Pregnant fiance could have Swine Flu. Best friend to blame..

:scowl:

Shes five months pregnant and woke up this morning feeling like crap and with a stuffy nose. Didn't think anything about it. We just went home early to go to bed as it's been a long day.

Well, yesterday morning we had a phone call one of her friends had a baby. He was born just over a month early. Good condition now but this ties in with the story.

My fiance called her best friend (also the other girls friend, it's a triangle) to see if she wanted to go see the newborn. She said yes, they went, then hung out for a few hours while I was at work.

Now back to tonight. She calls and immediately sounds scared and very pissed off.

Her best friend had spent the whole week with a girl who was diagnosed with the swine flu tonight. She even spent a lot of time with her sister and mother, who she knew had the swine flu. She said she thinks she has it now.

So that idiot knew she had been around people with the swine flu, willingly spent half a day with my PREGNANT fiance, AND held a premature newborn for a few hours.

WHAT THE F***!! Wait until I see her again.


We went to the ER an hour ago to get her checked. Turns out, hospitals no longer check for the swine flu. We have to get an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to get her checked out. We're slowly adding the symptoms to the list.

Now I'm not sure what makes me more mad, the fact that hospitals wont check for it, or the idiot she calls a friend.

That's been my last two hours. Hopefully someone can enlighten my on why some people are morons and hospitals wont check. They wouldn't tell me.

It's a bunch of nonsense. A stuffy nose isn't a flu, it's a cold. People who say they have the "Swine flu" are 99% of the time incorrect.

It's self diagnosis based off media hype.

I'd take the basic precautions, check with a doc., but I wouldn't worry over any possible "Swine flu" exposure.

You said she was diagnosed "tonight". Sounds like she did not know at the time she was with your wife or am I missing something?

3, count them, Three, of my relatives have had Swine Flu H1N1, 2 of them recovered, they were diagnosed months /after/ it had run through them.

The 3rd is still in hospital fighting for her life, they initially thought it was Pneumonia, but the test came back positive for H1N1, she's on life support and has lost a lot of lung capacity.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/who-warns-of-h1n1-form-hitting-lungs-straight/508946/

I'm Australian and even we're beginning to see it happen.

This isn't anything to mess around with, 3 people who are relatives of mine is far too close for comfort!, if you want to be protected then avoid people who are infected, hell if you're paranoid avoid the people who have the flu or any flu symptoms altogether! or, if you're very paranoid, like me, and if you need to go outside, wear a full face respirator with a N100/P100 cartridge, like this: http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&q=full%20face%20respirator&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

ALL Filtration media, no matter what type it is has a definite and very strict lifetime, I don't know what the usual proceedure is, wether people who are disinfecting infected areas replace the catridge every hour or every 2 hours or whatever, all I know is, they replace them frequently and treat them as if they are Hazardous waste, which they most definatley are.

Don't buy half-face respirators, the virus can still go all over your eyes and infect you that way, especially if you remove the mask with your bare hands, I've seen some people who say they are 'prepared' do this really stupid thing, they remove the mask with their bare hands, without using a full body suit or gloves and a plastic bag, then they wipe their face or mouth or nose with their bare hands that were just touching the cartridge!.

The widely proclaimed surgical-mask style filters are also completely ineffective in /protecting/ the wearer against swine-flu, no, what they do is they protect the people /around/ you from contracting swine flu /from/ you, the person who is wearing the mask!: http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090916/best-swine-flu-mask-n95-respirator

If you don't believe me, ask the manufacturers, or easier, just google for "N95 surgical masks ineffective against swine flu", I'm sure you will get a zillion hits: http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=avw3O.NzrCGw

A full face respirator should cost you about $300-$600, you can get ones for children, you can also get bag-style battery powered ones for kids too which encompass the child completely in an air bubble thats powered by batteries, remember keep them charged and a spare set on you or near you at all times!

Of course, the best prevention is to stay away from people who are sick, so the best prevention is to stockpile food and water.

I would only use the full-face respirator with a full-body suit and a decontamination shower (that I built myself) in an /extreme/ emergency which /required/ and /necessitated/ me going outside into a hazardous environment, and thats the only time that I will use those full-face respirators, and I will follow correct proceedures, which is, wear gloves, scrub down, don't handle the cartridges with bare hands after use, dispose of them properly, replace the cartridges as /soon/ as they become moist or if you have an external moisture filter, replace it frequently.

Moisture on these cartridges make them useless, the moisture builds up on the outside of the cartridge from the water droplets in the air, this is what you should be afraid of, once a cartridge gets wet, it IS useless, the water bonds with the cartridge filtering material and then makes it useless.

And as always, even in your home, wash your hands! regularly!, just touched the car keys? wash your hands!, just walked in after work, wash your hands!

Not following correct proceedure is baaad, mmk: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/20/swine-flu-inspectors-improper-gear-virus-calgary.html

At least... I'm not taking any chances :tinfoil:

Search, in my short experience being on the lookout for H1N1 symptoms (had a scare dealing with study abroad students), I was told the sudden onset of a high fever is one of the symptoms people should look for. Then other flu-like and cough symptoms develop. (Of course I'm not a doctor, but we went with what one told us.)

Hopefully, it's just a common cold your fiancè has and she recovers quickly.

