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General health

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Original poster

Swine flu.....just had it confirmed....both my kids have it...and its horrible...:(

70 replies

whispywhisp · 17/07/2009 12:42

Horrible....horrible.

Any one else got their kids ill with it?

Just waiting for my DH to get home so I can get the prescribed meds for them.

OP posts:

roisin · 18/07/2009 18:35

In terms of tablets whispywhisp I would not try and hide them, but be upfront about them. Tell her that she must take them to get better. Then teach her how to take tablets. This is dead easy:

Get some haribo gummy bears or similar and cut them up tiny - maybe a gummy bear into 4 pieces. Get her to try and swallow it without chewing. When she can do the little bits, try her on slightly larger pieces, til she can swallow a whole gummy bear. Then she will be able to take the tablets no problem!

My mum used to crush up tablets and mix them with marmalade on a teaspoon - it was gross, and still gives me shudders now!

TeaMonster · 18/07/2009 18:36

Hi Whispy - just wanted to send my love to you all and hope that you are all feeling better soon.

Tis MadHouse in Tea mode

Elibean · 18/07/2009 18:37

dds always have icy hands and feet with high temps, but never noticed the blue around the lips - that would freak me out, tbh, though if it goes away when she's feeling better/nurofen kicks in thats good!

atlantis · 18/07/2009 19:35

Whispy,

they say to ring 999 if a child goes blue around the lips/ fingertips, maybe you should call for advice.

Original poster

whispywhisp · 18/07/2009 19:50

DD2 has always gone blue around the outer edge of her lips when she's gotten cold...she's always done that and I've been told its nothing to worry about with her - she was born blue due to my waters going a week before she was born and ever since then she's been a 'cold' child - she absolutely hates the Winter months and will even wear a jumper during the Summer! I just keep her warm and top her up with something sugary and she's fine. As far as giving tablets with her is concerned - the tami-flu ones are in plastic capsules that I can split so not a problem to conceal in something - there is no way I'm going to risk trying to get her to swallow one when you're only prescribed 10 tablets...and when a child is clearly unwell and with a pretty awful sore throat the last thing I want to do is try and persuade her to swallow one, it get stuck or go the wrong way and her make herself worse. There's plenty of time to encourage her to swallow a tablet and with her currently poorly now is not the time! I will work on that little task with something simple like a vitamin pill or something you can take without having to be ill for, iykwim!

OP posts:

expatinscotland · 18/07/2009 19:54

in a way it's good they're not testing for it anymore. those swabs were nasty, and us two adults had to give blood, too.

PurpleOne · 19/07/2009 04:28

*shudders at expats swabbing and bloods!

prozacpopsie · 19/07/2009 18:21

My DS (3yrs in Sept) has SF. Worst day was Friday when his temp shot up to over 40 in under an hour - seriously sudden onset and very frightening! We were sure that it was SF straight away but the GP dragged us all down to the surgery to look at him anyway (I thought we weren't supposed to go out - typically useless of my GP). However GP did say that DS should avoid dairy for the duration of the flu as dairy is a breeding ground for bacteria. (DH works for British Medical Journal, so can back this up.) Unfortunately DS would NOT take anything that we put the tamiflu in (it's so bitter), so we eventually ditched it - as it only shortens the duration of the flu by a day or two, I can't really see that it matters too much.

My problem now is how to keep an ill/recuperating toddler busy/amused for the next 5 days (as we have to stay in for that time, so the Doc says) without us all killing each other?!

I have raging PMT, sore throat, a seriously short fuse and DS thinks I am a trampoline - bouncing on my sore () () seems to be his current favourite pastime.

Any advice for keeping him busy/amused and preventing me going bonkers?!!!

thegrammerpolice · 19/07/2009 19:17

Your poor ds. Hope he gets well soon.
Interesting about the dairy issue.
At least if he is bouncing on you he sounds like he is getting better?
When ds had it all TV watching limits were scrapped for the duration and he got to watch films and TV as much as he wanted

Flgihtattendant · 19/07/2009 19:23

I don't think we have it near us, well we might I suppose now, but I have a sore throat today. I feel like I'm getting a cold.
I guess it might just be a cold. Will go and check supplies of meds...

Original poster

whispywhisp · 20/07/2009 10:07

The sudden rise in temp is the scariest part I think. DD2's temp (5yrs old) shot up to over 40c on Thursday night - she was clammy when she came out of school on Thursday but overnight Thursday night it went up so quickly. The sudden onset of a high temp is one of the classic signs of this flu - not just a gradual rise like most flu's - this one goes up suddenly.

DD2's worst day was without doubt Friday too. I also find tami-flu hard to get into her. I have resorted to just giving nurofen every four hours - seems to help enormously but you know when its wearing off - she suddenly becomes very listless and even going for a wee is a hard task for her.

