It’s here. My older pair of kids (5, 2.75) both have it…..diagnosed by their pediatrician. Now we’re hoping that our newborn can find a way to dodge it.
If you or your kids haven’t had it….believe me, it’s ugly. Sudden onset (just a few hours from fine to…not fine), very high fevers (up to 105!), lots of coughing, major aches and pains, GI issues….ugly.
If you or yours have yet to get it by the time the H1N1 vaccine arrives in your area, do everyone a favor and get vaccinated.
Sorry to hear this Jason 
Hope your kid’s can kick it quick and be back to normal 
Not good Jason. I hope they can shake it and your newest avoids getting it. Will be thinking of them,let us know how they are fairing over the next few days.
Sorry to hear it Jason. Damn swine-flu 
Dude I am praying for them.
Luckily 
The wife is still without a paying job, so our kids stay home, hopefully that will be enough to avoid it for us, our kids will get the vaccine as soon as it’s available to us.
We’ll send some prayers your way.
I know you know all of this,but…
Jesus Jason, that’s not good. Not that you take any less steps to get them through it, but did the doc take the swab? It takes days for the results to come back.
Make sure you and mom take precautions as well.
Our thoughts are with you. As a father of 3 school age kids this is a big worry for us also.
This can be very scarry. I recently went to assist with a neighboring department on a 6 year old with possible flue like issues and by the time we arrived the kid had stopped breathing and died a short time later. This just happened two weeks ago. I have a 19 month old at home with another on the way and all I could think about about is them. Very scarry stuff. Good luck.
Sorry to hear this Jason. Take good care of them and pound the vitamin C yourself and stay hydrated!!!!! My cousin and his 2 boys just had it over the last few weeks and it was bad but they got through it just fine.
Jason,
Hope your little one stays away from it. I took my 4 yr old to the doctor on Monday. She has been sick for 1.5 weeks now. She started to get better after 3 – 4 days and then was sick again. My wife an I were both sick (fever, soar throat, aches/pains, head ache, etc..) Anyways, theirs are alot of sick people right now. We were instructed to put masks on right when we went into the Stillwater clinic. There were a half dozen others their that were sporting the masks. Saw the doctor and as soon as he heard my wife and I had fevers with the other symptoms, he says its most likely H1N1. No tests.. No medicine. He just wanted to make sure my daughters lungs were still not full of fluid – pnemonia. That night her temp hit 103.9. Thanks to Motrin her fever came down. She is doing better now too.
Went into work on Tues. Turns out there are at least 8 other families that work in my area that have gone through the exact same thing. 
Sorry to hear that Jason. The hospital I work at in New Ulm got its first doses of the H1N1 vaccine (only a limited # for health care workers). It will be a couple weeks before its availabe to the public. The CDC has done a bad jpb at settign protocol for ditribution and prioritizing who gets it first. make sure to keep your kids out of school for a week and stay home from work for that long if you can. It sounds very scary but it really hasn’t been any worse than the normal strains of Flu on any given year YET. 30-40K die each year from the regular flu just not news worthy. The vaccine that is coming out is very effective so it will be worth your while to get it. good luck
Jason, Our Dr,prescribed Tamiflu for both of my kids. Seemed to help.
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The vaccine that is coming out is very effective so it will be worth your while to get it.
This is what concerns me the most. There is little to no research available that amounts to anything other than a sales pitch. No one wants to remember or discuss what happened in 1976 with the H1N1 vaccine and just go to pushing this stuff out in record time. But they sure do a great job of making us feel like A Holes for not getting our kids vaccinated, not that it is available.
Also as mentioned the H1N1 is less deadly at this point than the normal seasonal flu. And it isn’t like H1N1 is new, we know it’s been around since at least the 70’s. I’m sorry to those that get such a newsworthy sickness but to be truthful it starts to get be like the kid who cried wolf. Look back on the last 5-6 years at all the pandemics. Bird flu, ebola, now “swine flu”. There are a couple more I can’t recall.
Jason I hope your children shake this bug and fast. I’d feel the same way if they were sick with the seasonal flu as well of course.
I feel your pain, we got the same garbage here in the Bowman house too, it sucks
I hope your family a speedy recovery 
This is one nasty bug, and it’s affecting my two kids in much different ways.
My 5-year old is consistently subdued, with a fever that has not budged much from 102 since Friday night.
My 3 year old, down since Thursday night, swings between normal and awful as his fever oscillates between 99 and 105 (!).
As sick as they are, they still find a way to fight about which DVD we’re going to watch next
Lots of coughing going on…and lots and lots of handwashing.
