Unkind Swine
The so-called plague is upon us. As some run for the hills, and others to their favorite apothecaries or foibles in white, we are besieged by incessant calls to action and a sense of urgency. We are told to vaccinate ourselves, our children, our loved ones, and our friends, lest we fall prey to a swine virus ever so unkind. As is usually the case when heart and emotions dictate to the mind, we jump on bandwagons, follow the Joneses, and are led by the blind, all the while ruminating in self-doubt and our abilities to make the right decisions. All we want to do is what is just and healthy. With little thought for our own well-being, all we aspire to, individually and collectively, is a safe environment for our children, first and foremost (if we want to be selfish, at the least), and for the rest of our nation and the world, when we are feeling especially magnanimous. No easy task when navigating through a morass of scientific information, pharmaceutical hustling over the airwaves, and a press more bent on sensationalism and selling copy than getting accurate information out to the public in a timely fashion. So, briefly, let’s debunk the hype, and with cooler heads take a look at this thing they call the swine flu, with a predominant eye turned more toward prevention with vaccination, than damage control after Pandora’s Box has been opened.
It is designated the 2009 H1N1 flu, and never before has the old adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” been more apropos. After all, a fever of over 100 degrees, cough, body chills, congestion, diarrhea, and vomiting don’t make anyone’s day. In fact, they can be downright dangerous in pregnant women, people of any age with heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and other chronic maladies, children under 2 years of age, and people over 65. To make matters worse, fever is not always present, and that can lead to a dubious diagnosis between swine flu and the common cold. So, let the buyer beware! A short course of the new swine flu vaccine, whether that be one dose or two, depending on an as yet to be made pronouncement by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and experts in the field, along with the regular flu vaccine, may be just what the doctor ordered. While a maximum of three doses, with the two swine flu doses in one arm and the single regular flu dose in the other, may not be the pleasantest of experiences, it sure beats the hell out of the shortness of breath, chest pain and pressure, confusion or seizures, persistent vomiting or inability to hold down liquids, and bluish lips that mandate a high-speed cruise down to the emergency room. The problem is that while health authorities expect the swine flu to peak in October, affecting up to 50 percent of the U.S. population, most vaccine doses are not expected to arrive until November or December. So, what good is vigilance and proactivity, you ask? Not much, sometimes. All we can do is wait, hope, and keep our fingers crossed. Impotence in the face of possible imminent disaster is the stuff of horror movies and Halloween, and not what we’ve come to expect from a health care system that propones to be at the acme on the world scene.
Family physicians, internists, and pediatricians would much rather receive “preemptive” calls from their high-risk patients, than cries for help after the swine flu has already set in. Care should be taken by parents and teachers alike to watch the activity levels of children and, at the first sign of lethargy or listlessness in their charges, call in the cavalry. Anti-flu medications prescribed by the men and women in white, whether they be Tamiflu® or Relenza®, stand their best chance of working if they are administered within the first 48 hours of flu symptoms. A task made no easier by still another fork in the road, and, namely, the $100-price tag of the anti-flu drugs, which many uninsured Americans can ill-afford to pay. Those fathers, mothers, young children, and extended families are precisely the foci of prospective or actual infection that need to be targeted, too! Realizing this, the federal government has gotten off its duff, for once, and shipped millions of doses of the medications to the states, with Texas taking the lead to allocate a good portion of its ration to those most wanting economically. New York has also placed its best foot forward, offering free swine flu vaccinations to its over one million schoolchildren.
The stage is now set for the unkind swine flu to materialize, with its 1-3-day incubation period for symptoms to appear after exposure to the virus. Before high tech kicks in, Mom’s age-old remedies for the flu make good sense, and should stave off or at least ameliorate its onslaught. At first sign or symptom, stay at home and rest, limit your contact with people, drink plenty of fluids, practice good cough and sneeze hygiene, and wash your hands and the surfaces you come in contact with frequently. Only then can we envision a kinder, gentler swine flu.
ã 2009, Albert M. Balesh, M.D. All rights reserved.
posted by Dr. Al at
9/07/2009 01:04:00 PM
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