H1N1 and diabetes

I am fairly new to diabetes. I have not had to follow sick day guidelines and I am serioulsy scared to go back to work. I teach second grade and I hear from people who have already gone back to school that the number of cases of H1N1 is increasing since everyone is in close questers. I have heard that some pople who have died from H1N1 had diabetes or some other underlying disease/condition. What is the general opinion of this group? Does everyone have a plan of action if they get sick with this particular flu? What can I expect if I get sick?

I agree with Dave. I have worked in public elementary schools all of my life. I am type 1 for 41 years, and I will get the shot when it becomes available to me., at my doctor’s office. I have never been fearful of getting the other flus or anything else from the kiddies , just because I am diabetic. I just get the flu shot each year, as our school district offers it to all employees free., Not sure if they will have the free one for H1N1. I had the flu one time, early in my career, when I had not built up any immunities to the kiddie born illnesses. I got a stomach flu from one of the kids at school last year, from which I recovered, just took off one day.
I generally am pretty healthy now.

Wash your hands frequently and Get the shots… And don’t worry
God Bless,
Brunetta

And stay home , when any sign of flu like symptoms appear to you ; don’t spread " it " .

Thanks Dave! I think all the press is worrying me. I am going to get the shots as soon as it comes out!

It is nice to hear that from another teacher. My friend works as a school nures in Alabama and she said there are already 50 kids out after 2 weeks of school. I guess I will just pray for the best until the vaccine comes out.
Thanks for your support!

I am all about staying out for the 7 days they are telling people to stay out for. Thanks!

Send kiddies home as quickly as possible when they cough or feel warm. Hope you have a school nurse there so the kid can take his/her things & go to her office. I have been known to wear an extra open blouse (and bring a second one for the afternoon) into which I can turn my head and breathe. Blouses are not a mask, but I’ve attributed my lower infection rate to them when with a classroom of coughers.
I had H1N1 last spring. Took only 3 days from when I was exposed to the cough to starting to COUGH. I laid around and slept.
I put my basal injections a half unit higher. In this case, I ate a bit less than normal but still had to raise my boluses due to the infection. It’s important to keep fluids going in: I use chicken soups, Crystal Light. For me, the cough lasted 3 days and I was back to my normal energetic self the 4th day.
Two weeks later, my 10 year old grandson came to visit us down south. He spent his entire spring vacation sick with H1N1, but I had been immunized by my bout with it and had no problems.
NOTIFY your doctor if you start urping so IV FLUIDS can go in. And do not be slow about it. Test, test TEST so you keep up with infection needs. Get extra strips in now. 10-12x a day are easy to use up. Have an extra box around.
I heard people who died may not have taken seriously the need for extra fluids, they may not have been in excellent control, and they may have been blah to the point they did not recognize their cough was changing into a deeper cough - eg, into pneumonia. KEEP someone else checking on you and determining that you are going thru it ok.
Best wishes! Keep yourself in great control!

Wow! It is so reassuring to hear that you were ok after only a few days! Thank you for your advice. I will get extra strips now just to be safe. Did your BG go way up when you had it?

Not much, 264, 252 second day; third day woke up with 228. Midday was 194. The 264 is 164 above my usual.
I take two basal injections daily, so I had added a full unit and the numbers still were up, but you have to set that for yourself. I’m small. A unit reduces me 35-50mg/dl depending on where I am in the great scale of blood sugars.
I do not believe in handling anything myself if my temp goes to 102. I don’t believe I would be able to pour in enough fluids & that would indicate to me, at least, a complication.
And without saying it above, I agree with all the hand washing etc that everyone else has said. Of course, if you can prevent it with the shot, great.

Leona,
Thank you. That doesn’t sounds too awful. I kept imagining mumbers in the 300’s or 400’s!
I feel like I will keep a positive attitude since I have heard from all of you!

I teach second grade also and am very concerned. We aren’t sharing any school supplies at our school and we hand sanitizer ready all the time. :slight_smile: Hopefully, that will help.

You know how those little people like to share germs though! Ha! I am going to have the hand santizer ready and be sure to teach them how to use it. Last year when H1N1 came out I brought the hand santizer to the lunch room and put it on my class’s assigned tables for them to use. I had to show them how to use it so that when they got too much on thier smaller hands that they could just keep rubbng their hands together until it was all gone. I also had to teach them to cough into their elbow instead of on each other! I My friend who is a nurse (In Auburn, AL -your neck of the woods!!) said if anyone starts coughing back away from them.
When do you go back to school?

