Flu to hospital

A friend of mine has just come home from hospital having been admitted with flu that caused pneumonia. In fact once they did tests they found she had Scarlet Fever not Flu.

And you also could not manage to get to any a & e department, so if anyone can do that, they haven’t got flu anyway, just a bad cold

If you see. £20 note on the floor and you can get out of bed to pick it up, you definitely have not got flu. If you really have flu, you feel so ill that you can’t get out of bed to pick it up. After having flu a few years ago I can understand and agree with this completely

Go to any A&E waiting room.........So were you the only one not seeking health entitlement?

om, .

I would be really interested to know how many of the people who have gone to A&E/called NHS Direct actually have flu. A small percentage, I would guess. Like so many other things there is a sense of entitlement, to medical treatment in this case. Go to any A&E waiting room and you'll see plenty of people with next to nothing wrong with them who have nothing better to do than overburden the NHS and stop people really in need from being treated promptly.

OldMeg what do you mean?

It was in the Lancet so the full text is available www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(14)70034-7/fulltext

From a quick scan - they looked at unvaccinated (against flu) individuals. Around 18% were infected (mainly children - infection rates decreased with age), three quarters of those 18% infected showed no symptoms.

Fly viruses are very rare in humans nezumi

I thought the flu jabs were only available October/November time.

Yes quite Elainel and it is contributing to current crisis. Last year's vaccine was not v effective. (This is the year the BMJ article will be referring to - not this year surely)
The vaccine is developed every year - a cocktail of the flu variants circulating in S Hemisphere in their last winter. New flu strains can emerge subsequently which are not covered by the jab.
I think even a smallish amount of protection against this horrible illness is well worth paying for.
Lasts winter was the worst winter in terms of deaths for a long time.
I'm making a prediction that this year we are going to have a worse one. This is based on the number of people I know that have been in bed with it over Xmas. This combined with the fact that bed capacity has been seriously cut back in the NHS by Jeremy Hunt (since the last flu epidemic when swine flu was about. And swine flu did not tend to effect the elderly.) It already sounds like some hospitals are completely backed up with ambulances waiting hours and paramedics looking after large numbers of people in corridors. And all routine surgery (hip operations etc) being cancelled to clear the surgical wards for medical emergencies.
Anyone who has not yet had a flu jab should do their bit - go and get a jab next week and help to limit spread in the community.

People are hospitalised with complications of the flu - pneumonia, sepsis, kidney problems, heart problems, problems from being already immunocompromised eg. diabetes, cancer, elderly, very young. Flu is not the reason for admission - the effects of it are.

Only had real flu once and vowed 'never again' - I am not yet eligible for a freebie vaccination (far too young ) but happily pay for one every year.
My DH has emphysema and flu would surely 'finish him off'

The doctor probably meant that usually flu strains only change dramatically every five years or so - so if you have flu then you shouldn’t get it again until the virus has mutated significantly or a new strain has come in. And if a new strain based on one you have previously had comes back years later you’ll be protected from that as well (see my swine flu link above)

The doc said that that attack has now probably immunised me for the next four or five years at least.
I thought that the flu virus, even if a similar strain, mutated. You may not get it as badly of course, but even the Australian flu of last year has mutated and the flu jab may not be so effective against it.

surely you get it in Scotland as a matter of course if you're in an older age group or have health issues.My OH who had a heart attack a few years ago gets notified every year as does my son...who hasn't health issues but was born very prem and had issues with his lungs...though not for a long time .No charge for either of them

I have had flu more than once, the first time was the Asian flu outbreak in 1957 and a couple of times since which just flattened me.
Unless someone has complications or is elderly and alone therefore cannot cope, there is no need to go to hospital.

However, if this is the Australian flu, we did encounter it (but didn't catch it) last year and it has proved to be quite devastating in some cases, especially young (30-40 age group) healthy adults.

I had the flu just once, in the 1980's, and was unable to even get to the loo without help. One unwelcome outcome that I've never heard of since, but my GP at the time said was quite common, is that it had a very damaging effect on my kidneys. I continued to have problems for many years after.

I don’t think I ve ever had real flu I ve had the softer version that even doctors call flu but I ve never had the type people here are describing I ve been achey had temp and other symptoms lasting maybe a week but always been able to get out of bed and make a drink or eat etc
Since having the flu injection some five or so years ago I ve had nothing much, not even very bad colds I ve never had any reaction to the injection either

From the original Lancet paper:

Seasonal influenza and the 2009 pandemic strain were characterised by similar high rates of mainly asymptomatic infection with most symptomatic cases self-managing without medical consultation.

In other words most people infected with flu did not get ill. And the majority who did get ill were only mildly ill - or at least not ill enough to see a HCP.

OldMeg.

They have the flu virus. They don’t develop the disease.

That’s why I distinguished between fly virus and flu illness in my first post.

nezumi that article is NOT saying that there are people who have flu but don’t show symptoms. It is saying that these people meet and carry the virus but don’t develop flu. It’s a misuse of the word ‘sufferer’.

These people are called ‘carriers’ - the most famous carrier, this time of typhoid, was a woman called Typhoid Mary. She was a carrier of typhoid (obviously) but didn’t develop the disease herself. However she managed to infect and kill others.

Greyduster that was the link I posted.

Yeah it will protect you from similar strains - probably for life (so until a new strain comes along). They said that was why older people were less likely to get swine flu - it was similar to a strain that circulated years ago so anyone who had immunity from an infection with that was immune to swine flu.

www.wired.com/2009/06/old-people-may-be-immune-to-swine-flu/

While searching for that link also came across this which is very interesting!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12152500

I gave up having the flu jab, too, even though it was free (paid for by employer) because it made me ill. I had never had the flu, but got such a bad bout last January that I was kept in hospital. It involved a lot of fainting, and general unwellness.

The doc said that that attack has now probably immunised me for the next four or five years at least.

I’ve never had the flu jab and never had something recognisable as flu (although clearly must have had a flu infection at some stage in half a century - just never had flu symptoms).

40% - better than nothing. I'll take that! I have been having the flu vaccinations for about 30 years. I think that was when they first became available and have never had an adverse reaction or a dose of flu, except a few years ago when a mutant strain of the virus arrived after the vaccine for that year had been developed which seems to have happened with this winter's jab.