Sounds like the flu has really ramped up in most of the country already, a bit early for flu season. We're still not as hard hit here in California, but the numbers seem to be heading up recently. Knock on wood, I'm still healthy.

How have our ETS members been faring this year? What's your perception about the flu season this year in your area, or how bad the bug is? My sister in NYC felt really awful, but it wasn't a long lived thing for her. Lot's of folks around her were getting sick. She didn't have that exhausted feeling for a long time like many people experience after the flu.

Well, a bad norovirus is also circulating now, too, so throw projectile vomiting and the runs into the winter mix, too.

Got the flu vaccine this year. I've only had it once in 43 years and would have taken my chances without it but the boss offered to cover any cost the insurance didn't cover.

So far, so good. Did not get it. I have the extreme good fortune of only getting sick about every 1 1/2 to 2 years for no more than about 48 hours. I stopped getting the flu shot when I retired from the Air Force six years ago.

Same procedure as every year. No shot, no flu. I do some exercise, try to get enough fresh air, fresh fruit and fresh vegetable and sprouts. In this season I use paper handkerchiefs and strictly throw away after single use.
The flu has downed a few of my coworkers, some of them more than once. They seemed to be really sick.
This winter I started using a can for nasal irrigation. It feels awkward at first but you get used to it. It reduced problems with overly dry rooms.

It went around our office but so far not me. I don't generally get the flu vaccine shot even if the company provides for free. I'm not paranoid about the vaccine like Jenny McCarthy is, I'm just too lazy to take the 30 minutes to get it.

There are several different strains out there and each year when they make the vaccine, they are basically predicting which strain is most likely to be an issue. Sometimes they don't guess corectly.

Last year, I got the vaccine. 1 week later I got the flu (not a common cold, there is a lot of difference), I assume a different strain or else it takes more than a week to build up enough resistance in your system to be effective.

Nope,not here......yet.

The general rule of thumb seems to be two weeks before you are protected, so it's possible that you were unlucky in your timing.

Or it might have been something else. Influenza is not the only bug to produce the typical "flu" symptoms. Or just another strain, as you mentioned. Or maybe you actually came down with one of the strains in the flu shot because no flu shot is 100% protective even with a match.

Word around here is that the strain of flu knocking people out is not one of the ones they put in the flu shot. My understanding is that they have to make an educated guess about what strains are going to be prevalent in any given year, so it's a little bit of a crap shoot.

it's true the mix of strains in the flu shot is a crapshoot. has to do with the time required to grow the viruses in eggs and manufactor the vaccine from the eggs. MDInana, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
M_a_x, hope you're using sterile water or sterile saline for that can. There's a particularly nasty strain of amoeba which can be found in some tap water and has been implicated in some lethal meningitis cases where people used tap water for nasal irrigation.

The amoeba issue is exceedingly rare. AFAIK there were only two separate Lousiana cases EVER that seemed to have gotten infected with the amoeba from treated tapwater nasal irrigation, however tests of their water supplies showed no contamination so it's unclear how the amoeba got into their water. Using untreated water, like from a well, is probably not a good idea.

I have used a Neti pot once or twice a day for years. It's as second nature as brushing my teeth now. To rehydrate dry nasal passages and clear out mucuous, an isotonic solution is very soothing. It's a bit uncomfortable, but the literature indicates a hypertonic solution is best at stimulating the tiny hairs that line the mucous membranes, to maintain a healthy barrier against bugs. Definitely a plus during cold and flu season. For routine use, I try to use a hypertonic solution.

So far so good, but I haven't had the flu in years -- ever since I stopped getting flu shots. For a few years before that I got the shot (as required being on active duty) as well as the flu, and before that I just got the occasional flu and survived trying to not pass it to anyone else.

I'm wondering if all those years of just getting various flu strains haven't left me with a tad more immunity to the current strains.

The answer would be "yes". That's survival of the fittest at work. Only recovering from an actual infection will give you lifelong immunity to a particular strain, and partial immunity to related strains. Immunity from the flu shot only lasts a relatively short time.

With the latest H1N1 pandemic scare, it was the elderly who were least vulnerable to infection since many of them had partial immunity from a similar flu decades ago. For the rest of us, the pandemic strain was totally new and we didn't have any natural immunity to it.

