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I never had the flu until I lived in the dorms at school. Lots of people + confined space + dry winter + central heating x lots of stress = great place to cultivate viruses. Last year my flu lasted the better part of a week during thanksgiving break and I had to quarantine myself from the cute baby cousins and dope out on Codeine-laced cough syrup.
I hope I can get a flu shot this year. I know there is some sort of treatment that shortens the duration of a flu, but you have to get it as soon as you show symptoms. I didn't go to the doctor until about three days into it, and it was too late.
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Viruses are only replicated in living cells. They are noncellular themselves and so can't replicate on their own -- essentially, they are just genetic material enclosed in a protein sheath.
[Since viruses are picky about their hosts, each species will only infect certain animals. In a non-host animal, the virus cannot be replicated. So it makes sense that we'd use dividing cells from an animal that is a disease vector to replicate the virus for the vaccine.]
[ October 06, 2004, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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Just in clarification, the reason why this British manufacturer was shut down was because something like 4 million units of the vaccine were found to be contaminated, and they could not ensure the safety of the rest from that manufacturer.
[ October 06, 2004, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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So, my friend who is staying with me is now sick. Headache, bodyaches, sore throat. She's been sick like this since she woke up this morning and has slept most of the day.
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No flu yet reported, so that would be beyond the pale. Are you going to be there to pamper and watch over her?
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I know that healthy adults have always been told to wait. I was not intending to get the vaccine this year, but now I'm pregnant and just barely into my second trimester. Should I get the vaccine, especially in light of the shortage?
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If you do, I would ask to see the label and determine that the vaccine you're receiving is thimerosol free. There are both thimerosol containing and thimerosol free flu vax on the market, and the thimerosol free ones are supposed to be reserved for children under two and pregnant women.
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Is there any reason why entire virus particles need to be used? Why not just some proteins from the coat?
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I suspect (but am not sure) that it's simply that proteins from the coat are ineffective. Some viruses are made up of many different proteins, and your body does not react to them all. After all, some of them are common in your body as well, so you'd be in trouble if it did. And flu viruses mutate rather quickly, so they don't always exhibit the same coat proteins.
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For an antipodean view: our flu season is also winter.
However I tend to get colds over summer a lot - some of that may be the increased air travel (summer holidays encompass both christmas and the new year) and air conditioning. We don't tend to have centrally heated everything in winter like North America does - it just doesn't get cold enough. But in summer, when the temperature hits over 40 C, it's air conditioning everywhere you turn.
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Noem, interestingly enough, the flu season in horses is in the summer, when everyone travels and brings thier horses to shows to meet up with other horses.
The human flu season was explained to me this way(though I defer of course to Sara, who is the knowlegeable one): We travel around in the summer, when the kids are all out of school. we pick up new bugs that we generally fight off. Then, when all the kids go back to school, they exchange bugs, and bring them home, and then mom and dad bring them to work.
I wish you had been the ER doctor when my 8-year-old daughter decided to attempt to cut a popsicle stick lengthwise with a chef's knife. photo after stiches removed (She doesn't do crafty things with knives any more.)
The anesthetic shot didn't seem to be very effective as she kind of screamed with every stitch. I don't think it was entirely a matter of needing to distract her from what was going on, as the doctor implied - I honestly believe she was in pain. I should have insisted on waiting a few more minutes to make sure the anesthetic had time to work.
Nobody in my family (DH, me, kids) has ever had a flu shot, although, as a diabetic, DH would certainly fit in the high-risk category. He's kind of a scoffer about medical stuff, though.
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Isn't there supposed to be atopical cream they put on the site befoe administering a local that numbs it up and makes it less painful?
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