Talk to me about Tamiflu...

[Hannah Elise]

Okay, mamas. Talk to me about Tamiflu. Active ingredients, etc.

One of my mother's coworkers picked up a feverish daughter from daycare at the tail ed of last week, took her to the doctor to make sure she didn't have ear infections, and the doctor took a swab to check for flu just in case. Of course the mother brought her daughter back to the office for the last couple hours of day because, "Pssh, she doesn't have the flu, she's acting fine." Yeah. It came back positive. So the doctor ordered a prescription of Tamiflu for each of the family members.

Guess who woke up this mornign with headache, achy neck, fever, etc? My mother. We live with my parents, and on top of regular exposure, my mother watched our ds last night so we could go see the Hobbit. :think

So, anyway... we don't do the flu shot, but if it turns out she does have it, what are the risks/benefits of going on Tamiflu as "preventative"? I'm a firm believer in the idea that the body reacts with a fever because it's fighting the illness and such (http://www.modernalternativemama.com/blog/2011/2/26/fevers-good-or-bad.html - love this article), but I don't know that we've really come in contact with true "flu" before, and with me being 37.5 weeks pregnant, I just wanted to research whether or not it's something we should pursue. For that matter, if I can even have it, being pregnant. :scratch

Anyway. Talk to me, mamas! :pray4 Thanks!

Edited to add:
Keeping ds on his routine kefir/probiotics/TriLight-herbal-multivitamin regimen. Added some probiotics to my own drink this morning, as well as TriLight's RespaClear, to boost my immune system, as that has echinacea in it and I know it's pregnancy-safe.

[Mother of Sons]

I don't know anything about tamiflu but I would at least get some oscillococcinum and have everyone take that.

[Hannah Elise]

I don't know anything about tamiflu but I would at least get some oscillococcinum and have everyone take that.

We've got plenty of osci (I bought a thirty-pack off of Amazon before cold-and-flu season started), but I was under the impression that osci is meant to be taken to help shorten the duration of flu-like symptoms, not as a preventative. :scratch

[sweetpeasmommy]

i've never heard of taking it as a preventative. last time i came down with the flu i took a homeopathic flu remedy every 15 min during waking hours and woke up good as new the next day.

[Pragmatist]

I don't have any evidence to back it up, but I personally wouldn't touch tamiflu. And I don't think it works as a preventive anyway. I'd do raw garlic and elderberry syrup.

[TestifyToLove]

Tamiflu works by weakening the influenza virus so that the immune system can better fight it and destroy it.

However, anti-virals work differently than antibiotics. Bacteria contain something the human cell does not contain called RNA. Antibacterials attack RNA and thus does not directly attack the human body. Virus vectors only contain DNA, thus anti-virals have no choice but to attack DNA. This can cause significantly more risks and side effects in humans.

Much of the side effects of antibiotics come because they kill helpful bacteria in the body and not *just* the harmful bacteria. Anti-virals have side effects caused by their impact upon human DNA.

Like all medical options (including the choice to opt out of Western medicine), you need to weigh the risks versus benefits for your unique situation. Rene made a very good explanation of the at-risk populations that make using Tamiflu a very good option.

In my household I would give my four year old with asthma Tamiflu if he contracts influenza but would not give the other children it. I have asthma and was hospitalized from life threatening complications from influenza last December. However, I have 3 auto-immune disorders and a sub-par immune system. Consquently, I got both the flu and pnuemonia vaccines for myself but would not utilize Tamiflu for me. DH makes his own decisions and I cannot answer for him. I've made a choice for myself and my eight children based upon the risks versus benefits for each individual and the answer is not the same across the board.

Micah, when he was alive, recieved his flu vaccine every season AND took Tamiflu the minute he had a confirmed exposure to influenza. Despite that, his last bout of influenza weakened his lungs and body in spite of the Tamiflu he recieved that it started the downward spiral which ended in his death 17 months later.

[charla]

Both my mom and I took tamiflu several years ago when we came down with Influenza Type A and we both now have ringing in the ears after taking it. I also started vomitting shortly after the first dose. I personally would never take tamiflu again and would instead treat with oscillo. My dad took another drug to prevent the flu since both my mom and I had it. I don't remember the name of it (I think it starts with an r :think) and he never got the flu nor did he have any side effects. I really have no definitive research that shows one way or the other if tamiflu is safe/effective or not. However, my gut feeling leads me to never taking it again. :shrug3

[Mother of Sons]

but I was under the impression that osci is meant to be taken to help shorten the duration of flu-like symptoms, not as a preventative

My family takes it at the beginning of every flu season as a preventative and again if there is any exposure. So far so good.