Really? Besides using a super salty (and super painful) solution day after day, I can't imagine how that would happen unless there was some other problem going on. Maybe the original sinus infection was festering and slowly going deeper into the nasal membrane tissue? Anyway, I have never heard of Neti pot use causing a problem like that before.

I'm thinking the same thing. Water doesn't exactly provide a lot of friction to wear something away, unless you're irrigating your nose 20 hours a day. It does feel the best the ten minutes after irrigation, so maybe that has tempted some people to do it a lot. Sorry to hear about your relative's health problem, though.

For those who don't want to use a pot, you can use a syringe. Nasaline sells a large syringe with a soft head that makes good contact with your nostrils. I prefer the syringe to the pot.

I didn't quite escape the stuff that's been going around. No flu, but this is one miserable cold. According to my doctor, her patients are taking about three weeks to recover. The onset (fever) was fast and goes away fast, but a highly limiting cough lingers for a long time.

And yes, I got the flu shot earlier this fall.

Stay healthy, wash your hands, take vitamin C.

I've never been a fan of using sqeeze bottles for nasal irrigation. Well, forcing water up your nose, that is. Too easy to shoot water up there and possibly have it go somewhere or do something that it otherwise wouldn't go/do versus if you were just letting gravity flow the water through your nasal passages.

My only exception might be for someone who can't really bend over a sink easily, like perhaps someone with back or neck problems. I can't really think of another case where a pouring action may not be feasible.

If you're really congested from a cold and your nasal passages are swollen, forcing water up there would be a bad idea. It's just going to get trapped inside your sinuses because it can't drain out and possibly lead to an infection.

Each region is different, but the CDC says that most of the flu samples it has tested match the two influenza A and one influenza B strains in this year's flu shot. But it's certainly possible your area is unlucky and a strain that the flu shot doesn't cover is predominant.

The other likely possibility is that a bug other than influenza is actually prevalent in your area, and people think the flu shot isn't working because so many people are sick.

Afrin's medication is oxymetazoline. It is not in the aspirin family. It is tricky stuff to be sure. It is only to be used for about 3 days maximum - according to my experience and doctor's instructions. When I was in the Air Force, I was talking someone who had experience with aircraft mishap investigations. The investigators would often find many bottles of Afrin in the flight bags. Those guys are/were addicted to the stuff.

The major problem with this med is that after the three days it starts having the opposite effect. It starts to cause extreme congestion and blockage. Then vicious cycle begins of overuse. It really is nasty. The one time I had half of a bottle squirted into my nasal passages - by a doctor - it was awful. I cannot remember which ran more, my eyes or nose. It is strong and effective; you just have to follow the rules - 3 days max.

My $.02

I've had two respiratory infections and the stomache flu since late October. I've just getting over my second respiratory infection now. It's been years since I have been this sick this many times in one season.

Now I am debating about going and getting the flu shot...on the chance that there's still more bugs running around out there that I haven't managed to pick up yet. At this point, I'll do about anything to try to increase my odds.

Oxymetazoline is a vasoconstrictor, which is why it helps "unplug" congested nasal passages. It's also the same ingredient in Visine ("to get the red out") eye drops. Cocaine is also a powerful vasoconstrictor, so overusing either substance in your nose is going to starve the tissues of blood flow and they will start to die. I didn't realize that you could get a hole in your septum from overuse of nasal spray, though.

Actually, nasal spray addiction is a huge problem, although it doesn't really get much attention. As MoBOB mentioned, if you use these chemical nasal sprays for more than a few days, you end up with rebound congestion, pressure, and headaches--exactly the things the person was trying to get rid of. So they end up in a vicious cycle of using the nasal spray to keep the symptoms at bay. I think there's something like 50 million Americans that have long term sinus issues. If even a fraction of that number is "hooked" on nasal sprays, that's still a large number. Among other things, chronic use can eventually damage your liver.

Izzy, there are safer alternatives out there, if you were interested. There's a brand of capsaicin nasal spray that I've heard is quite effective and has no adverse health effects that I'm aware of. (Yeah, you're basically pepper spraying yourself--directly up the nose--for relief! )

Yeah, actually the suggestion was for your grandmother.

