Is it the flu?

3/27/08

By Amanda Wozniak
Critic Staff

LSC Senior, Michelle French recently came down with a cold.

“I think I got it from school, just being around everyone else that’s sick,” French said. She has had it for about a week and is going to see a doctor. Her symptoms include a sore throat, runny nose and cough. She is also getting headaches.

She has missed two days of school due to her cold. Her roommate, who also attends LSC is sick as well. “I have what’s going around,” French said.

That’s not all that’s going around, however. “This year there is something else going around. It looks a lot like the flu,” Sue Duckett, a R.N. at the Brown House said.

About five to seven students arrive at the Brown House each day with the same thing. Students started coming in with these symptoms in November then it turned into a “tidal wave” of students, Duckett said. It peaked in January and February.

The students’ symptoms include body aches, fever, a dry cough, headaches, severe tiredness, and chest discomfort, all of which are commonly seen in the flu. Students’ symptoms also include nausea and diarrhea, which is not typical of the flu. Some students are even having a hard time getting out of bed because their body aches are so severe.

“I don’t know how many kids we’ve seen with it, tons and tons,” Duckett said.

Duckett explained that it is difficult to know whether or not these students actually have the flu. If a patient is not tested in the first 24 hours of the onset of symptoms it’s likely to come back negative even if it is present. “It seems like whatever ‘it’ is it’s pretty severe and pretty infectious,” Duckett said.

Almost all of the students that are arriving at the Brown House showing flu-like symptoms did not receive the flu vaccine. The flu vaccine protects against very specific types of the flu (groups A and B). This means that even with the flu vaccination people can still be infected by a different strain. Because viruses have the ability to mutate it can’t protect against all of them.

Duckett recommends getting the flu vaccine in late fall but says it can be taken anytime. The vaccine takes two weeks to become affective. She estimates that there is still about a month of the cold and flu season left.

The flu is an overwhelming infection in your body and can become pneumonia (inflammation of the lungs). Pneumonia can be bacterial or viral. In viral pneumonia antibiotics don’t help.

Duckett also works at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital (NVRH). She added that people with the same symptoms are overwhelming the hospital. Most people with symptoms didn’t get the flu vaccination while some did. A young healthy woman recently died at the hospital of influenza, something Duckett had never seen before.

Some new strains of viruses can be attributed to travel, which causes a wider spread of illnesses. “Viruses that used to be a little slower to travel around the world are fast,” Duckett said.

Viruses cause dehydration so people with flu-like symptoms or a cold should increase fluid intake. Fluids, rest and Tylenol for pain are three things that will help your body fight a virus. Antiviral medications can be given but they will only shorten the infection by about 24 hours and may lessen symptoms. People with asthma, emphysema, or HIV should take them.

Hand Washing is the best way to prevent a cold or flu. Avoid direct contact with people that are coughing or sneezing and try not to let yourself get run down.