Critically Ill Swine Flu Patients Spend Weeks in Intensive Care

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu sufferers who developed life-threatening complications during the pandemic’s initial wave in Ireland occupied intensive-care beds for weeks, pointing to a potential area of strain from any winter surge in cases.

Nineteen patients with the new H1N1 virus admitted to intensive care units from April 28 to Oct. 3 stayed an average of 25 days, Irish health officials said in a study yesterday. More than half were still in ICU on Oct. 13, when the study was being prepared, marking one patient’s 62nd day of critical care.

I thought I had H1N1, but it's just an upper respiratory/sinus infection. The swab up the nose I could've lived without. (ack!!)

Lots of sick people wearing masks in the waiting room. I wouldn't have even gone, but my boss wanted to know if it was H1N1, which is reasonable, and my daughter woke up with the sniffles, so I kept her out of school, and they want to know.

They tell people to stay home, but the schools and workplaces say to see the doctors.

I dunno, I am glad I don't have H1N1, but I wonder how many of us really had to be there, if not pressured to check by business and schools.

It's a little ceramic teapot looking thing. You pour a saline solution into one nostril...It goes up into your sinuses and comes out the other nostril. It is soothing and healing. Can be used as a preventative measure as well, as soon as your sinuses start to bother you.

Cmauk... that's a helluva good idea!

WHAT IF there were a real medical emergency? What if there were some kind of bio-attack? Use their own fear tactics against them to motivate their ass!

It's in everybody's best interest to make sure "who pays" isn't a concern. A system that pays doctors and hospitals should be in place anyway.

By the way, where I in live in Eastern Europe, H1N1 is officially an epidemic with everybody covered in masks, but I think it's mass panic and silliness. Still, I got sick yesterday and I checked the symptoms on the old Google and they kind of matched up -- but then I didn't get too terribly sick and I must not have it. Just a bad cold.

But I *did* research the treatment. And what is it? Blood transfusions? Medevac'ed out somewhere on choppers?

No, you're supposed to stay home for about a week, rest up and don't go outside till one day after the fever subsides. And that was it. If you've got loved ones at home, they can go about their business and go to work as usual. So one gets the impression it's become a wee bid, uh, sensationalized.

My son called me Wednesday at 7 am and said he was dizzy and hot. I was at his apartment by 7:45 and his temp was >103 F, and he had a terrible sounding cough. I took him right to the emergency room where I work, he was seen within minutes, diagnosed presumptively with H1N1 and got a prescription for Tamiflu and one for Vicodin (he had a killer headache). I went to our locally owned pharmacy and was home with him by 10 am and he had already taken his meds in the car.

He was markedly better the next day and by Friday his temp was normal and he was tired, but okay. Sunday he was completely recovered.

The secret is to get treatment right away after symptoms begin. I don't know what the ER visit cost. The Tamiflu was $86, and my copay was $24.

I seem to have dodged the bullet myself; I was so careful and washed my hands every 5 minutes. I somehow got a terrible cold, but no flu symptoms and so I think I'm safe.

How many people without insurance will go right away to get care? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't, and the point of Tamiflu is that you end up being contagious a shorter time, and you also are far less likely to develop the complications associated with bad outcomes.

For a country that has relied on the local grocery store to manage public health, it is time to wake up and go kicking and screaming into the 21st century.