The reason they dont check is because,

1. Its a freaking expensive test to do. So people who DIDNT have H1N1, and took the test were like...!!!!$$!!! and made a big fuss

2. the H1N1 strain in fairly normal cases, resembles an ordinary flu so much, and with an ordinary flu, they would tell you to do the same thing as with H1N1, bed rest, minimalise social contact, some meds, and moniter the situation. with H1N1, you monitor CLOSELY, and if there are complications, you call the doctor, or an ambulance


My brother, was a suspected case of H1N1, and I got sick the same week. So i know what its like to be a suspected case.

Freax, im sorry to hear of all that, and i wish them all a speedy recovery. My information may be different to yours, because thats the situation in the country Im in. I think i did read somewhere that Australia was one of the worst hit places. So search, the best thing you can do is take it seriously, and listen to the doctors, but not panic and overreact. remember, if you're the irrational fiance who makes a scene, doctors will put less faith in your ability to handle the situation

Crenshaw

Do not worry too much. According to experts, the H1N1 flu death rate of ~0.1% is similar to the seasonal flu. Although, pregnant women are a high risk group, if she is normally in good helath, she will be fine.

Freax, I am very sorry to hear about your relative and I hope they pull through soon. Do the doctors know why your relative has been hit so hard with the flu?

Sorry to hear about that and I hope everyone will be ok.
The clowns in government and the ones in charge of the CDC sure did a first class job of containing this when it was first discovered:shakehead. Lets hope they dont screw up again if the 'bird' flu starts spreading, as a parent of 4 little ones I find this to very scary stuff.

Hope everything turns out ok. Swine flu or not, I agree that your fiance's friend is an idiot to expose a newborn and pregnant woman to any possible sickness.

Sorry too much to quote but I'll clarify some things.

We went to the ER because her family (who she still has insurance with and paid) wanted her to go. Of course with no expense to me I didn't argue.

Her friend had spent the whole week with a girl who had the swine flu but didn't know until yesterday. She also spent the whole week with her sister and mother who she did know has the swine flu. She has spent about 3 days hanging out with my fiance who is 21 weeks pregnant. She didn't tell my fiance until last night.

That's irresponsible.

Her friend also knew she had been highly exposed to the swine flu but went to see another friends premature baby. Her baby has now been isolated from the rest of the babies in that ward.

We went to the doctor today but the test for the flu came back negative. They told us the swine flu and regular flu took longer to develop after exposure than a day or two so we are just waiting to make sure no symptoms return.

All is well as of now. No worrying for me at this point but after finding out our baby is a girl I feel very attached and am starting to worry like an expecting father. I was frustrated with her friends and the hospital for basically saying they would do nothing.


Freax, I'm sorry for your situation I hope everything works out well. I know a few people who have recovered nicely and have faith it's something that's curable.

Glad to hear all is well, Search. Freak, hope everything turns out ok!

Search said:

All is well as of now. No worrying for me at this point but after finding out our baby is a girl I feel very attached and am starting to worry like an expecting father.

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At least that's resolved, now you can get back to worrying about the boys your daughter will encounter (at least you're a cop..)

StarHalo said:

At least that's resolved, now you can get back to worrying about the boys your daughter will encounter (at least you're a cop..)

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Getting there

Yea the shotgun is ready, the Glock is almost here, and the M4 budget is almost approved with the woman.

On topic though lol all there is to do now is wait for any symptoms to show up.

The girl with the premature baby also found out someone who had visited her baby had the swine flu at the time which was confirmed. That's one person with it and one other who has all the symptoms and massive exposure. Plus all of the other premature babies were exposed.

Last I heard that ward went on lock down once they found out. This swine flu is turning into a real hassle.

My sister is an infectious diseases expert.
She is dealing with Swine Flu almost every day.

If you don't get a high fever very early on, it is very unlikely you have Swine Flu.

The Flu drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza are very effective against Swine Flu, but you must start taking them within the first few days of being sick otherwise they don't really work.

Ordinarily I would say get some Tamiflu or Relenza right now and get her to start taking it just to be on the safe side.

However since she is pregnant, don't do this under any circumstances.

Just get her to a doctor to be examined and the doc can decide what is safe for her and the baby.

Being sick when you are pregnant sucks, because you can't really take anything for fear of harming the baby.

Best wishes to you, fingers cross that your missus doesn't get sick.

Mike V said:

My sister is an infectious diseases expert.
She is dealing with Swine Flu almost every day.

If you don't get a high fever very early on, it is very unlikely you have Swine Flu.

The Flu drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza are very effective against Swine Flu, but you must start taking them within the first few days of being sick otherwise they don't really work.

Ordinarily I would say get some Tamiflu or Relenza right now and get her to start taking it just to be on the safe side.

However since she is pregnant, don't do this under any circumstances.

Just get her to a doctor to be examined and the doc can decide what is safe for her and the baby.

Being sick when you are pregnant sucks, because you can't really take anything for fear of harming the baby.

Best wishes to you, fingers cross that your missus doesn't get sick.

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Her doctor prescribed Tamiflu but after contacting our long time Pharmacist she told us to not take it under any circumstances before contacting another doctor. My family doctor who has a very good reputation.

Hers doesn't in the area but try explaining that to her family.

I talked to my doctor and was told that Tamiflu is very dangerous in the first trimester but because we are in the second it's ok ONLY if she gets a fever in the 101 area.

Her doctor only prescribed it if the same thing happened.

Tomorrow we're going to call the OBGYN to see how they feel about her taking it under those circumstances.

Tamiflu has only been tested on pregnant animals and the results were far less than desirable. Getting the flu while pregnant isn't a good thing by any means.