She still rough now - woke up this morning with the same dreadful throat she's had all weekend. She still has a temp altho not as high - only 38. DD1 (aged 10) still has diarrhoea and feels sick. Me? I'm just completely shattered. I find I feel better in the morning but by the afternoons I am on my knees with exhaustion - so unlike me. Even trying to eat something was almost impossible last night because whilst I think I'm hungry, and might put together a sarnie, by the time I'm sat down with it I feel too lousy to eat and don't.

We've lived off junk (crisps, choc) and plenty of fluids for the last few days. All ideas of healthy eating have gone out the window and as for tv...well, its been on pretty much permanently since last week. I don't care anymore!

OP posts:

Cheepz · 20/07/2009 10:19

how are you all doing - hope you are all starting to feel better and are over the worst

Original poster

whispywhisp · 20/07/2009 10:50

Hi cheepz...we're ok. Just all fed up, exhausted and waiting to feel better.

OP posts:

VaginaShmergina · 20/07/2009 10:53

Morning Whispy. Sounds like you still have your hands full How are you and Mr Whispy, do you thinkyou both have it too ?

Cheepz · 20/07/2009 11:02

Sounds like you are over the worst, have a friend who has just gone down with it yesterday and is feeling terrible so will be good to reassure that there is light at the end of the tunnel. fingers crossed you are fully recovered soonest

MumHadEnough · 20/07/2009 11:05

Hope you will all start to feel better soon Whispy and everyone else who has it.

Wow it certainly seems to be spreading fast now doesn't it. There are loads of folk on here who have it or their dcs have it. I still don't know anyone personally who has it and I live in a very large town on the outskirts of Glasgow. I also work in a healthcare related environment so I'm quite surprised that everyone round me isn't dropping like flies. I'm sure it will come thhough

Original poster

whispywhisp · 20/07/2009 12:41

Hi all & thanks.

DH is ok - he seems to have escaped it but then again he isn't around the kids as much as me. I'm not brill - yesterday was definitely my worst day. Just sitting here typing on the keyboard wore me out. It completely saps you of energy. No matter how much lucozade I get thru I don't seem to feel any better for it. At last the headache I had all last week seems to be going. I've pill popped so much for it - it was horrible waking up with the same awful pain that I went to bed with. Really demoralising.

My sister is a Manager of a dept in a local bank. She has 32 off in her dept at the moment with it. Her husband works as an Engineer and his mate is off with it (Engineer-mate - ie they work in pairs).

I agree there will be far more people affected with it before long - kids especially. I do think schools should close now rather than drag it on until the middle of this week. It would lessen the bug from spreading thru these hot, stuffy classrooms they have to sit in. Out of the two my youngest has been the worst affected and she is only 5yrs old - if I were a Mum of a child any younger than that, even a baby, I would be seriously worried. Their immunity levels are so low when they are so young. DD2 seems to be picking up as the day goes on today. Lets hope she's turned a corner. Her and her sister are back to bickering and falling out so they must both be feeling better whereas I could do with going back to bed.

OP posts:

MumHadEnough · 20/07/2009 12:44

OH they definitely seem to be improving then Whispy, bickering always a good sign . Is there no-one who can come round and let you go to bed for a few hours?

I would rather get it now than later tbh, but as I said, don't know anyone (yet) who has it.

Original poster

whispywhisp · 20/07/2009 13:28

No I don't actually mumhadenough and besides which I would hate to pass this on to anyone healthy! My eldest is old enough and sensible enough to keep an eye on DD2 if I wanted a nap so may do later on or atleast go and lie on the bed with a book. I'm in the middle of a brilliant book and, tbh, reading is all I feel like doing atm. I've just put a line of washing out and was glad to get back indoors. I've just done myself a cheese roll and I'm still sat here staring at it. The sight of food is making me feel sick yet I felt hungry when I made it....weird. The kids appetites are improving which is also a good sign. Our freezer has done well this last weekend - all the week's shop of freezable stuff has been put in because we ate next to nothing all weekend.

I'm wondering if this is a localised bug..I was looking at a map of the UK in the paper at the weekend and it seems the South has been quite hard hit. One of our local schools has now actually shut early for the Summer - not the school my kids go to but another one in the town I live in, because they were getting quite a few confirmed cases. When I rang the surgery on Friday morning they said they were inundated with reports of the bug.

OP posts:

alardi · 20/07/2009 13:45

Very localised, I think. We don't know of anybody who has it or has had it, although some of our contacts say that they know of someone who knows someone who has had it (usually diagnosed over the phone, so who knows if it was really swine flu or sommat else).

I had to rush DH to GP with terrible & unexplained stomach pains yesterday. I tried to consult NHS Direct first, but I couldn't get thru to speak to anybody after 10 minutes of waiting. So we tried Out of Ours GP, whose initial questions were all about SF symptoms even though we never said that DH had even a single swine flu symptom. It felt like we were wasting precious time with the SF screening.

It must be distressing if you really have SF but I can't help but suspect that a lot of people are wasting NHS resources with low priority queries just because they are worried about "possible" SF.

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