The Swine Flu Diary

London
30th July 2009

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Living in the centre of London and traveling everywhere by tube probably meant I was bound to catch it sooner or later. The virus crept up on me; I was stressed, tired, flushed, then coughing. The NHS advice is good; they also made the Tamiflu drug incredibly easy to get hold of. One short online form, a choice of pick-up addresses, no waiting to collect – the whole painless process took about ten minutes. After starting Tamiflu I experienced none of the ‘devastating’ side effects from the tablets – instead I felt better literally by the hour. 4-5 days later I was back to full strength.
Getting the bug now may help protect against the so-called ‘second wave’, but the germ will mutate. My advice? The earlier you register at onset of symptoms, the faster you’ll clear it.

7 comments on “The Swine Flu Diary”

  1. I.A.M. says:
    July 30, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Hooray!

  2. Sean Rushforth says:
    July 30, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Tell us what you think of the swine flu pandemic

    http://www.swineflubritain.co.uk/#/the-latest/4534949965

  3. noonski says:
    July 30, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    glad to know that you’re feeling better. you’re the first person i’ve ‘known’ that has caught the dreaded h1n1… here’s hoping the rest of your recovery is just as speedy.

  4. Mike Cane says:
    July 30, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Glad to know Tamiflu was useful for you.

    When this thing hit me, it was unlike any flu I’d ever experienced. The flu symptoms themselves were mild, but it did a gradual grip of my lungs to the point where I was gasping like a fish out of water at night, for several days. H1N1 had not been announced, I had no real idea what I had, and since it takes a lot to get me to an ER (Casualty, to you lot), I waited until it had mostly subsided and the ER proclaimed it “extreme bronchitis.” I’ve read Gina Kolata’s Flu, about 1918 — that’s *precisely* what I had. Attacks the left lung first, then the right. I had even coughed up a little bit of blood. In 1918, they did more than a little bit of blood!

    The book states that flu was probably around since 1915, and that everyone who got it before 1918 developed immunity. I also read a report where 1918 survivor’s blood was resistant to today’s H1N1 infection.

    Several weeks later, I was hit with the *seasonal* flu. It didn’t try to smother me like the H1N1 did.

    I hope you have Second Wave immunity. Because if there is one, it’s going to be absolutely brutal.

  5. | Acne Treatments Asia says:
    January 4, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    If you look at the pandemic of 1977, when H1N1 or Swine Flu re-emerged after a 20 year absence, there is no shift in age-related mortality pattern. The 1977 “pandemic” is, of course, not considered a true pandemic by experts today, for reasons that are not entierely consistent. It certainly was an antigenic shift and not an antigenic drift. As far as I have been able to follow the current events, the most significant factor seems to have been that most people, who were severely affected, were people with other medical conditions.

  6. `Melatonin says:
    August 19, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    swine flu is really not very deadly at all, there are just mass panic`*:

  7. Sean Perry says:
    October 6, 2010 at 9:38 am

    swine flu scared the hell out of me when there was mass infection of this virus’:-

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