[mwwr]

Tamiflu can cause permanent ringing in the ears? Hmm. I don't remember exactly when ds1 first noticed the ringing in his ears, but I'm pretty sure it was after the Tamiflu. Of course, he has a million other neurological issues that could be the cause, and he is one of the high-risk patient for whom Tamiflu was intended. But still...:think

[Hannah Elise]

Micah, when he was alive, recieved his flu vaccine every season AND took Tamiflu the minute he had a confirmed exposure to influenza. Despite that, his last bout of influenza weakened his lungs and body in spite of the Tamiflu he recieved that it started the downward spiral which ended in his death 17 months later.

TestifyToLove, would you mind sharing why Micah was part of the at-risk population? I tried to follow the link in your signature, but the slideshow was giving me an error message... I take it he had more than the asthma that you and your four year old have?

It does appear that my ds has come down with SOMEthing... he had a 102.6 fever when he first woke up from his nap earlier today... and he premuch went back to sleep for another three hours. By 4:00, though, the fever had broken, although he's still acting miserable and under the weather. Doesn't sound like much, except that literally nothing stops this kid from going-going-going... we had a respiratory bug that put each of us (myself, dh, my mother and father) in bed for the first two days with sinus/lung/fatigue/etc issues (but no fever or headache, so I'm pretty sure THAT wasn't flu) last month, and while he came down with it, too, his energy level barely saw a dip. So, for him to be whimpering and in and out in our arms for four hours is... well, big for him.

That said, I don't think I'm going to pursue taking him to urgent care and seeking out Tamiflu unless he starts to show respiratory symptoms.

My OB called in a scrip for Tamiflu on Friday when I called their office to see whether or not they wanted me to come in for my appointment, knowing that I had been exposed. They wanted me on it as a preventative, even though I wasn't showing any symptoms. I figured, well, I would pick it up to have on hand and IF I was showing symptoms, THEN I would take it.

So I stopped at the pharmacy to pick it up, and got talking to my pharmacist... long story short, he told me that if I started to feel like I was coming down with it, to take some Tylenol and call him and he'd get it made up - and that if it was Christmas, to call their house (small town - we buy hay from his father-in-law, his father-in-law leases cornfields from my father, his brother-in-law is our mechanic, etc). :heart small town.

But yeah... I appreciate the information y'all listed out for me here. I'm continuing my preventative regimen (probiotics, RespaClear, etc) and I've got my son on children's osci, Scout Out, and Wild Cherry Coffaway... so here's hoping we won't have to use it. At this point I'm just wishing we didn't live in the same household as my parents, because my mother is all worried and thinks I should've gotten him on Tamiflu today because of how miserable she was (at one point she was in the 104 range), and "children's fevers tend to run higher, and they can't handle that, and I had your father pick up some children's tylenol at the store today just in case you decide you need it," aaaaand... *sigh* Yes, mother. :yes I know it's just a case of grandma-worry. :hug2 It's not like as a mother, I'm not worried... I just have a far greater skepticism of interfering with a healthy immune system's functions, I guess.

All that rambling to say... I'm not going to rule Tamiflu out, but I really do appreciate all the information y'all gave me, because I felt utterly uninformed about it (and while I'm "read up" on antibiotics, I didn't know how antivirals worked, so I definitely appreciate that!).... and I dislike being uninformed. Being uninformed is how ds ended up circ'ed... :cry

[charla]

Tamiflu can cause permanent ringing in the ears? Hmm. I don't remember exactly when ds1 first noticed the ringing in his ears, but I'm pretty sure it was after the Tamiflu. Of course, he has a million other neurological issues that could be the cause, and he is one of the high-risk patient for whom Tamiflu was intended. But still...:think

I can't say 100% that it was the Tamiflu that caused ringing in the ears but that is the only thing my mother and I took that was the same, in the same timeframe and got the same results. :shrug3

[Hopetobe]

Tamiflu works by weakening the influenza virus so that the immune system can better fight it and destroy it.

However, anti-virals work differently than antibiotics. Bacteria contain something the human cell does not contain called RNA. Antibacterials attack RNA and thus does not directly attack the human body.


I don't know much about Tamiflu, and maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but can't human cells have RNA and DNA?

