Symptoms Of H1N1 Flu Explained
H1NI flu, more commonly known as ‘swine flu’ is a pandemic that started in 2009. This article aims to explain the most common symptoms of h1n1 flu and to inform the reader about it.
The illness starts typically the same way as a normal cold or flu, but progresses faster and in a more serious form, often becoming life-threatening and even causing death. The first symptoms therefor often include fever, chills, a dry cough, headaches, muscular pains, painful joints, tiredness and a running nose. Additionally diarrhea, nausea and vomiting have been observed and, in rare cases, neurological problems have been developed by the patient.
As a rule of thumb, people that are older than 65 and children younger than 5 suffer more frequently from more severe complications. Also patients that have a preexisting medical condition and / or a disability are at a higher risk. Another high risk group are pregnant women, especially when in the last trimester. All these groups have an overall higher risk of needing hospital treatment. When a patient has a preexisting condition that makes it difficult to breath deeply and cough sufficiently, such as it is the case with asthma and certain neurological condition, his or her risk of suffering from severe complications is also higher.
But also previously healthy people can suffer from this type of complications. If this is the case, the health of the person starts to deteriorate dramatically in the first five days of the illness. This can, in the worst of cases, lead to complete respiratory failure and death. Warning signs of such an acute development of the illness are difficulty to breath, getting out of breath very rapidly, chest pain, feeling light headed or dizzy, being confused, low body temperature instead of the more typical high fever, severe and repeated nausea and vomiting. Additionally, especially in children can be observed: cyanosis (skin and lips appear to be blue), refusing to drink, difficult to wake up, listlessness and unwillingness to be touched due to pain and stress. These type of complications in previously healthy patients is often caused by an excessive response of their immune system to the infection.