It’s mid-February and the flu patients keep coming. Flu vaccine and screening supplies are becoming scarce at the Findlay, Ohio, medical practice where family nurse practitioner Gina Vaughn sees her patients. The influx continues as the infection spreads. “The flu season has just gotten out of control because people are not staying home,” she laments. “They’re not using common sense.”
Slogging through the flu is miserable enough. If you try to tough it out at the workplace or power through in public, you’re not doing yourself – or anyone else – a favor. To be a hero, stay home, say public health experts and patient care providers like Vaughn. By doing so, you help protect your co-workers, classmates, fellow worshipers, small children, pregnant women, seniors and those with chronic health conditions from exposure to the flu virus.
It’s important to get an early handle on the flu to stave off complications such as pneumonia or sinus infections, or in extreme cases, a life-threatening infection called sepsis. Reach out to your health care provider sooner rather than later.
That’s much more helpful than waiting until symptoms worsen and you’re forced to make a midnight trip to the nearest emergency room. “They don’t want you in the ER,” Vaughn says. “It’s too dangerous – you could spread germs all over.”
When patients develop rapid-onset fever, generalized malaise – feeling achy and rotten all over – and respiratory issues like a tight cough with phlegm, Vaughn suggests they visit the primary care providers’ office for evaluation and treatment. Some may receive the antiviral medication Tamiflu.
Although the best advice is for patients to stay home, rest and recover, many worry about missing work time or classes. Health care providers can lend support. For those who need it, Vaughn offers excuse notes to pardon them from the workplace or from school. She’s been known to call supervisors herself. “I’ve gotten good, positive feedback,” she says. “We don’t need [the flu],” employers tell her. “We don’t want to spread it to our customers.”
If you’ve been exposed to the flu, it’s not the ideal time to visit a relative in the hospital or nursing home or drop in at your child’s day care center. If you must go out in public, practice good hygiene. Prevention can’t be emphasized enough, Vaughn says: “You wash your hands. You put on a mask. You sneeze into your sleeve and spray [disinfectant] on it. Whatever it takes. Stay home. Stay away from people. Use sense.”
