flu itself that kills you; it's the secondary bacterial infection, bronchitis or pneumonia, that the flu has stripped your lungs of their natural defenses to fight. That green gunk is what kills you. Luckily, my doctor was on board with even dormant asthma putting me in a high risk category, and immediately put me on antibiotics. I am mostly better, but my lungs are still recovering, two weeks later.
Do not ignore your illness. This flu doesn't present as obviously a flu. If you start to come down with what you think might be a nasty cold, go to the doctor anyway; that 48 hour window is critical to having help to fight the flu, or having to hope your immune system is up to the task all by itself. And from what I've been reading, most usually robustly healthy people are ending up with that secondary infection.
Make no mistake, this is an epidemic, and it is killing people. Please go to the doctor if you get sick!