I have two small children in school and they usually bring me home some sort of nice illness each school year :frowning: The kids are washing and using hand sanitizer often which helps with prevention. Get the flu shot as soon as its available because the regular flu (or any illness for that matter) can be just as deadly for diabetics as H1N1. If and when I get sick I increase my basal as mentioned by others and I usually need to adjust my bolus a little as well. I drink lots of Ocean Spray diet cranberry juice and water. I also eat only chicken soup until I can stomach more solid food. Test often and if you go high and cannot stabilize you should go to the doc asap. I guess its most important to know when you are not able to get well at home and should go to the hospital.

Here are some facts from the alternative health community, take it for what it’s worth.

Remember that most people who get H1N1–just like with every other flu–turn out fine. Most recent reported cases have been mild, so I wouldn’t worry too much.

It is only a concern people highly at risk - the elderly and the very young. Remember that just because this flu has a special name and a media campaign, it is not fundamentally different from other annual flus. Viruses of a similar strain swept the country in '57 and '68. The people exposed then are now immune, which is a natural way to deal with viruses. By avoiding the chance to become immune (by getting a vaccination instead of risking exposure) we risk becoming a weaker population in the face of future flu outbreaks.

"As of July 17, 2009 the CDC listed 40,617 probable and lab confirmed swine flu (H1N1) cases reported in the U.S. with 263 deaths. " this .006% death rate is significantly lower, in fact, than the .1% death rate of the '57 and '68 influenza pandemics. I don’t want to downplay the significance of lives lost, but the deaths took place mostly amongst people who were already very ill and these figures are not statistically significant in the context of a flu vaccine. For a contrast, malaria kills 3,000 people a day. In America, over the last couple of decades between 900 and 2,000 people died from the flu annually.

The health complications associated with the vaccine, however, are far more troubling. I work in a public school, and there is no way in hell I would ever get a flu vaccine. I believe people should have the right to do it, but I never will. Remember that influenza vaccines are categorically one of the most ineffective types of vaccines.

Because of the medical emergency caused by H1N1 (under the Public Readiness and Emergency Prepardness Act), the swine flu vaccine creation process is being expedited. Previously illegal agents (squalene) will be placed in the vaccine, as will toxic compounds like aluminum. Thimerosol is a mercury based preservative (this is the specific chemical linked to certain types of autism and and correlated with some instances of various autoimmune disorders including type 1 diabetes) will also be included.

Safety testing will take place for one to three weeks. This is a joke. The logic is that because past vaccines have been generally safe, the next ones will too. With logic like that, who needs the FDA? We’re basically asking the pharmaceutical industry, politely, to regulate itself.

interview with Dr. David Getoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyJ-bcAuLA
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine…
http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/h1n1-swine-flu.aspx
Gary’s Null radio show on vaccine ingredients - http://www.garynull.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/GaryNullShow0821…

Thanks. I am going to try my best to stay on top of any illness that I get. I am hoping that by some small miracle I can avoid this flu and any other flu!

Sam,
I understand the problems with the vaccine and I wary of the H1N1 shots. I feel torn. I guess it is more fear then anything. I appreciate your point of view. I am going to keep an open mind! Thanks for the information!

H1N1 vaccine is dead or alive virus if dead virus it safe.

Mercury base chemical is safe because amount of mercury lower risk level.

thanks. It is all so scary!

It only seems prudent to get the immunization as soon as it becomes available, as well as taking all of the other precautions that are recommended by the CDC.

One thing I wish that would change would be to change the culture we have that motivates sick people to keep going to work, school, shopping, etc. until they absolutely cannot physically do it anymore. Most do not think beyond their own needs or desires and simply do not give it a thought about what their illness might do to others. I think that since those of us with diabetes are more susceptible to becoming ill, or having a more difficult course with something like seasonal flu or H1N1 makes us more sensitive to these considerations.

Perhaps (unfortunately) it will take a serious disease like this to enable a change in outlook by our entire society. I know that during the Spanish flu (1917-1919) that 20 percent of my ancestors that I’ve been able to trace died of that. I pray history does not repeat itself.