I don't understand how they can be sure we have swine flu when the symptoms are commonly associated with so many other winter illnesses.

[Spidermama]

We've all got coughs, temperatures, feeling exhausted, the kids have sore tummies and we all have awful headaches. According to the online diagnostic test, we all have swine flu but I'm confused because aren't these symptoms the same for almost any other winter bug or flu/cold?

DH went away for a month today for work. I have asthma. DS has Diabetes although seems to be showing improvement mercifully.

I think it's the coughing that means it's swine flu, they are no longer testing people for this though so there's no way of knowing 100% if it is or is not.

We all had the same here. My belgian GP said no-one was testing anymore, and it didn't matter any way. Go home, take paracetomol, drink lots of fluid - phone back if dd's fever didn't drop or anyone got any worse. That was that - a bit of a anti-climax really!

My GP said to watch for respiratory problems, this is what's causing problems for people.

You can't know for sure about any individual case but they do do a lot of testing of samples and extrapolate from that. So they have 'sentinel' GP practices that always send off lots of samples for instance. They know from testing samples that any flu-like illness is more likely to be H1N1 than anything else right now, that's all.

It is a guess but an educated guess.

I have asthma too spidermama, and bronchitis as well at present. They can't tell for sure what it is without testing. It is very difficult. We've been diagnosed twice with SF so far this year, but I got a private test and it tested negative.

it's mad isn't it?! DS (3) has been told he's had suspected SF twice in the past month: both times based on croupy cough and sustained high temp not coming down with calpol/calprofen. Both times he seemed very ill for 48 hrs (mostly because of temp and cough) and then suddenly got better. In my book that can't equate to SF - especially as both times neither DH or I have subsequently come out with anything other than a bad cold. I don't think there's any real way of knowing at the moment to be honest, apart from time - I think if it is SF you are ill for longer?