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Fighting the Flu May Hurt Those Around You
sciencehabit writes "When you've got the flu, it can't hurt to take an aspirin or an ibuprofen to control the fever and make you feel better, right? Wrong, some scientists say. Lowering your body temperature may make the virus replicate faster and increase the risk that you transmit it to others. A new study claims that there are at least 700 extra influenza deaths in the United States every year because people suppress their fever."
read about it in the last few years after one of my kids had an almost 105 fever one week
human pathogens like the 98.6 body temp and a fever is the body's natural way of fighting these pathogens
the flu virus also likes low humidity which is why people buy humidifiers in the winter time
unless my kid has some crazy high fever i try to avoid giving him tylenol or some other fever reducer as long as possible. usually until its almost time for bed
Considering the population of the USA the percentage of the population killed each year by this is 0.00022300095%. On the other hand deaths for the flu have been as low as 3000 yearly so that's 23.3% of deaths. Still, the number of deaths compared to the population makes it comparable to winning the lottery in any case.
Yes, but sometimes it's over responsive. In this case, allergies. The only true long-term healthy solution to allergies is to physically move somewhere else; even if that means another city/state/country.
Or allergy tolerance shots. I get injected every week with a dose of what I am allergic to, in order to slowly build up my allergen tolerance and lower the amount of drugs I need to control my symptoms. It's to the point where I can now have pets!
Fevers don't kill people. The immune system isn't that self-destructive. The fear of fevers is a holdover from pandemics like polio where diseases associated with high fevers could kill or cause brain damage. The fever wasn't what caused the problems, but people didn't know better.
Exactly. For example, if you have a cold, the best medicine is Benadryl. Most of the symptoms of the cold are just an over reaction of your bodies imune system and you're basically having an allergic reaction to the virus. All the other over the counter cold medicines don't work very well and usually get you high as a kite. But the Benadryl almost always clears up my symptoms with nothing more than a little drowsiness.
This may surprise a lot of people here, but in Germany the general rule is, if you get sick on vacation days and have a medical attestation prooving it, your affected (infected?) vacation days go back in your unused vacation.
If the article is saying that taking these drugs perks the bug up as much as it does you perhaps the easy way to make it stop being contagious is to smoke some weed
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
When you're sick enough to (feel you) need medication, stay at home.
Don't spread germs all over the workplace / auditorium / public mass transport.
Ah yes, the pervasive "I GOT MINES" ... Baby Boomer?
"Socialism" really is a synonym for "badness" in the US, isn't it?
Socialism is an economic system where the state collects taxes to fund things like social programs, that allow people to do things like not work when they're sick without fear of, for example, starving to death. Socialism is also usually associated with regulation, such as laws that say you need to give your employees ample sick days.
Capitalism is an economic system where the market (which is generally controlled by those who have capital) makes the decisions. Although it's possible in a labor-shortage situation that employers would insist on sick employees staying home to avoid a productivity hit, in current corporate capitalistic practice this doesn't seem to happen. Employees are generally granted the minimum sick time required by law.
For examples, see Europe (lots of sick and vacation days, more socialist) versus the USA (few sick and vacation days, more capitalist).
When you're sick enough to (feel you) need medication, stay at home. Don't spread germs all over the workplace / auditorium / public mass transport.
Nice idea, but almost useless....
The typical incubation period for influenza is 1—4 days (average: 2 days). Adults shed influenza virus from the day before symptoms begin through 5—10 days after illness onset. However, the amount of virus shed, and presumably infectivity, decreases rapidly by 3—5 days after onset in an experimental human infection model. Young children also might shed virus several days before illness onset, and children can be infectious for 10 or more days after onset of symptoms.
What this basically means is that you are infectious the day before you show symptoms.....therefore you will not be able to ever stop the flu, at least not without a better vaccine (no, don't go pulling that Jenny McCarthy shit or I'll have to slap you); we can just mitigate some of the spread. It is incumbent upon the uninfected to keep from getting infected, as those who are will not know they are until its too late.
The science is that fever is an adaptive response to an infection. Yes, fever is what makes you feel like crap, but it changes the kinetics of viral (and bacterial replication). Ever notice that microbiological (especially bacterial) incubators are set to 37 deg C? That's the sweet spot for replication....change it and you put the invader at a disadvantage. Modern medicine unfortunately has taken on the dogma that: "If it ain't right, it needs to be fixed", a few (and growing) are starting to learn that not all that is wrong is bad....I continually rally against treating fevers less than 40 deg C (above that is concern for brain injury), but I have an uphill fight against an entrenched culture.
My personal strategy? I take the anti-pyretics so i can sleep or function, but reintroduce the elevated temperature by bundling up and keeping my core above 37 deg C. This is not scientific, just what works for me, YMMV and I won't be held responsible if you up and die from the flu as this is not my official advice.
This may surprise a lot of people here, but in Germany the general rule is, if you get sick on vacation days and have a medical attestation prooving it, your affected (infected?) vacation days go back in your unused vacation.
I like this part of Germany, but I don't like another part. You're required to go to the doctor if you're sick to get a slip of paper saying you're excused. For me, without a car, that means getting on a bus and / or train and spreading my germs and being out in the cold weather at the absolute worst time to be out in it. People get sicker when they are out in the weather. Been there. Done that.