Do I have the swine flu?

[Berserk Monk]

My thought feels kind of sore and kind of like there's vomit in it. Should I seek a doctor?

[Kara Kuro]

I'm assuming that your throat hurt... not your 'thought'.

The main symptoms of swine flu are dependent on fever, nausea and vomiting. Placing emphasis mostly on the fever.

If the only symptoms you're having are as obtuse as a sore throat and the taste of bile, you could have just had a minor acid-reflux reaction and you DEFINITELY shouldn't seek immediate medical attention for something as over-archingly common as the symptoms you have. At the very least, don't jump to swine flu - that's just paranoia brought on by the recent media love-affair with the H1N1 virus.

Late fall is a common time for people to catch all kind of bugs; coughs, colds etc. I advise that you drink some hot water with lemon juice and honey to soothe your throat and ease the unpleasant taste and feeling. If your symptoms persist, or you acquire more namely vomiting or fever then you should consider seeking a profession medical opinion.

[Mando Knight]

The main symptoms of swine flu are

...exactly like the normal flu, except in different magnitudes. Only a medical professional could tell you for sure, and even then, I'd make sure it's a doctor you trust, since swine flu is the epidemic of the year, and that can cloud even a professional's judgment.

[blackfox]

Sit around for 10 minutes and don't eat or drink anything.
Then, take your temperature.
If it's between 97-99 degrees Fahrenheit, too lazy to convert right now, you're fine.
If it's over that, you've got a fever. (If it's under that, you're probably a zombie.)
If you have a fever, sit around and play WoW and sleep for a few days, except instead of Pepsi, drink orange juice or something.
If it doesn't go away within a few days, go bother a doctor.
H1N1 flu isn't any more virulent or strong than regular old seasonal influenza, from what I've heard. The difference is that people don't have any resistance to it, so it's easier to catch.
Neither kills you unless you get pneumonia, which is what happens when you do the WoW therapy but forget the sleep.
But: If you don't have a fever, it's fine.

[billtodamax]

Actually, I think Swine Flu is less deadly than the regular flu. You should be fine. If you get worse, stay home for a couple days, drink lots, sleep lots, etc. etc.

[Thajocoth]

If you think you might be sick, you should ask somebody who:
A - Knows what they're talking about (These people have a PhD in the field.)
B - Is able to physically inspect you for symptoms (These people are not across the internet.)
C - Has the proper tools to physically inspect you (These people have offices, usually require appointments and charge you money.)

In short: Ask a doctor offline. It's the only way to be sure of anything.

[Bhu]

Are you coughing up phlegm? If yes, it's not swine flu, but you may have bronchitis. If you are coughing but not producing anything, swine flu is a maybe

[Don Julio Anejo]

If you think you might be sick, you should ask somebody who:
A - Knows what they're talking about (These people have a PhD MD in the field.)
Corrected that for you. /grammar nazi

[Katana_Geldar]

People should really stop giving specific medical advice over the Internet.

For the flu, any flu and this includes swine flu, you should have a fever and perhaps trouble maintaining your body heatm (hot and cold flushes). There are other symptoms such as vomiting, head aches as well as achy joints. If you have these, bother a doctor if you need to (like I did when I got it in Sydney and was flying out the next week) but call ahead and stay off your feet. Catch up on daytime TV.

Sore throat doesn't really come into it, and if it does it's a secondary infection. Best general advice for a sore throat is to keep up your hot drinks and gargle, and if it stays around then go and see someone.

[Kalbron]

To be honest, if you feel bad enough, you probably should go and see a doctor at any rate.

Don't go in suggesting swine flu though, because that may taint their assessment.

[Pika...]

I'm assuming that your throat hurt... not your 'thought'.

The main symptoms of swine flu are dependent on fever, nausea and vomiting. Placing emphasis mostly on the fever.

If the only symptoms you're having are as obtuse as a sore throat and the taste of bile, you could have just had a minor acid-reflux reaction and you DEFINITELY shouldn't seek immediate medical attention for something as over-archingly common as the symptoms you have. At the very least, don't jump to swine flu - that's just paranoia brought on by the recent media love-affair with the H1N1 virus.

Late fall is a common time for people to catch all kind of bugs; coughs, colds etc. I advise that you drink some hot water with lemon juice and honey to soothe your throat and ease the unpleasant taste and feeling. If your symptoms persist, or you acquire more namely vomiting or fever then you should consider seeking a profession medical opinion.

Wow. Cute, young, a cosplayer, and extremely intelligent (with medicals tuff no less). I am very impressed.

[Katana_Geldar]

To be honest, if you feel bad enough, you probably should go and see a doctor at any rate.

Don't go in suggesting swine flu though, because that may taint their assessment.

