The flu season is upon us

I caught the bug a few days ago, now this is Day 5.

This past weekend was the worst. Alternating between chills and fever. Chills so bad that you stay cold (or feel cold) even when you crawl into a bathtub full of nearly boiling water.
With fever, sitting at your desk, and sweat pouring down your forehead.

Add caugh, your whole body aching, feeling dizzy but not able to fall asleep, your head feels like it's spinning.... cough so bad it's ripping your throat apart...

No treatment for it.

Oh, there is some snake oil, like aspirins, teraflu, cough syrup, and such but in my experience, it doesn't really work, and you are sick until you just live through it, about 10-12 days and the worst is usually over.

They can put a man on the moon but cannot treat common cold/flu.

I heard one theory that you can take large dozes of Vitamin C in the early stages, even tried it myself but haven't noticed any difference.

Also drinking hot tea with honey kind of helps the cough a bit ...

Funny thing is I get ill during the summer, usually from mosquito bites. The past July I had some mosquito bites on my neck. A few days later I felt weak. For the next two weeks I alternated between freezing and sweating, hardly being about to stand up, fever alternating from slightly elevated to as high as 106 or 107. It took a good three weeks for my immune system to get rid of most of whatever it was (I suspect it was West Nile virus). I still have occasional aches in my left ear (the same side as the mosquito bites).

You're right-there's no quick or easy cure for these things. They just have to run their course.

I hope you're feeling better soon. You might try Vitamin E also. I've been taking that whenever I discover mosquito bites. So far I haven't been seriously ill again from a bite.

I feel for 'ya etc. Sounds like you have it bad.

I started getting flu shots a couple of years ago after I had it so bad, I totally missed Christmas and New Years. That made a believer out of me.

The flu is nothing to mess around with. It kills people every year.

Take good care of yourself man. At least you caught it early enough that you'll be good-to-go by the holidays.

-Bill

jtr1962

Thanks re: advice about Vitamin E.



cd-card-biz

Good point man.



Now, to make things worse, this past weekend, when I seemed to hit the bottom, there was a power outage as the icing on the cake. The first one I ever experienced since getting all these LEDs. Shyte seems to go wrong all the same time. I was visiting and friend, and while she had *some* (pitiful)
lites, otherwise she was totally unprepared (for financial reasons, I understand). Still, how much can a LP burner cost used at a flea market, all of $10?

The wind was horrible, along with the darkness and rain and wind. The wind knocked out road signs and stop lights were swinging at 45-60 degree angle it seemed.

I used some of my lites... but the flu took all the fun out of it. Misery was the name of the game.

Tried to go to sleep, but couldn't. Needed to drink something hot (I was in the "chills" territory) I drove to the local McDonalds, ordered some hot water (it's the only thing I can tolerate on their menu) and was sitting at a table shaking, my little alum 2AA lite in front of me. I brought my own tea bags.

It's past 10pm, some questionable characters show up. Mostly just high school kids trying to look Kool.

There was this punk wanna be (low riding pants, camo jacket) sitting near me. I was friendly and explained about the power outage (since in town, there was none) and how I was there warming up (vs. chilling-out)

He was pretty friendly, looks at my compact lite and goes --- Is this a bright lite? (Whatever that means)

I say yes and hand it to him. He cuts it on - goes hey, look at this -- showing it to his buddies. (think Planet of the Apes scene where the Apes see this high tech space ship land for the first time, utterly stunned and speechless at this manifestation of such superior technology) At this time I was sort of 'out', in between consciousness and passing out, that annoying state, so all I could do was sit back and pretend to grin.

Well, he hands it back to me, but his buddies strike a conversion about lights. Some girl says, *everyone* in my class has one of these shake lites. I really want one. I thought if I had an older lower powered alum lite I kind of obsoleted, I would get it for them, but alas, it wasn't in my car. Then my attention drifted away from them. I got another 16 oz of boiling water and drove back to the darkness and cold.

The next day, it was much nicer, the wind was gone. I was marginally better too.

I was helping my friend fix her car, change the starter on an early 90's 'Rola. What a PITA. I actually had a buddy helping me and together it took us about 2 hours. Once you know how it's really not that bad, but bring different extentions, ratchets, sockets... I was able to foresee these problems and brought more than enough tools. So it went fine.

Mental Note to self:
Do not use a powerful 4D Lite to work on a car. You cannot insert it into the engine bay, liting up various hidden bolts. I used the pocket lite and it worked beautifully, even on half-discharged cells. Did not get a chance to use the headlamp that much, but thankfully the power got restored the next day. I was pleased with the run time.

Oh yeah, the mineral glass held up beautifully on both units, the supersized and pocket sized. I was wondering if it was gonna get scratched or broken. No problems. I did drop the little lite many times, (it's beginning to look used), even rolled over on top of it when crawling from under the car.


Now back to the flu. The latest recommendation I heard was to drink heated red wine for cough. I just tried some and man, this is some nasty shyte. (I am not a big fan of alcohol to begin with)

Some insist that the fact that the new flu arrives with the Leonids is no coincidence.

It might as well.

yup, the flu is misery incarnate. If it doesn't kill you it at least makes you wish you were dead. Getting a really good one some year is usually enough to make people start getting the shots. Thats what convinced me about 12 years ago now and I've been flu free ever since knock knock. I spent 2 days sleeping on the floor in my bathroom and another 2 or 3 barely able to get form the bed to the bathroom.
It's an order of magnitude worse than the worst cold you ever had. My mother cracks me up saying things like "I had a touch of the flu" and other such things. The flu is WAY different than anything you get a touch of. UGG!