Someone asked if they tested positive for H1N1: their pediatrician’s practice stopped testing kids about 2 weeks ago, because EVERY kid that presented with these symptoms was testing positive. Also, no Tamiflu for them because (1) their practice is very conservative when it comes to medicating young kids, and (2) they have no underlying health conditions.
“My 3 year old, down since Thursday night, swings between normal and awful as his fever oscillates between 99 and 105 (!).”
This started for us on Friday, same thing with my daughter. She is at 99 and then an hour later she is up at 103-105. She did get tested and it was positive for H1N1. She is on Tamiflu, but really no signs that it is helping, yet.
Not being a doctor or anything.
But what I heard is most devasting/dangerous is controlling the fever. If you control the fever, the bug will run its course and the child will be fine.
It is that 105 temp that is so dangerous for anyone, especially kids.
Nowadays, most people just really don’t get the flu bug that often. Lots of people experience the “24-hour flu”, which 95% of the time is a form of food poisoning.
We tend to forget what the “real” flu bug is and how bad it is and how long it hangs on for.
Neighbor girl had it for 4-5 days. My kids and extended family have been lucky thus far. But I’m sure it is coming between day care and school.
Keep them hydrated and watch for worsening symptoms. As far as the screening tests go, most can now differentiate between flu A and B. H1N1 is an A flu, so if the screen is positive for A it is assumed it is H1N1 as there are no other circulating A seasonal flus out there right now. Also note that the screening tests are just that, and can have false negative and positive results, some of the negs are as high as 40-60% false for H1N1 so most patients are being treated by symptoms alone. Good luck Jason!
I hope all the kids with this thing are kicking it soon. My prayers are with everyone.
This one has me a little paranoid. I have had pneumonia 3 times in my life, albeit it when I was very young and 6 months old. So it is a little unnerving. However, I don’t get sick very easy or often now.
Hopefully this thing mutates into some wussy strain soon so we can be done with it.
Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate. The littel one (2.5yrs) had it 9/19 – 9/21. Went in with a spiked temp anywhere from 99 – 103.7. Kept her out of daycare and by Tuesday she was fine. Neither my wife nor I got it, thank god.
Hope everyone recovers.
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The vaccine that is coming out is very effective so it will be worth your while to get it.
This is what concerns me the most. There is little to no research available that amounts to anything other than a sales pitch. No one wants to remember or discuss what happened in 1976 with the H1N1 vaccine and just go to pushing this stuff out in record time. But they sure do a great job of making us feel like A Holes for not getting our kids vaccinated, not that it is available.Also as mentioned the H1N1 is less deadly at this point than the normal seasonal flu. And it isn’t like H1N1 is new, we know it’s been around since at least the 70’s. I’m sorry to those that get such a newsworthy sickness but to be truthful it starts to get be like the kid who cried wolf. Look back on the last 5-6 years at all the pandemics. Bird flu, ebola, now “swine flu”. There are a couple more I can’t recall.
Jason I hope your children shake this bug and fast. I’d feel the same way if they were sick with the seasonal flu as well of course.
H1N1 is one of many versions of the flu. Period. My kids will not be getting the shot. Sorry to hear about some peoples stuggles. 30-50 thousands deaths a year due to the flu…extremely skewed!!! All how you put the study together. Scare the public!! The flu vaccine is a billion dollar business each year. Immunosupressed people will struggle…yes. They get a flu or cold which then leads to pneumonia. Over 100 thousand die from an infection acquired while in hospitals for something entirely different. Eat healthy, take some vitamins to boost immune function, sleep, hydrate, etc. jmo.
Ted, why are you not getting it for the kids? I thought kids were supposed to be the ones who should get it first?
I’m in health care, and I’m a little hesitant if I want the vaccine or not? As soon as it is available, I’ll head in and talk to the Occ health person first. I need to find good info about the side effects soon. I don’t want to rely on the media for info.
daughter and I diagnosed with it today.
I have had mine for 4 days…5-7 days run its course
daughter started this morning.
Len
My wife is a nurse, and in the DNP program (Doctorate of Nurse Practioning) and I am with her and Ted on this one…I’m not going to vaccinate- There is a lot of debate, but I believe vaccines make things worse.
Jason, sorry to hear that your kids are sick- Curious though, if they are hesitant to prescribe medication, why are they so quick to vaccinate or recommend it?
From the many articles I have read I see no reason not to immunize. I have never had a problem with regular flu-shots and this one is basically the same thing. Sure there is some risk. The long term tests are not complete from what I read. Here is a small blurb about it on the net. All anyone can really do is go with who they trust.
