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How Does the Flu Actually Kill People?
Scientific American ^ | 18 Dec, 2017 | Ferris Jabr

Posted on 12/19/2017 7:38:13 PM PST by MtnClimber

One Sunday in November 20-year-old Alani Murrieta of Phoenix began to feel sick and left work early. She had no preexisting medical conditions but her health declined at a frighteningly rapid pace, as detailed by her family and friends in local media and on BuzzFeed News. The next day she went to an urgent care clinic, where she was diagnosed with the flu and prescribed the antiviral medication Tamiflu. But by Tuesday morning she was having trouble breathing and was spitting up blood. Her family took her to the hospital, where x-rays revealed pneumonia: inflammation in the lungs that can be caused by a viral or bacterial infection, or both. Doctors gave Murrieta intravenous antibiotics and were transferring her to the intensive care unit when her heart stopped; they resuscitated her but her heart stopped again. At 3:25 P.M. on Tuesday, November 28—one day after being diagnosed with the flu—Murrieta was declared dead.

Worldwide, the flu results in three million to five million cases of severe illness and 291,000 to 646,000 deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the totals vary greatly from one year to the next. .........

How does the flu kill? The short and morbid answer is that in most cases the body kills itself by trying to heal itself. “Dying from the flu is not like dying from a bullet or a black widow spider bite,” says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “The presence of the virus itself isn't going to be what kills you. An infectious disease always has a complex interaction with its host.”

(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: flu; ginakolata; influenza; thespanishlady
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1 posted on 12/19/2017 7:38:13 PM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

I have had the flu so many times in my life that statistically I should be dead.


2 posted on 12/19/2017 7:39:22 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Who knows what really happened to this poor girl? She may have had bacterial pneumonia and sepsis which were either misdiagnosed or not yet apparent when she saw Urgent Care. When I first saw this story, I thought it was a stretch to say she died from the flu, but I guess it’s possible.


3 posted on 12/19/2017 7:49:46 PM PST by GnuThere
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To: MtnClimber

Guns?


4 posted on 12/19/2017 7:50:14 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: MtnClimber

The real reason for the article is revealed in the last line:

“The most effective way to prevent the flu and its many potentially lethal complications is to get vaccinated.”

Follow the money.


5 posted on 12/19/2017 7:51:10 PM PST by MichiganCheese (The darker the culture, the brighter your light can shine.)
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To: MtnClimber

pneumonia


6 posted on 12/19/2017 7:51:20 PM PST by Bobalu (Build the Wall. Deport them ALL)
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To: GnuThere

In 1918 the young and strong got sick in the morning and died by night
Their own strong immune system killed them
Cytokine storm

https://www.livescience.com/35867-flu-triggers-deadly-immune-system-storm.html


7 posted on 12/19/2017 8:04:42 PM PST by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: MtnClimber

Take vitamins D3, which is a hormone. It strengthens you against flu.

As each hemisphere moves into winter, reducing sun exposure and natural vitamin d supplementation, flu breaks out.


8 posted on 12/19/2017 8:16:31 PM PST by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: MichiganCheese

One of my kids just had some surgery. The nurses must have asked 10 times if he had the flu shot. When he said no, they asked if he wanted it. No.

My wife just noted tonight that she read that he’s not to get any vaccine without doctors permission and shouldn’t be with people who recently got flu shot, yet the hospital was all over getting him his flu shot.


9 posted on 12/19/2017 8:21:53 PM PST by cyclotic (Trump tweets are the only news source you can trust.)
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To: MichiganCheese

“I have a solution”

There is nothing wrong / abnormal with me.

“I can find a problem to fix.”

Hammers in search of a nail. Follow the money is right.

Not everything can be fixed and not everything needs to be. Tell me please why the clinical norms keep getting ever more stringent?


10 posted on 12/19/2017 8:24:19 PM PST by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

D3 is an unsung beneficial necessity so far as I am concerned. Finally the medical community is recognizing and measuring concentrations with labs. Sometimes you still have to ask for it and monitor it yourself. In poultry science the benefits are long recognized and well researched.


11 posted on 12/19/2017 8:27:11 PM PST by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: MtnClimber
Well, you can die from coughing.

Constant and prolonged, your muscles wear out and things break...sturnum, ribs and your back. The body wears out and the cough wins.

12 posted on 12/19/2017 8:35:58 PM PST by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sureaut jor)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

D3 is a great idea.

For the flu it’s best to not take aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen as those bring the fever down.

Having a fever keeps the virus from replicating, and in turn reduces the subsequent complications due to the cytokine storm.


13 posted on 12/19/2017 8:37:32 PM PST by webstersII
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To: MtnClimber
Doctors gave Murrieta intravenous antibiotics and were transferring her to the intensive care unit when her heart stopped

This was not the flu. You only get intravenous antibiotics if you have a bacterial infection. She probably got a blood infection that spread to her heart and lungs.

14 posted on 12/19/2017 8:39:55 PM PST by P-Marlowe (Freep mail me if you want to be on my Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar Ping list.)
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To: webstersII

Apparently you have never gone above 105.

No, not all fevers are OK. Getting too hot is very bad, maybe indicative of a losing battle. And relieving some of the symptoms is not bad.


15 posted on 12/19/2017 8:48:15 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: MtnClimber

I had a bout of serious pneumonia this past summer. I had been hospitalized for several days for cellulitis, a skin infection that settled in my right leg. After several days of IV antibiotics in the hospital I was discharged, but quickly I developed shortness of breath and high fever. I was diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown origin and was admitted again and pumped full of a full spectrum of IV antibiotics. I have never been so sick and had trouble breathing as well as high fever. Fortunately I responded to the antibiotics, but my doctor was quite frank and said I could easily have died if the antibiotics had not been effective.


16 posted on 12/19/2017 8:49:39 PM PST by The Great RJ ("Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcherhttp://www.stone)
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To: The Great RJ

One word: ZINC


17 posted on 12/19/2017 8:53:54 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: P-Marlowe

The flu weakened immune system is overwhelmed by a bacterial infection. read the article.


18 posted on 12/19/2017 9:00:34 PM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: cyclotic

the protocols at hospitals require the nursing staff to ask every patient every day whether they want the flu shot. I kid you not.


19 posted on 12/19/2017 9:01:50 PM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: webstersII

“D3 is a great idea.”

Yes, when taken with K2.


20 posted on 12/19/2017 9:08:56 PM PST by muglywump (Seven days without laughter makes one weak.)
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