If you have flu-like symptoms you need to tell them.

[Ashtar]

Obligatory link (http://doihaveswineflu.org/)

[Rettu Skcollob]

Ah, don't worry, I had it, it's not that bad. You feel horrible for a few days and then it's mild for the rest of the week. It's only if you're really old/young or you have a weak constitution due to some other problem

Have you seen my gall bladder, I swear I had it just a second ago.

[daggaz]

Just dont get the shot. Baxter is being sued right now in Czech for distributing LIVE avian flue virus in their seasonal flue shot kits to 18 different european countries. That "accident" is a physical impossibility considering they admit themselves they do all testing of Avian flue virus in a Biohazard 3 lab, which is engineered to make any accidental mixups of this sort absolutely impossible. To mix it, you HAVE to know what you are doing.

As well, they are implicated in the deaths of several hundred homeless polish citizens, who received free flue shots in a clinical trial last year, and died shortly thereafter. Joseph Moshe, a geneticist and former Mossad agent, implicated the company on american radio in a willing plot to use flu shots as cover for using a bio-weapon on the global public, shortly before he was overwhelmed by a surprising number of Federal Agents (see it on Youtube) and whisked away to Israel, never to be heard of again. He claimed the vaccine was full of dangerous adjuvants and preservatives (true) which true purpose was to weaken the immune system, and that the vaccine contained active but modified RNA from the 1918 flue, (recently exhumed in Alaska from a frozen corpse and taken to the University of Missouri for genetics studies), which would then be replicated in the unwilling hosts/victims, who would die shortly thereafter, but not before spreading the contagion to the populace at large.

Most interestingly, the country he named as ground zero for this attack was the Ukraine. His warning came a month or two ago. Ukraine is the location of one of Baxter's laboratories, and a few days ago the Ukraine became embroiled in a sudden and critical flue outbreak, tho the reports as to whether or not it is H1N1 or another type of flue are highly contradictory.

Swine flue so far is less virulent and less deadly than normal flue, which kills hundreds of thousands of people EVERY year. So why the hyped media panic, why the massive innoculations? And would you then trust a transnational corporation, which is actually legally implicated in such events, to then inject a biologically active drug into your veins??? I sure as hell wouldn't.

These are just facts, everything I have said here is easily verifiable on the Internet, the stories concering Baxter Laboratories were carried by major papers, especially here in Europe. These include Spiegel and the BBC. I have purposely left out real world political implications, so please keep any such discussions or theories to PM's, as there is no point in locking an important topic.

PS: I will just add, that I am not some kind of idiot internet junkie who believes anything he reads. I study nanotechnology at the university of copenhagen, which includes a heavy focus on genetics and especially virology. I recently got 100% in my quantum mechanics and solid state physics courses as well. So no, Im not dumb, and yeah, I know what I am talking about. Funny thing is, at the time I actually took a copy of the Alaskan 1918 flue story in to both my genetics and scientific ethics courses, as I thought the risks and implications of what they were doing were profound.

[SilverSheriff]

relax, more people have died in America due to toilet related accidents then the world-wide death rate of 'Swine Flu'.:smallcool:

[Cyrion]

As people have already said, be sure it's the flu of any kind first. Fever, body aches, and nausea are common flu symptoms that can separate it from the common cold- runny nose, cough, sore throat, etc. However, the lists of symptoms aren't entirely exclusive. Seasonal flu season usually starts around mid-November; prior to that the only thing running around has been H1N1 (according to our medical school dean in a briefing the other day), so you could either have "generic" or H1N1 at this point. If you recognize it in the first 48 hours or so, there are antivirals that can shorten it, but otherwise you just have to wait it out.

My wife just got over it. It made her miserable for a few days, but the biggest issue was the secondary infection she got. She added a nasty sore throat to the symptoms that lasted past the flu and needed antibiotics.

[faerwain]

Do I have the swine flu?

Depends. Is your tail curled?

[UglyPanda]

Step 1: Talk to your doctor over the phone.
Step 2: Do what he says.
Step 3: Stop listening to the people on the internet about anything medically related.
Step 4: I told you already, stop!
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Obligatory meme

[Kara Kuro]

Wow. Cute, young, a cosplayer, and extremely intelligent (with medicals tuff no less). I am very impressed.

Thanks - Biology/Biochem double major.

Honestly, I do agree that you should probably not ask random people over the internet for suggestions regarding your health. Granted I would like to say that I'm not completely incompetent and do have some experience and factual evidence to back up what I say. As I said, biology/biochem double major in college, I've also written numerous papers concerning flu "epidemics" and their responses in their targeted populace as well as having worked in a hospital emergency room.

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend going to the hospital until your symptoms get worse. In my opinion, unless you have some kind of precedent that suggests that a sore throat and the taste of bile is requires immediate medical attention then just stay home - drink some warm fluids and see if you don't feel better.