Be careful not to blow your nose too hard, Izzy. I recently discovered that there's actually a study out where they used--I forget exactly which type of imaging technique--to observe what happens to nasal mucous when you blow your nose.

Blowing your nose, especially when done forcefully, will often force more mucous up into the sinus cavities than out your nose. That mucous then just becomes a good growth medium for bacteria, which may partly explain why people with chronic sinus infections continue to have lingering or repeated infections. These people are often frequent nose blowers all of the time. I guess they feel that keeping their honker clean all of the time will help prevent recurrent sinus infections. Probably a smart idea, but maybe not the best way to do it. So, other methods like a Neti pot, steam inhalation, maybe this capsaicin nasal spray, drinking lot's of water, is probably healthier because they promote the excess mucous to come out without blowing your nose.

Y'know, in Japan, it is considered impolite to blow your nose in public. In school, you'll have a whole classroom of sniffling kids in the wintertime because they are chastised for blowing their noses. It is also one (of a couple) reason why you see so many people wearing masks, either in the wintertime or during hay fever season in Japan and perhaps the same reason in other parts of Asia. The Japanese don't blow their noses but simply sniffle and let them run so the masks hide that. So, turns out that there may actually be a health reason for that custom after all!

I'm curious, is anyone aware of other cultures where nose blowing is also discouraged?

Anyone under the age of 10?

Very underappreciated character, Pig Pen. They need to do a Peanuts reunion, a sort of "Where are they now?" thing.

Blowing one's nose doesn't seem so terrible to me, but custom varies from land to land, I suppose. In Germany, apparently it's not so polite to snort (you know, instead of blowing things out, "sucking things in").

I do wish the numerous Youtube video makers would clear their sinuses & throats before hitting REC. We really don't need the extra noises during the taping.

The Afrin addition is fascinating.

Flu Type A sends me to the hospital shots every year, I'm fine so far.

Darn it, I seem to have picked up a bug yesterday. Just a stuffy nose, though. Yesterday, I thought it was just due to the very dry air. The weather here in Northern Cal became cold recently so we've suddenly been cranking up the heat lately and the air is very dry. But I overslept this morning because I was still sleepy. I never oversleep, so then it dawned on me that I caught something and that my body is tired from fighting some bug.

Oh well, could be worse. If it were the flu, it likely would've become something more obvious very quickly yesterday. Lot of people getting totally laid low this season.

I've been looking at Google Flu Trends lately. It's interesting to compare our area to other parts of the country. Back east or down south, looks like the indicators are starting to peak in many areas. Out here, though, the graphs are still shooting almost straight up with no sign of letting up, so looks like we haven't seen the worst of it yet out west.

OH YUCK!!! I just got a look at the flu trend for my city. It's already worse then the 2009/2010 season and still spiking. I'm glad my wife bugged me about getting the vaccine this year. Hopefully it'll keep me from getting sick from the flu. Too bad it doesn't work for food poisoning

DW shared it. I am currently a snot factory, with minor coughing. Luckily, I make my own work hours, and when I do work, it's short.

For the record, she can't get the flu shot (egg allergies trigger migraines) and I usually don't, as I get sick anyhow.

I am blowing my nose - in private - and not using afrin as I am afraid of becoming addicted and reduced to panhandling in the streets to support myself and my monkey (8P).

In the past 15 years, the only two times I got the flu were the two times I got the flu shot. So, I won't be getting that again. I'll just be careful and cross my fingers.

For me, I could imagine that happening if I've already started the downhill out of the sickness. That kind of recovery is not going to happen for me if I just caught the bug.

Was working in the ICU taking care of an old urologist with sinus issues and cardiac dysrhthmias. He would periodically go into short runs of v-tach, asymptomatic and self-limiting. Eventually discovered that he had smuggled his afrin into the unit and was dosing himself surreptitiously, and triggering the v-tach-I think he liked the palpitations.

Dangerous stuff.

Dagnabbit, those thrill seeking old urologists!

Whatever bug I seemed to have yesterday morning cleared up by lunchtime yesterday. Yay!

