Flu season is upon us

Flu season is upon us here in Rhode Island. Doctors across the state (myself included) have seen a massive increase in the number of flu cases over the past week or two. 

For those of you who have been lucky enough to never have flu before, the flu is a viral infection that attacks the respiratory passages. It gives patients high fevers, muscle aches all over their body, extreme fatigue, and often a sore throat, runny nose, sinus congestion, and sneezing. It lasts about a week, give or take a few days, during which you are pretty much bed-bound. I've personally had it twice in my life, and can tell you that it is just miserable. 

Here are some important things to know about the flu:

1) It is caused by a virus. This means that an antibiotic WILL NOT help it. Let me repeat this: if you get the flu, there is no pill that will make it go away. The only cure is to wait it out until your body recovers, which again, typically takes a week or so. There is an anti-viral medicine called Tamiflu that can make the flu a bit more mild, but because this drug has been overprescribed in the past, many strains of flu are now resistant to it. Therefore, doctors generally are trying to save the use of this drug only for the very sickest people (such as the elderly or people with serious underlying illnesses like cancer or AIDS), who are most at risk for developing severe complications from the flu. 

2) The obvious outcome of the above is that the best "cure" for flu is to never get it in the first place. The best steps you can take to do this are to wash your hands frequently, and to get a flu vaccine if you haven't had one yet. A lot of patients refuse to get vaccinated for the flu each year, so in my next post I'm going to try to address some common myths about the flu vaccine. For now however, all I can say is that if you haven't gotten vaccinated yet but plan to do so, don't wait any longer. 

Joshua Fischer, M.D. is a board-certified Internist and primary care doctor at Coastal Medical in East Providence, RI. You can follow more of his musings on health care at his personal blog.