Granted I do acknowledge the fact that I am showing some semblance of a personal bias here, as I'm the kind of person who won't go to a hospital unless I'm in blatant medical danger or I'm unconscious and I wind up there by someone else's will. For most things that I can handle myself through sleep, proper eating habits and a few over-the-counter medications. I also always feel like a particularly selfish person walking into the urgent care and taking up the time of doctors and nurses who could be helping people with ailments far more serious than mine who really need the advice and help, not to mention my broke-self avoids paying a lot of unnecessary doctor visits.

In addition, in the unlikely even that you do have swine flu (which we can in NO WAY discern from your symptoms) there isn't much the doctors or nurses can do, other than treat your life-threatening symptoms (that goes to say that you even have life-threatening symptoms, I've read accounts of people who have contracted the swine flu and more or less simply slept it off). Influenza is a virus, which means its typically quite a bit harder to get rid of than its bacterial counterparts. They can't prescribe you miracle antibiotics, and this year's flu vaccine is rather inefficient. I'm not going to pretend I know the actual numbers, but it is increasingly difficult for scientists and bio-technicians creating the vaccines to properly predict the virulent strain of the season, this season in particular.... They didn't do so well.

[Rutskarn]

http://xkcd.com/574/

Also, seriously, man, when in doubt just see a damn doctor. We can't tell you whether you're sick or not, and of all the things you've got to gamble with, your health is the one you're gonna regret losing.

[Thajocoth]

Corrected that for you. /grammar nazi

Thanks. I knew I was missing something, but that late at night, I wasn't sure what.

[FoE]

Depends. Is your tail curled?

No, no, what'll happen is, a pig will come bursting out of your chest. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/21/)

The only hope for the rest of humanity is to load you onto a quarantine rocket into the sun before you doom the rest of us.

Trust me. I'm from the internet. Would the Internet steer you wrong?

[Trai]

*clears throat*

Dammit, man, we're just random strangers on the interwebs, not doctors!

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Correction to above: you do NOT have to have a fever in order to have the flu. Just most of the time a fever is present.

There's plenty of official advice available on www.flu.gov . One thing I would highlight is that if you or someone you know with flulike symptoms starts getting shortness of breath, go to the doctor RIGHT AWAY. It is quite possibly pneumonia and quite possibly fatal if not treated promptly.

[Keld Denar]

Sure, swine flu has killed fewer people than the standard vanillia flu, but the reason for the concern becomes apparent when you look at the demographics. Many people get the flu every year, and most people survive it. The people who actually die from the flu are MOST often people the CDC classifies as high risk, IE elderly, infants, malnourished people, and people with autoimmune deficiencies such as Kron's or AIDS.

The thing about swine flu that has people in a tizzy is not that its killing people, or even large numbers of people. Its that its killing people outside of the normal high risk group. Among the high risk peopel, its also killing young people with healthy immune systems.

Thats where a bulk of the scare is from. Most people who wouldn't normally be at risk from dying from the flu ARE at risk.

[Trai]

Sure, swine flu has killed fewer people than the standard vanillia flu, but the reason for the concern becomes apparent when you look at the demographics. Many people get the flu every year, and most people survive it. The people who actually die from the flu are MOST often people the CDC classifies as high risk, IE elderly, infants, malnourished people, and people with autoimmune deficiencies such as Kron's or AIDS.

The thing about swine flu that has people in a tizzy is not that its killing people, or even large numbers of people. Its that its killing people outside of the normal high risk group. Among the high risk peopel, its also killing young people with healthy immune systems.

Thats where a bulk of the scare is from. Most people who wouldn't normally be at risk from dying from the flu ARE at risk.

The part of this message that bothers me most? The words "standard vanilla flu." Now I'm always going to think the flu comes in flavors. Thanks, Keld.

[Innis Cabal]

Oddly enough, Avian flu dosn't taste like chicken. It tastes like butternut squash.

[Keld Denar]

Thanks, Keld.

Welcome Trai! Beware of the Cherry Garcia flu, for it will make you halucinate.

Also, check out the avatar for new Fhtägen Dazs brand Cthocolate flavored flu. Now with more San loss!

[Ecks Dee]

...

I ... I don't know quite what to say.

[Moff Chumley]

YES! YES, YOU HAVE SWINE FLU!! (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/226153/april-29-2009/enemy-swine--a-pigcalypse-now)

[Mr. Mud]

Just diagnosed with Type A influenza today (which around here is considered Swine Flu, as the normal flu isn't in season. Yet.).

:smallsigh:. I feel like crap. And if that isn't bad enough, I also have Bronchitis.

[Volos]

No. You're fine.