[LilacPhoenix]

:hugheart I took it when 29ish weeks pregnant with DS2. It really messed with my sleep:( I had bad insomnia and vivid dreams. No other side effects I can directly attribute to it. I don't think I would take it again, especially while pregnant. And I think if I wouldn't have ended up in the hospital, I could've managed it with natural remedies that would've been just as effective without all the side effects. DS1 was 2 at the time, and they recommended he and DH both take it as a preventative. They didn't. Neither one ended up sick.

[Rabbit]

Samantha and Josh came down with the flu when I was third trimester pregnant with Simon. Our doc prescribed tamiflu for Josh and Samantha, not to me, to lessen the risk of them passing the flu to me. I didn't get the flu. We were all sleeping in the same bed.

[mwwr]

TestifyToLove, would you mind sharing why Micah was part of the at-risk population? I tried to follow the link in your signature, but the slideshow was giving me an error message... I take it he had more than the asthma that you and your four year old have?


Hannah Elise, I don't think TTL would mind me sharing that Micah died of cystic fibrosis this summer. I'm guessing you are fairly new since you missed that vigil.

[TestifyToLove]

As mwwr beat me to, Micah had Cystic Fibrosis. He was *beyond* an at-risk population and in a very small sub-set of individuals that influenza in ANY form is deadly without intervention.

DH's best friend had Cystic Fibrosis and was one of the first in the CF community to die of the swine flu of 2009. Micah contracted Influenza B February 2010 despite recieving his flu vaccine. We gave him Tamiflu immediately but his lungs and his liver never recovered from that bout with influenza. He died 17 months later of CF complications despite having been in terrific health before that round of the flu.

This, Micah was always treated more aggressively and with everything we could to do support him.

J had asthma. I did not get the flu vaccine for him. I also did not give him Tamiflu when he got influenza this last week. His Pulmonologist and I kept him on his Flovent for this flu and cold season specifically to help him weather respiratory infections and not have major asthma complications. I gave him his albuterol with his Flovent and watched him. Had he gotten gunky at all, I would have started him on Guifenasen. I also was prepared to use his nebulizer and not merely his rescue inhaler for the albuterol.

Generally, I am rather alternative minded in treating my kids. When it came to Micah, I had to adapt and accept that he would have died without modern science and thus I did things different for him than the others.

Humans do have RNA but it functions differently than bacterial RNA. It's not our genetic coding itself.

[MrsDuck]

I would like to add one thing since I haven't seen it mentioned here... One of the side effects listed is depression, especially in teenagers. We gave tamiflu to our then three year old last year and it definitely made him depressed. His flu symptoms were gone almost instantly but the depression didn't go away until a day after he stopped the tamiflu. It was a little freaky to see in someone so young. I was just glad we found out he reacted that way while he was small.

[simplegirl]

i've never heard of taking it as a preventative. last time i came down with the flu i took a homeopathic flu remedy every 15 min during waking hours and woke up good as new the next day.

And what was that remedy? DS is on day 6 of having "the flu", doctor didn't actually swab but just guessed. She called in a rx of tamiflu but I have no intentions of filling it. We have done oscii, probiotics, and vitamins and nothing seems to be helping him.

[mwwr]

My family has had the flu since this thread started. Took dd12yo to the doctor because she thought it was strep, and I would treat that with abx. She had the flu instead, and the doctor prescribed tamiflu for her and dd7yo. Dd10yo had had the flu too long to qualify, but the doctor prescribed tamiflu for the other girls and ds18yo, who has a seizure disorder. I was going to take the conservative route and let her wait it out when I saw the actual price :wow Well, she was so miserable that her dad insisted I give it to her. It didn't help much, and she whined so much I was ready to shoot her. Seriously, she was a worse patient than any man I have ever met. (Forgive the stereotyping; but it DOES get the point across.) Younger dd was as happy as a clam by that point, so she got only home remedies. I gave ds18yo the tamiflu the minute he coughed for the first time, and he had a pretty mild case. Ds16yo had a mild case, too. So much that I wonder if he wasn't just reacting to the vax updates he got that day (before he showed any symptoms.) IOW, the results were all over the map. It is a very expensive treatment that I would not bother with for a developmentally normal kid with a healthy immune system. I have no idea what I would do if pregnant, since I don't think it was available my last time around.

[sweetpeasmommy]

And what was that remedy? DS is on day 6 of having "the flu", doctor didn't actually swab but just guessed. She called in a rx of tamiflu but I have no intentions of filling it. We have done oscii, probiotics, and vitamins and nothing seems to be helping him.

Source Naturals Flu Guard

[Soliloquy]

I wouldn't touch tamiflu without a -very- good reason. As in the flu might kill me because of a preexisting condition.

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