flufilter....

September 9, 2009 1:56 PM

With all this flu talk, it got me wondering...I got a really bad case of it back in March. (Doctor confirmed.) Could it possibly have been of the swine variety?

I know they didn't start tracking it till mid April, but I do kinda wonder. FWIW it took me forever to get over, and I did have some mild nausea with it (the doc gave me medicine for that as well.) I did have a nasal swab to confirm that it was flu and not some other virus, fwiw.

So, could it have been?

posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies to health & fitness (8 comments total)

How on earth is anyone supposed to answer this without your swab and a lab?
posted by meerkatty at 2:00 PM on September 9 [4 favorites has favorites]

It could have been. It could have been any influenza variant. Why care what kind it was?
posted by GuyZero at 2:05 PM on September 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

What I mean is, could it be said that there WERE swine flu cases back in late February/early March, and is it theoretically possible I had it?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:09 PM on September 9

There's no way to know. However, if you get sick again this fall, it'll probably be useful information for your doctor to know that swine flu was already on the march when you were sick previously.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:10 PM on September 9

From the CDC:

"2009 H1N1 (referred to as “swine flu” early on) is a new influenza virus causing illness in people. This new virus was first detected in people in the United States in April 2009."

So you could have had it, although it's unlikely and it would not have been possible to identify it as such since H1N1 had not yet been sequenced or identified as a separate strain of influenza yet.

Again, from all the previous flu threads, the "normal" flu kills thousands of people a year. h1N1 is no different in that regard.
posted by GuyZero at 2:14 PM on September 9

Isn't one theory that Mexico had been having an epidemic for some time before the swine flu cases were recognized, thus explaining why it initially seemed so deadly? So in that case, I guess if you'd visited Mexico City right before getting sick, it could have been swine flu. Seems a little farfetched unless there's some other evidence pointing towards it, though. (IANAEpidemiologist or nuthin'.)
posted by hattifattener at 4:05 PM on September 9

The symptoms of swine flu this past spring were milder, for most people who got it, than regular flu. That's what made it spread so fast - people felt bad but still able to go into work, school, etc. Whereas with the regular flu you feel like you've gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson and just want to curl up in a circle and die.
posted by txvtchick at 5:06 PM on September 9

Regular flu it was then.

And make that eleven rounds....
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:08 PM on September 9