One of the bad things about the flu, including the H1N1 version, is it is a virus. That means that it does not respond to antibiotics, which only work on bacterial infections. A dose of amoxicillin or other common antibiotics may fend off secondary bacterial infections but will do nothing about the flu itself. So don’t go to the doctor and ask for antibiotics, for they won’t help. If you’re in a country that let you buy antibiotics over the counter, save them for something it might be helpful for. There are antiviral drugs, but their side effects tend to be higher than those in antibiotics and are usual reserved for very bad infections; if someone is sick enough to be in the hospital, antivirals like Tamiflu will be prescribed, but otherwise healthy adults won’t generally be prescribed antivirals. However, children under the age of two, the elderly and folks ...

We are now seeing some vaccines for H1N1 hitting the market. Older folks might not need it, for the 1957 flu outbreak was a variant of H1N1, so people over 52 might have seen this bad-boy before. However, the vaccines are relatively inexpensive and many states are picking up the tab for vaccinations, so most people should consider getting the vaccine, especially if you are working with larger numbers of people. Vaccines are a common method of heading off deadly diseases. The trick in developing a vaccine is finding a weaker form of the disease that can trigger an immune response, so that when the real disease shows up, the immune system is locked and loaded for it. The word vaccine flows from the Latin vacca for cow. The original vaccine was for smallpox; when a British scientist found that milk maid weren’t getting smallpox, he found that cowpox, a ...

Not everything that makes you feel crappy is the flu. Now that we’re in the cold-weather months and school is back in session, we are prone to getting colds as well as the flu. The flu is more than just a bad cold, since they are different critters; colds are separate critters called rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Also, there are different symptoms for colds and flues. Fever- You normally don’t get a fever with a cold, while a 100-degree-plus temperature is common with a flu bug. So, if you get out your trusty thermometer and it doesn’t crack triple-digits, you probably have a cold. Aches and Pains- The flu is marked by headaches and other bad aches around the body; colds tend not to have as many aches. Chills-Chills are more of a symptom of the flu. Phlegm Fatale- A cold will produce a lot of mucus, producing chest congestion and stuffed-up ...

There was a lot of hysteria over the H1N1 flu when it first hit; while it is a bad virus, it isn’t as bad as feared. H1N1 tends to affect younger people more than older people, since many folks over 55 have been exposed to a cousin of the current H1N1 virus back in 1957. Also, this flu isn’t as lethal as many viruses of the recent past, like the bird flu that hit Asia or SARS that hit Canada and China earlier in the decade. That being said, people have died from this bug, including 4 people in Kentucky. You don’t get swine flu from eating pork products. Pigs and humans have similar cardiovascular systems and thus are prone to the same diseases, but proper cooking will kill off the virus; lunch meats are already cooked, so any bugs they have aren’t generally from the animals providing the meat. That’s ...