Actually my son had the swine flu.  When we first went to the doctor he was diagnosed with type A flu but they had to send off to Dallas for the h1n1 test.  We were told the treatment was the same - Tamiflu (which is very expensive).  So he was already recovered by the time that we found out that he did actually have the swine flu.  I was more scared because a healthy 13 year old had died the week before from swine flu.  There was also a teacher in my youngest son's school who died from swine flu.  It's scary when they are real people in your community dying. 

No one else in the family has gotten it yet and I hope we don't.   My son's reaction by the way was that I was overreacting and that he hasn't been kissing any pigs.  lol. 

I think the reason young people have been disporportionately affected by H1N1 is fairly straightforward - they were not here for the H1N1 outbreak of 1976 & therefore have no specific immunity.  Those of us who were around in '76 had sufficient exposure to acquire some degree of immunity; cases of H1N1 in folks over 40 have been typical for any garden variety flu as a result.

That would make a lot of sense, actually. do you think it also might be because of the overreaction of our immunitary system against the flu, which eventually kills us?

If I remember right, the spanish flu killed like that.

Yeah, I have researched it a bit and this is also the data I found D.  Harvard has a Medical Newsletter and this month talks about swine flu and video game addiction...two things I am interested in..heh.

Anyway, my kids are probably not going to get the vaccine because they won't need it (explained in a minute).  I think it is safe tho.  After reading  I think the scariest concern was if someone had the swine flu and then contracted A or B and they mutated together.

I don't think it is as serious as they're making it sound.  It is in every school here now (confirmed) and they stopped testing for it cuz so many have it.  Heck, by the time the vaccine is available...everyone around here will already have been exposed.  In fact today so many bus drivers were out with the flu, Gavin had a two hour delay.  (This is likely swine and regular flu since both are circulation (again, confirmed) around here.)

This eliminates any reason for them to mandate vaccines.

KFC,

I did some research and it turns out that single vaccines are better than the mass vaccines.  The mass or multiple dose vaccines (essentially the bigger bottle version) contains a chemical called Thimerosal which contains mercury.  What I don't understand is that on our local health organization's newsletter they first recommended that pregnant women be the first one to sign up for this vaccine.  I thought pregnant women were advised to avoid fish because of potential mercury exposure when they are asked to be first in line for mercury containing vaccines? 

We had a bout of this flu hit our region and I'm 99% sure I had it as well.  It wasn't any different than the typical seasonal flu.  7 day duration.  I don't go to the doctor unless I'm REALLY sick so I can't confirm.  I just know I got this from a teacher who was sick when I was visiting him. 

AD your case sounds similar to what my son got.  He said he didn't have the H1N1 but he too didn't go to the doctors.  He had quite a lingering cough afterwards but he said his lab work was aggravating it so he couldn't get better.  He had to do some sort of breathing into tubes for the lab.  He did get quite sick for a few days tho. 

In today's paper they quoted the New England Journal of Medicine who reported those that have had the most serious cases that resulted in death were in 80% of the adult cases and I think it said 60% of the kids had unerlying health issues usually contected to breathing issues like lung deficiency or asthma. 

But then you hear of stories like the 5 year old in Chicago seemingly healthy who just died after developing sniffles and a fever. 

Like I said earlier you can do alot with numbers.  I read this week that there have been 68 pediatric deaths from seasonal flu since Sept of 2008...basically one year.  In contrast this H1N1 flu claimed 76 children since April so it's a more aggressive flu.

But many experts are saying the H1N1 virus does not appear to be more dangerous than other flu strains but kids are catching it more easily than the regular seasonal flu. 

The CDC urged parents  to watch out for these emergency warning signs in young children:

-Fast or troubled breathing

-Bluish skin color

-lack of thirst

-failure to wake up easily or interact

-irritability where the child does not want to be held

-improvement of symptoms then a return to fever and worse cough

-fever with a rash

Of course any kid with lung problems or asthma should seek medical help early just in case. 

The FDA position.

Multi-dose vials of flu vaccine (seasonal & H1N1) will have trace amounts of thimerisol - no way yet to avoid it as there's nothing to take its place.  All the other childhood vaccines are now made without it, though.