What I read in newspapers about the Swine Flu didn’t make sense to me. It looked like a vital piece of information was missing, so I went online to see if I could figure out what that piece was, and maybe find some material I could base sound choices on when it came to my actions in regards to travel, vaccination, medication etc. I found the missing information, and more. That’s what you’ll find here.

I have no medical background. I’ve combined material found on various websites, and drew my own conclusions. It’s basically pure speculation. You need to check the sources and draw your own conclusions, before acting on anything I write here.

How it behaves:

This flu causes mild illness in most people who get infected. It’s said to be milder than normal seasonal flu. So far most young people have gotten sick, which might have to do with initial spread patterns, or they’re more likely to catch it, we don’t know yet. A few get very sick, and some of those require hospitalization. Some require ventilators.

Who will be infected?

Early research showed antibodies from people’s blood reacted to the virus in a percentage of cases (which doesn’t mean they won’t get it, but it might). About 1/3 of those over 60, and 6-9 percent of young people. None under 1 year old. There’s speculation variations of the Spanish Flu strain continued circulating until 1957, when a new strain took over. So those born before then have a higher chance of being protected.

Question:

I was told those with certain risk factors were at risk from dying from this flu, yet I saw stories about apparently extremely healthy, young people dying, and I wanted to find out why. There had to more to it - and there was. But I’ll save that for later on this page.

What’s different with this flu?

With seasonal influenza, the very young and the very old are more at risk of dying than anyone else because they have weak immune systems. This is what you’ve been told. But you’ve also been told this flu is different. Yes, it is.

With normal seasonal flu, people normally die of complications. These complications often start after people think they’re starting to get well, and then boom, you get sick again. It’s often pneumonia. But it’s often a bacterial infection on the tails of a flu or other illness. Normal seasonal flu doesn’t normally replicate in the lung tissue. This one does, so the pneumonia can be due to the flu itself, not necessarily a bacterial infection that comes later. That it replicates in the lungs worry doctors.

With this flu, you’ve got the usual features of a flu, and a few extra, in other words.

Risk factors for this flu:

• The risk factors are any illness that compromises your lungs and your breathing, as well as cardiovascular problems.
• Pregnant women, especially in third trimester, because of weakened immune systems and diminished breathing capability.
• Diabetes - both types.
• Possibly the obese - but statistics don’t single them out - it’s more that they tend to have other health issues because of the obesity and less room to breathe, plus more inflammation generally present in the body.
• The very young and very old, because of weakened immune systems.
• Supressed immune systems

What the risk factors won’t tell you, is that a very few extremely young, healthy individuals also die from this flu. I’ll have to take a long way to explain this:

Another way of killing:

The Spanish Flu in 1918 killed off maybe as much as a third of the world (yet my mom’s uncles and aunts all survived, even though they were the right age to die from it, go figure).

Scientists found frozen remains that contained the virus, unfroze them and managed to infect mice and macaques with the virus. These animals died very quickly and violently, and provided them with the explanation for how the Spanish Flu could kill people within 24-48 hours of falling sick. The animals experienced something called a cytokine storm. That’s when cytokines (part of the immune system) travels to the site of infection. Yet there are too many of them, and they’re the ones killing the host, rather than successfully fighting the infection. The infection is (usually) in the lungs, and the cytokines make the tissue hard and filled with fluid, so animals (and humans) die from lack of oxygen.

During the Spanish Flu, nurses triaged people by looking at their feet. Those with black feet were carted off to die, because they were too far gone. Lack of oxygen. The Bird Flu (which hasn’t really spread in human populations) kills by cytokine storm. It also happens with other illnesses, including during a drug trial.

During the macaque experiment, they infected these animals through several means, and the disease progressed extremely rapidly. I’ve seen speculation that the amount of infection (how much of the virus you get from someone else before it starts multiplying inside you) has something to do with whether or not you are at risk for a cytokine storm. I’m speculating, and so are the scientists. I’ve also seen talk about this happening if the immune system is weakened or turned off, then the host is full of infection, and if it then starts rallying, it could experience this cytokine storm. There’s speculation online that extremely healthy young adults could be more at risk for a cytokine storm. But some of the things said in those discussions would possibly put people more at risk. Cytokine storms are known in other areas of medicine, and there are many proposed ways of treating it. Few of those treatments are through the testing stages. There’s also some speculation about Benadryl and other common medications.

Conspiracy theorists are also talking about the three part vaccine as an intentional way of killing people - first shot turns off the immune system. Second shot introduces the virus. Third shot turns on the immune system. A strategy like that would realistically cause a fatal cytokine storm.

Which leads me to another speculation: The Swine Flu is not as virulent as the Spanish Flu. It doesn’t multiply as fast, which means only a very few experience a fatal cytokine storm. Most of the people who died of Swine Flu seem to have had risk factors of various sorts.

Doctors disagree if cytokine storm is a feature of Swine Flu at all. My speculation is that we’ve got both the replication in the lungs, AND cytokines - bot usually not a fatal storm, that makes people really sick.

What to do if you get sick:

Knee jerk reaction from doctors is to take pain killers to knock down the fever and relieve pain. Don’t. Viruses can’t multiply in your body if you have a 101-102 degree fever. It’s a way the body fights infection. And since there (according to my speculation) is a factor here about degree of infection, it’s best to not let it multiply. So lay off the paracet etc, unless the fever shoots up to dangerous levels (101-102 is not dangerous, as far as I know?). If the virus is hindered from multiplying, you won’t get as sick (lungs etc), though you’ll feel really bad!

Isolation. You’ll need to be isolated for at least 7 days, even if you feel fine after 3. You’re still contageous. Children can be contageous up to 10 days. Maybe a grownup who gets really sick is contageous for long too? I don’t know.

Tamiflu etc. Read the link about fever just above. Personally, I’m not sure about this one.

Monitor your symptoms.

• If you spit up blood, or colored sputum (means spit, I think), this indicate bleeding in the lungs - combined with difficulty breathing, so fight to see a doctor. The stuff you usually get when you’ve got a cold is yellow, or sometimes greenish (might sometimes indicate a bacterial infection, but not always), but if it turns orange or darker towards red, I’m speculating that means there’s blood somewhere? Nasal mucosa can bleed if you use too much nasal spray, so obviously, not all colored sputum indicates lung problems.
• High fever lasting more than three days
• Altered mental state
• Turning blue
• Low blood pressure

Read the link for more on children

Vaccine:
The vaccines they’re proposing to use have so far not been tested. There’s testing underway now or soon. Some conspiracy theorists speculate that the vaccine is the real killer. Even if it’s not, there are risk factors. In 1976 one person died from a new flu strain. A mass vaccination got underway quickly in the US. No more people died of the flu, which simply didn’t spread. But many died from the vaccine, and many got sick. Some got Guillain-Barré syndrome. It’s a risk with many vaccinations, including the ones they’re pushing now.

Even if you think you got infected, try and avoid getting more infection. There MIGHT be a theoretical difference between one virus and thousands invading your person at the same time..

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