DD and asthmatic DS have swine flu and it is not as bad as I feared!

[VerityBrulee]

DD came down with in on Monday, and while she has been very hot, coughing and sneezing and a bit of a sore throat she's not too bad at all. Dozed on and off for most of yesterday, now sitting up in bed eating porridge watching Aristocats!

DS1 and DS2 both have asthma, ususlly brought on by a cold/flu, ds1 particularly has had a lot of trips to A&E wih it, so I debated a lot about having the vaccine, but didn't in the end. I'm glad now.

DS1 started off with a temperature last night, is same as dd plus a bit of nausea, but his asthma is fine with regular puffs of ventolin, no need for nebulisers at all.

I'll be surprised if ds2 escapes, but he's fine for now, and I'm not too worried if he gets it, in fact it would be good to ge it over with.

I just wanted to reassure anyone who has been dreading it!

Hope they make a lovely, speedy recovery

Thanks!

BTW I have been giving ds Benelyn cold and flu which has paracetemol, but is more effective than just calpol.

how do you know it's swine flu?

Took dd to doctor yesterday, didn't swab her, but was fairly certain as it came on so quickly, has cough and sore throat.

Several children in her class and her teacher have it.

The concern is that all cases of flu like symptoms are being called Swine Flu because it has been declared an epidemic - thus making it an epidemic in statistical terms.

I cannot understand why testing stopped and proper diagnosis was cast aside. If I am ill, I want to know what's wrong with me based on proper diagnosis not an estimation of the likelihood of the illness!

well ds and dd have a cough and sore throat quite regularly since ds started school. I wouldn't be convinced it is SF, they were both diagnosed with it a few weeks ago but they recovered so quickly I am not so sure it was that. hope it is for you though.

It was cast aside because the numbers made it unfeasible. In July there were 100,000+ new cases a week estimated (pre helpline) and it is simply not possible at that level to have everyone tested.

It would be interesting to know what weekly level of consultations is low enough for them to consider testing again.

If you look at the HPA site you'll see that they are not simply counting up every person with flu-like symptoms and calling it swine flu. Believe it or not it has occurrred to the people doing the epidemiology that that would not be a good idea!

The bottom line is that a pandemic is a public health emergency simply because of the sheer numbers and regardless of how severe the illness is. As 'consumers' of the health service (not quite the right way to think of it, but some people do seem to have a 'disgruntled consumer' attitude to what's happening) we will obviously get a different service as one of hundreds of thousands than we would if there were lots fewer people with flu-like illness each week.

The supply of laboratory time can't meet up with the demand so diagnosis has mainly (but not entirely) switched to a much more hit and miss method. But the people counting the numbers know it's more hit and miss and allow for that when they're working out the spread of the new virus.

This has been quite different to other coughs, etc dd has had since sept in that it manifested itself so quickly - at 7pm she was dancing around the sitting room and by 7.30 she was obviously ill. Her temperature has been VERY high which is unusual for her.

Our gp said that the only flu cases she has seen in the last few weeks have been SF, although that may not be the case where you live.

If my doctor is confident that it is SW, then I may be niave but I am willing to accept that.

Clearly it is no picnic, ds was throwing up a while ago, but as I have asthmatic children I was very anxious that we would end up in hospital, and unless he deteriorates significantly I doubt that we will.

I thought that others parents of asthmatic children might be reassured by our experience

Thanks so much for posting this - my nearly 2yo DS gets very asthmatic if he gets a virus and we had a couple of dramatic hospital stays last winter so I've been feeling very worried about what will happen if he gets swine flu - so it's good to hear that it's not affecting your DS too badly. Wishing them all well very soon and hope it's not too exhausting for you nursing them all!

Thirtydrawers,
Is the number of people visiting doctors this year that much higher then?

Thanks tikkabilla, being stuck at home with sick dc is much easier since I discovered MN

Hope your ds has a good winter, it's much more frightening for them, and you at his age, I remember it well. My boys are 9 and 11 now, and find it much easier to cope with their asthma.

Look at the top of page 2

There's a graph showing GP consultation rates worked out from a scheme of 'sentinel' GP surgeries round the country - something that's been going for years as a way of tracking rates of certain illnesses. The peak in the red line at about week 28 was the peak of the first wave in the summer. Rates now are pretty low (which is why I was wondering if they might at some point go back to more testing).

Thanks so much thirtydrawers for the quick and useful response - this forum is quite amazing

oh I wasn't having a go, just wondered how you differentiated between seasonal flu and swine flu (or whether the kids had been swabbed). Ds has had a very nasty chesty cough but is right as rain now. Rather oddly, the asthmatic ones (dh and dd) didn't pick it up from him (despite dd sharing a bed with him for a few nights as we were away!).

Before the flu helpline they weren't - although the a lot of published lists all had a temperature as a defining symptom, the NHS symptom checker at that time actually didn't - for a while it had something on the lines of 'any two out of temp, cough, sore throat, ...' - so you could go through that symptom checker and if you ticked enough boxes get 'could be swine flu' as the result even if you didn't tick the temperature box.

Perhaps they have a temperature as a defining symptom now because they need to draw a line somewhere when deciding who does or doesn't get Tamiflu.