Sleep, drink lots of fluids. Thats about all you can do. If the drugs to alleviate the symptoms work for you then take them, but nothing will make you any better any faster. I've followed the vitamin C research hoping there was something there, but the last stuff I read all said it didn't make a bit of difference.

Yeah, you know, now that you say this, next year I will definitely get the shot. It's not really a near-death-experience but certainly feels like it.

To make things worse, I am real susceptible to bronchial (respiratory) infections, triggered by flu and often enough, allergies.

When you are sick, you don't enjoy anything really, not even food. (And I really enjoy good food when things are normal)

Anyway, enough complaining and pity party.

All is under control and the lites are still bright.

I am basically warning others to watch out. It's the public places that concern me, like bathrooms and door knobs everywhere. But, seems like no matter how often you wash you hands, you get the bug anyway...

I hope you're feeling better soon, Etc. Yes, hot tea with honey is good for a cough. So is hot lemonade.

During cold/flu season, don't eat out so much, try to make your own food, thoroughly cooked. Limit close contact with people in crowds.

Just went through catching a virus probably from a restaurant, just last month. Gave me and my girlfriend the same cold sweat, shakes symptoms. Miserable!

The worst flu I contracted was from a coworker returning from a trip to India. He got sick with some Indian flu and gave to all of us in the office. Not enough illness to keep you off your feet, so all of us had to come in to work. Lasted 6 weeks, with the last week being full blown symptoms probably brought on by a weakened immune system.
Worst time of my life, illness, then layoff, then divorce, in the span of 8 weeks.
At least I survived the lousy flu, lousy job, and lousy wife!

I always have Vitamin C, Garlic & Horseradish to prevent colds and Echinacea tea with honey if I have one to help with the symptoms. Thats on top of the cold and flu tabs which do help me sleep a little.

I did not have a flue/cold for almost three years now and I hope I will be counting a few more years!

Eric

There was yet another study recently of Echinacea and in adults and children they can't say that it does anything at all for your immune system or colds. There was a good consumer labs study of various brand name preparations of Echinacea. Several of which ended up containing almost no Echinacea in the first place, and 2 of them were contaminated with high levels of lead!

So make sure you're buying a brand that passed the no lead test at least as that would turn something mostly harmless into something really bad!

My advice is this:

1. Get your flu vaccination well ahead of the flu season.
2. Sleep and eat well.
3. Keep warm.
4. Avoid standing near let alone in front of any body that sneezes and cough.
5. In enclosed space - open the windows to allow better ventilation.
6. Play with your torches each day.

If you have children, there is no good solution other than wearing a mask when you attending to unwell kids. I don't care about this even when I knew that I will catch what they have got. They are more precious than me.

Eric242 said:

I did not have a flue/cold for almost three years now and I hope I will be counting a few more years!

Eric

Click to expand...

I can hear you coughing now. You jinxed yourself! *sigh* I couldn't get out of a meeting quick enough and missed the free round of flu shots for our office.

I think I got it at a sushi restaurant. Lots of raw fish. That's not a problem in and of itself, but the silverwave (tongs) were handled by hundreds of people. Even though I don't eat sushi with my hands and use provided chopsticks -- although I did use a fork a few times, there is too much bad contact with too much potential bad stuff.

The sushi was very good, but the entire place was kind of questionable hygeine wise. No, they did a very good job and kept things reasonable clean, but I am not sure I want to share tongs with 300 other people.

I thinik I am going to quit going to public food places.

If you saw how your food was prepared, you wouldn't go there either.

At one pizza place, the manager would accept cash "drops" from drivers, put them in storage, then if there was a shortage of food makers, make pizza with the same hands, no gloves. Some 22 year old immature kid. I don't know if he washed them or not, but that gives me no confidence at all.

I heard this other story where I was warned not to eat at a certain KFC because they had rats in there or something to that effect crawling all over things.

The ppl that work there aren't exactly rocket scientists.

I don't know if such is the case here, I caught the bug strictly from another person, but it's the final straw for me, anyway. From now - will cooking my own food. It's healthier and easier on your wallet, too.

DAY SEVEN

I feel marginally better during the day, but at night the fever comes. Weird.

Drink plenty of liquids (orange juice, tea, water). I don't leave the house during flu season. Too many sick people touching everything, coughing, sneezing, etc.

Yeah, and the ones that don't get sick, are still carriers...

I've been reading about various flu epidemics, it's nothing to joke about. During WWI, more US troops died from flu than from military casualties.

Granted, we have better medical treatment than 90 years ago, but it's no joke. The flu knocking you out for 10 days is kind of the best case scenario.

I feel your pain; I've been there.

I had the flu so bad once, with a very high fever, I couldn't get any water to drink. I just fell getting out of bed; spent about 20 hours on the floor. Couldn't reach a phone. Just wanted to die. My Glock Model 19 was on the bed stand; I looked at it for a LONG time.....I could have reached it, too.

Where I work, they give flu shots every year for free. If you think about it, it's cost effective for large employers. I get health benefits, and sick time. I missed 2 weeks of work when I had the flu, but fortunately, I had enough sick time built up to get paid for all of it. (Nice to have sick time, but I NEVER want to be that sick again.....).