Obviously, a highly controversial thing to post, but in my own personal experience, megadoses of vitamin D3 (not the D2-ergocalciferol form of vitamin D) really does work at stopping a cold/flu in its tracks. Nothing else I have tried, including megadosing vitamin C, echinacea, beta glucans, garlic, zinc lozenges, etc. have ever seemed to work to really knock down a bug. This has worked repeatedly for me over the years.

Yesterday, after realizing I was coming down with something, I took my D. I thought it was too late in this case, but apparently not, because I was feeling fine within the same morning.

I'm not a doctor and I'm not giving medical advice. Just passing along my own observations. I thought it sounded crazy but I tried for myself and found it highly effective if you take it early and take enough of it. There is a LOT of interest in vitamin D in the past 10 years. And we're not just talking bone health anymore.

It's unfortunate that non-patententable substances like vitamins will never be FDA approved because no for-profit company would recoup the upfront money to do the expensive clinical trials to get it officially FDA approved. The fact that some substance is not FDA approved does NOT necessarily mean that it doesn't work. It could just mean that no one has invested the money to prove it yet--or ever. (of course, plenty of things are not approved because they do not work!)

According to the FDA, the only thing that can treat a disease or symptoms is a drug. Technically, if you want to say that chicken soup can relieve the symptoms of a cold, really, that soup needs to be approved by the FDA as a drug first. I understand the spirit of the law, but it's application in many cases makes me shake my head.

For the record, she can't get the flu shot (egg allergies trigger migraines) and I usually don't, as I get sick anyhow.

I saw on the news they are working on an egg free verison of the flu vaccines.
katarin

vitamins a, d, e,and k, the fat soluble ones- are less easily excreted that the rest, and can cause problems in high oral dosages-in this case, hypervitaminosis d .

not clear that a short course for acute illness is dangerous, just suggesting that more caution is needed with these than with vitamin c. imho/ymmv.

You're quite right, and I certainly have done much reading on the matter before trying it out on myself. That's also why I did not mention any specifics in that post. If anyone is interested, they should really take the time to educate themselves instead of just blindly following something you read posted by some stranger on a web forum (i.e. me!). Honestly, though, any vitamin product is far, far safer than pretty much any medication people are taking.

Just for perspective, the Lazarou meta-analysis in 1998 looked at adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. They estimated that a little over 100,000 hospitalized patients died from adverse drug reactions in 1994 (so not counting what happened to people outside of the hospital). Assuming that's a fair estimate, only heart disease, cancer, and strokes killed more Americans that year. (Too bad the CDC or FDA doesn't routinely track medication-related deaths.)

When's the last time anyone has heard of someone dying from a vitamin overdose?

From that link you provided, it says:

The typical vitamin D supplement you'll find at the drug store comes in 400, 1000, and possibly 2,000 IU doses. Rarely, you'll find 5,000 IU. Even with the 5,000 IU capsules, you'd have to take 125 of them to hit the 600,000 IU lower range quoted above. And keep taking 125 capsules for at least a few days before experiencing any toxicity issues. Actually, they don't specify in the article but I assume they're talking about vitamin D2, which has a lower toxicity threshold than D3.

"When's the last time anyone has heard of someone dying from a vitamin overdose?"
Don't know about dying, but several arctic explorers developed an exfoliative dermatitis from (IIRC) vitamin A toxicity after eating polar bear or walrus liver. Also found this:
"In 1913, Antarctic explorers Douglas Mawson and Xavier Mertz were both poisoned (and Mertz died) from eating the livers of their sled dogs during the Far Eastern Party" Wikipedia entry.
So there's a fatality.

Well, normally I would define "when's the last time?" as being less than 100 years ago, but I'll let this one get in under the wire. Just.

Well, worst case scenario, they die. I just checked and there's been one death due to iron poisoning since 1998. But yes, there are quite a few young children who get sick from too much iron, usually because they think they're eating candy. Imagine if we fortified beer with iron. I'm sure we'd see a lot more adult cases of iron poisoning in that case.

This may sound like splitting hairs, but I would classify minerals separately from vitamins. It's easier to develop a mineral toxicity.