“Every year or so, the seasonal vaccine — which includes a component based on the seasonal H1N1 virus — is tweaked to match a flu virus that has changed its genetic makeup. The same kind of tweaking resulted in the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.
That’s why the FDA approved it: They considered it just a strain change, and not a brand new vaccine.
Even so, both long- and short-term clinical trials are under way. Results from the short-term studies already are here: Other than causing the usual soreness and perhaps redness at the site of injection, the vaccines cause no major side effects.
And like the seasonal flu vaccine, the H1N1 swine flu vaccine can’t be taken by everybody. The vaccine is produced in hens’ eggs, so people with egg allergies cannot take the vaccine.
Will there be long-term side effects? That’s not likely — but the CDC is taking no chances. The CDC and vaccine manufacturers have beefed up their safety monitoring process to look for anything unusual in people who get vaccinated against the new flu.
“
An update….and an aside from the immunization debate.
My oldest is back to almost 100%.
My 3 yo son developed pneumonia in both lungs as a secondary infection and is working his way out of the woods. He spiked a 105.8 temperature two days ago while at the docs….that’s some serious sick, right there. I never thought about having to mourn my son until two days ago and I hope I never have to do so again.
I’ll try to avoid sounding like the guy with all the answers, but I will say this: if you decide to not get the flu vaccine this year, I hope you’re prepared to go through what my family and I have gone through over the past couple of days. Hopefully it won’t happen to you….but it might.
I would take the 5 – 7 days as an average. It’ll be 2 weeks this Friday that I haven’t felt good. The first 3 days, I felt real crappy. The rest of the time its been comparable to a bad cold. The last couple days, I’ve started to feel better, but still not good.
For me, the jury is still out regarding flu vacinations. I’ve been getting flu shots since we had kids 6 years ago. I can’t say I’ve been sick any less the last 6 years than I had been prior to getting the shots. My guess is we will trust our doctor. If they say we should get the H1 shot, we will get it. You won’t see me being accused of being a Scientologist.
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Ted, why are you not getting it for the kids? I thought kids were supposed to be the ones who should get it first?
I’m in health care, and I’m a little hesitant if I want the vaccine or not? As soon as it is available, I’ll head in and talk to the Occ health person first. I need to find good info about the side effects soon. I don’t want to rely on the media for info.
Jon,
Just found out Dr. Oz(one with his show on t.v.) is not getting his wife or 4 kids vaccinated. There are two interviews posted here http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/13/Dr-Oz-Helps-Shill-the-Flu-Vaccine.aspx# showing this. He is getting it because he has to.
Quoted from same link above…
[Study after study (that was not unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry) has reached the same conclusion—that flu shots simply do not work as advertised. For example:
Giving young children flu shots appeared to have no impact on flu-related doctor visits or hospitalizations during two recent flu seasons, according to a study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
The flu vaccine is no more effective for children than a placebo, according to a large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
NO studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly.
A study published in the Lancet just found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people. Why is this important? Because 35,000 of the 36,000 “flu” deaths the government claims happen each year are actually caused by diseases like pneumonia, and NOT the flu.
Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent now.]
I am not trying to start a heated debate. Just answering Jon’s question. I respect each person’s personal view with regards to vaccination. If a person does choose to get a flu vaccination, or any other vaccination for that matter, make sure you request a single dose vial of the chosen inoculation. By doing so, you will safeguard yourself against additional preservatives which would include thimersol(mercury) or aluminum derivatives…which are bad. This is a fishing site so I won’t be posting on this post anymore. Anyone that has thoughts or questions can pm me.
Ted
First of all, stop listening to the media, your cousin’s nephew’s buddy, some internet blog or Dr. Phil.
Go talk to your doctor about the shot. Do what you and (s)he decide is best for you and your family. In the VAST majority of cases this will include getting the shot(s). If you don’t get the shot and do get sick, be prepared to spend 7-14+ days out of work recovering and potentially infecting other family members. Good luck even trying to work during those 7-14 days – I doubt you will get much sympathy by infecting co-workers…
I am in health care. So is my wife. I got my shot. My wife got the shot. My two sons have gotten the shot. We will all get the H1N1 shot when it is available to us. In general modern day vaccinations have been a massive success story. Don’t go by what I say, though, talk to your doctor.
Best of luck to Jason and his family, sounds like hopefully things are starting to turn around for the better. Its definately scary thats for sure, but that what the flu (H1N1 or “regular” flu) will do, and thats why we have flu shots as a defense. May not be 100%, but its better than nothing. I know the whole IDO family wishes his family a full and speedy recovery…
Mike
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