The Bird Flu: What To Expect

I thought about posting this in an extablished thread about the H5N1 Bird Flu in LBN. However, the thread was well over 100 messages long. Normally, I wouldn't post like this, since it is essentially a vanity post, but it seems as though nobody has actually had a serious full-on case of Influenza A. So just in case you're thinking that all you have to do is pop a couple of Tamiflu and a few grams of vitamin C, maybe this will give you some idea of what you will be in for if you do get a major, new, exotic influenza. Actually, it's likely to be worse than what I had. I probably had a common H1N1; a flu with a new genome (H5N1) is likely to be both more contageous and make people sicker.

I had it in 1990. It nearly killed me. I was a healthy man of 32 at the time. I lived alone, had just left a job and had been dumped by a girlfriend (the two events were not connected) and no one expected me to call them or show up at work.

First, Influenza A is the "major" flu, not the little stuff most people call "The Flu". That stuff is usually not even a flu, but often it is Influenza B. The most common form of Flu A around is H1N1; the 1997 Avian Flu is H5N1, so it has a rare genomic configuration, and is likely to be both worse and easier to acquire. But I believe Pandemic_1918 has already pointed this out.

As for me and the Flu --

The first thing I noticed was that my perceptions changed. Time slowed down, my sense of depth perception was off, and I had the sensation that my thoughts were echoing in my head. This wasn't too bad, and I didn't suspect much, thinking I had a migraine.

The next morning I felt OK, but as the day progressed, I felt worse and worse. Late in the afternoon, the fever started in earnest, and I stayed in bed. My temperature was about 101F, and I felt lousy, but I was still able to get out of bed, get food, and so on.

The day after that started out OK, too, but within a few hours, I was even sicker. I was also severely light-sensitive. I got into bed and the next several days were a blur.

The pain was unbelievable. Everything hurt, and I had the sensation that my hair itself hurt. I recall being able to get to the bathroom a few times to urinate and vomit, but I didn't eat at all, so I was not in the bathroom much after a few episodes. Urinating felt like passing large pebbles; vomiting caused me to wail in pain and fear that I would die. Mainly, I stayed in bed and occasionally whimpered like an animal. I didn't have the presence of mind to call anybody, not even an emergency room, and I thought I was dying. At various points, sounds were so painful that I thought I was hearing screaming, rioting, shooting, and other mayhem, like the world itself was ending.

At some point, I kept track of my temperature, and I recorded a 104.3 or 104.8 temperature -- my writing was pretty disorganized.

The strangest thing of all was the delerium. At one point, Robbie Robertson's song Resurection came on the radio, and it triggered an entire hallucinatory sequence that was similar to Emmanuel Swedenborg's description of visiting Heaven. At that point, I was beyond perceiving pain. I recall that my hallucinated ascent was highly pleasurable, in fact, a not-uncommon effect of fever-induced delerium.

About twenty minutes after that, the fever broke, and I never felt so cold in my life. I shivered so hard that it was physically painful in its own way. I was also bathed in sweat, soaked my bedsheets, but mercifully fell asleep.

Incredibly, this wasn't the peak of my illness. I went through the same sequence four or five times, although without the nice trip to Heaven. Nothing I had ever experienced could have prepared me for this flu. I had had all the childhood illnesses that were common up until the 1970s -- Chicken Pox, both forms of Measles, strep infections -- but when I was a kid, I was never afraid that I would die. The pain, the delerium, the sense of heart-pounding dread were all experiences that I thought human adults could not withstand without falling unconscious.

Finally, as my fevers subsided, I was able to get up and walk around. I though it was Tuesday or Wednesday, but it was actually Saturday. I had lost maybe 22-24 pounds in four days, which was about 14% of my body weight then. The bedsheets were stained light orangish-yellow, and it wasn't from urine. The room had a smell to it that was "funky" beyond description, but it didn't smell like decaying flesh.

I was living alone at that time. I had dozens of increasingly frantic calls that my family left on my phone machine; when I called them back, my Father was getting ready to leave to come down and check in on me.

A few days later, I was basically over it, but I was very weak and completely "washed out". I saw my physician, who informed me that I had incredible luck to have survived such a high fever over such a prolonged period, even if it did subside from time to time. The fact that later I had a normal EEG was even more suprising to him; he expected that I had developed subtle brain damage from the experience.

