How my daughter died from a simple case of flu | Hacker News Reader

How my daughter died from a simple case of flu

cnn.com

25 pointstony10124 comments

People are missing the point. There are multiple comments here that say:

Is it normal to wait that long to go to a doctor in the US?

and

I never understood why the US didn't have more walk in clinics.

But she did go to the doctor. Directly from the article: When they returned home, she walked in through the back door and said the visit to the doctor was a waste of time. The doctor just said it was the flu and to "let it run its course."

There are two big issues: 1) it's hard do diagnose exactly how serious any particular case of the flu is, and 2) she wasn't vaccinated

Of course, as the article mentions, vaccination isn't a sure thing. That's why herd immunity is so important. That's why anti-vaccination nutcase celebrities are so dangerous.

herd immunity is a double edged sword though, having people immune to a specific disease does make you less likely to catch it. but because of herd immunity, you never encountered the disease, thus when you do get it, usually later in life, its usually more dangerous for you to have the disease, as symptoms tend to be more severe,possibly deadly. to give an example, MUMPS,RUBELLA, ditpheria, measles, are much more dangerous than when there was little to no vaccinations to it, adults are the highest risk of death from it, while children usually have mild symptoms. Chickenpox is one of those disease you get as a kid, and possible shingles later in life, but with vaccination, now adults are getting its severe and can be deadly, and shingles is becoming more common in young people.

"The flu destroyed her organs. She didn't even know it."

Wait, what kind of flu was this, Ebola Zaire? Since when does influenza destroy organs?

Taking the flu seriously is definitely advisable, but something sounds amiss here.

Yeah, I wish there was a little more color on the details of what the flu really did, why it was so dangerous in this instance, and if it was possible to identify which form of flu was responsible.

When a story like this is pushed, and relevant details are excluded, one might sense an agenda. Maybe there are reasons to exclude details, regarding medical privacy, but without them, the article is reduced to "flu dangerous, can kill."

For example, does one flu shot inoculate for all flus? If not, then which flu shots were available, and would any of those flu shots have helped at all in this situation? How can we draw accurate conclusions without complete information?

the article has inclompete details, i believe your right, they just wanted to title it "flue kills"

the one that raised a red flag, that it destroyed the organs, i never heard of a flu doing that. I was suspecting either she never had the flu, or she rarely had it to make the flu more dangerous for her, the mom even said she was never vaccinated for it. she could also had a comorbid condition, like immunosuppression, which the flu can kill her, or she had a secondary bacterial infection. there is no flu shot that will vaccinate for all flus, otherwise we dont need to keep making new ones every year, and there is many strains, that the vaccines might not work against. Flu viruses evolves way to fast to be a perfect vaccine, similar to how there is no HIV vaccine, it mutates to rapidly.

Medically speaking, the account is strangely incomplete, especially since the specific strain wasn't mentioned. The USA annual influenza vaccine only includes 2 or 3 strains, and those are selected many months before flu season. It's guesswork at best. I've never even heard of them reworking a given year's vaccine even when they know the choices were inappropriate for the actual vectors that year.

Wednesday - Sunday + 34h == ~7 days. Is it normal to wait that long to go to a doctor in the US? I'd be rushing by the third day, no simple flu has ever kept anyone I know down for over two days. Not to blame anyone, just curious.

It's extremely common in the US. I grew up poor and there were many times I was sick, sometimes even severely, and never went to the doctors. Even now I know people who are making 6 figure salaries and choose not to go to the doctors because it's just so expensive. They hedge their bets taking high deductible insurances, or sometimes going without, so they just avoid going to the doctors until they have no choice.

1 REASON is the cost, even with insurance, theres a limit how much you can use the service, if its over the preniums or deductible, the insurance can refuse to pay for anything, insurance can also outright refuse to pay for services, even if its affordable to them, thier goal is to earn profit, not deduct from it. the 2nd reason is probably the major one, is about the foolish thing of keeping a clean image. They dont want to show "weakness" by going to the doctors so much, they are making stuff up, or the doctor will say "its nothing"

Normally it is a few days but I wouldn't call this abnormal. They have scheduled me so long out that by the time I show up I'm already getting better.

The decision on how bad you feel is Emergency Room $$$$$, Urgent Care $$ or Doc visit $. Also just because you pay more doesn't mean you get in either, I've been stuck at Emergency Room for 12 hours before.

I never understood why the US didn't have more walk in clinics. They are simply doctors offices that take people on a first come first serve basis. It costs $50 if you don't have insurance (ex: new to the country).

Urgent care clinics are similar but more mini hospitals - hence the '$$'.

The US has many walk in clinics - they are usually attached to a pharmacy/chemist or part of a large retail store (CVS minute clinic etc) and you see a Physician's Assistant (PA) instead of a regular doctor. If it's more serious then they will send you to urgent care or your regular doctor. The cost is usually < $100.

I went to one of those once and while the cost was in total < $100, I received multiple lab bills months after the fact. That makes it impossible to predict the costs ever after seeing the doctor.

It is uncertainty in costs just as much as the costs that keep people away from doctors here.

Great point. That is also a problem with the entire industry.

I imagine this is highly region specific. I've lived in the us for 6 years now and I can't think of any near me. On the other hand I could easily locate a number of urgent care clinics.

Maybe. What State are you in? CVS and Walgreens dominate the market for these clinics in Minnesota.

Washington. We have Walgreens but they have nothing I would call a walk in clinic. You could maybe tell your troubles to a pharmacist - and they can give you a flu shot. But it's not really the same thing.

My family doctor's office in Canada would refer us to a nurse phone consultation before even giving us an appointment for our daughter. Here you have to exaggerate, she was having 38.3 C and the nurse insisted that anything less than 38.5 is not considered fever, and only after 3 days of fever while treated with acetaminophen/ibuprofen she would be eligible for a consult.

The cold or flue lasted 9 days, with fever coming and going, we took her one day to the walk-in clinic. I understand they don't want a million children collapsing the system but let's say I wasn't happy.

Influenza regularly knocks you out for 5-7 days [1]; that's one way to distinguish it from the common cold, which usually has no non-respiratory symptoms (fatigue, fever, muscle aches) and when it does lasts only a couple days.

In my family, we usually would go in to see the doctor if the progression of the illness was getting worse. Influenza usually comes on very strongly and knocks you out for a week, but the worst days are the first and second, and then you're just on bedrest for a while. Same with most illnesses. It's when you feel sick and keep getting sicker that it's time to see a doctor.

It sounds like that's what the family in the article did: when her illness got worse, she went to the doctor. But the doctor just diagnosed her with the flu and sent her home, so it's not like it helped.

[1] http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/infections/viral-infections...

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Absolutely terrible. I suppose the lesson here is to make sure your kids get a flu shot.

That's part, but not all. Flu shots are far from perfect and are based on imperfect predictions of which strains would be dominant.

We've got an in office test and anti-virals that are effective in, respectively, identifying and reducing the intensity and duration of flu infections. But you've got to see the doctor for a definitive diagnosis and prescription very shortly after symptoms appear for Tamiflu to be effective.

Visiting the doctor for the flu is a useless endeavor. Unless you get wheeled in, they are going to tell you that you have the flu and all that they can do is let it run it's course.

Of course a big dose of anti-oxidants would knock out the flu PDQ, just like the just discovered cure for Sepsis, intravenous Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C). Doctors were curing polio in the 40's with intravenous Vitamin C, and measles, and Chicken Pox.

Eventually Linus Pauling will be vindicated and when he is vindicated he should get another Nobel Prize.

Influenza kills half a million people a year. Don't take it lightly.

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