I also compared notes with my grandmother, who actually had the Spanish Flu in 1918. She was a little girl, and it nearly killed her, too. She remembered seeing horse-drawn hearses picking up corpses that had been left outside, and masked people loading them and carrying them away. In her innocent, 5-year-old girl way, she even chose a sheet for her own corpse, although she did not need it.

It took months for me to get any kind of energy back. I slept and slept and slept.

Anyway, this is kind of what you can expect if you get a serious case of the flu. Don't underestimate it. Whether you live or die, you will have an absolutely miserable experience. Stephen King did not do the experience justice in The Stand -- but then again, he was writing about the aftermath of a plague, not its experience.

If you can imagine ten or twenty million people in the USA alone with an illness that is a step worse -- and 50%-80% destined to die from it -- you'll have a bit of an idea of what a contageous H5N1 bird flu will do in human terms.

--p!

Thanks for scaring the shit out of me. I mean that in a serious positive way.

I think we should be discussing bird flu more. After all, it has transferred from bird---> humans and there are reports of human-human transmission.

I'm not freaking out and becoming paranoid. However, I would like some serious facts and information from our government. We don't seem to be getting that.

Pigwidgeon--I'm sorry to hear about your experience with that nasty flu. It sounds like it was a trip into hell. I'm glad that you have recovered. I can't believe you lost that much weight in such a short amount of time! I had mono in 98, and that knocked me on my hiney. I was so sick I couldn't make it to the kitchen for a glass of water. I hallucinated also--however, my primary symptoms were zero energy and constanly sleeping. I didn't have the pain and suffering that you endured. You must be extremely healthy, to have survived that. If you don't mind me asking...were you a healthy person prior to catching this flu? Did you take vitamins, exercise or practice other healthy habits?

Thanks for sharing your experience.

In that one, healthy adults between 20 and 40 were the main targets, exactly the opposite of the pattern of other influenza epidemics. There were anecdotes of 4 women playing cards until late at night, with 3 of them dead of flu by the following morning, and of people who went into work, felt ill, and were dead within hours. The death rate looks small, only 2.5%-5%, but it was enough to lower life expectancy in the US by 10 full years.

Being healthy and active with healthy habits didn't save young adults in 1918 and it probably won't save people who die from this flu. However, since the anitbodies to the virus have been isolated in people who were never sick enough to be diagnosed with avian flu, the earlier report of a 70% death rate would seem to be drastically exaggerated.

I don't think I'd charge up those credit cards with dream vacations just yet. We still don't know too much about this one. However, it does bear watching closely.

...that we shouldn't assume that this avian flu will be catastrophic.

However, several factors raise red flags. The high death rate, which was previously reported (70 percent), was alarming.

However, these new cases of asymptomatic carriers is puzzling. Since they've developed antibodies, we may be able to fight it off better than previously thought. However, asymptomatic carriers could transmit it to others who are not so immune.

As you said, "it does bear watching closely."

There is a lot we don't know about this virus.

It's based on about 50 patients, but it's not a bogus or skewed datum at all. The bird flu (Hong Kong Avian 1997/H5N1) is unique enough that the immune system is at a great disadvantage in dealing with it.

I'm also not sure that asymptomatic carriers have actually developed specific antibodies, but may not express the virus (get sick) for any number of other factors. This is an area of great concern to virologists, and it began getting serious funding about a decade ago because of the relatively large number (~5%) of asymptomatic patients with HIV and/or who had recovered from fully developed AIDS.

Also, the virus problem isn't that this particular one will be the next Great Plague, but that society has made our species a prime reservoir for the development of new viruses. A large number of host organisms that are hard to kill, extremely social, and have a diverse number of immune system disorders and quirks is the ideal environment for fast virus evolution and selection. We are a Garden of Earthly Delights for these half-critters/half-robots. Keeping safe from their ever-developing "tricks" will take some work on our part.

--p!

I think that it's important that we don't gloss over serious illnesses because we get complacent regarding our language. Everyone who has a cold, suddenly calls it the "flu" and it has made the word lose meaning to us. I appreciate you account of Influenza A, and I'm happy that it appears you made a full recovery. :)

On a personal note, I had the measles in 1990. I hear anti-vaccine advocates say it's a nothing childhood disease, and it makes me crazy. (I'll save my rather gruesome personal account for a different thread someday.)

:scared: