Website Helps you Diagnose H1N1 aka Swine Flu

By Amber Ortega on October 7th, 2009

• Share
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 1 Comment

H1N1, or Swine Flu, whatever they are calling it this week, is spreading quickly.  It is affecting a lot of people, causing our hospitals to be overworked and crowded.  When calling into speak with doctors, many patients are getting busy signals or waiting on hold for extra long periods of time.  Waiting rooms are filled with coughing, sneezing, germ-infested people.  Well, there is now a Web site designed to help you diagnose if your child, over 12 years old, may have H1N1.  For children under 12 years old, the Web site asks you to please contact their pediatrician.  The younger the child, the more quickly the flu can progress.  The site was approved by the American College of Emergency Medicine and they are hoping this will help alleviate the over-crowded hospitals.

Upon accessing the H1N1 Flu (Swing Flu) Response Center Web site, you are able to access a self-assessment.  Upon answering a variety of questions, you are given a response.  You could be told you probably don’t have the flu, you may have the flu or that you may be very sick and need to seek immediate medical attention.

Although this doesn’t help us with our little one’s, it is nice for our older children or ourselves.  Many people that have the swine flu do not even know it, because they are treating it at home.  There is a huge panic over the majority of the population, but many people that do become infected are healing within a few days.

In our school district there was a little girl, Trinity Olivares, 5, that passed away with H1N1.  She only had symptoms for one day, and was not running a fever.  This, of course, caused a huge panic amongst our community.  We have since found out that every school in our area has cases of H1N1, but they are not being made public to help alleviate panic.  After the notification came out about Trinity, many parents kept their children home from school, with my son having nearly 1/4 of his class out.  Parents may not realize that H1N1 is everywhere and if children are testing positive for  it, then your child has probably already been exposed.  Since little Trinity had no prior health conditions, I feel the main reason her heart stopped was not H1N1, but because of dehydration.  If you see your child is getting sick, be sure to pump them full of liquids and call your pediatrician.  Remind your children to wash their hands frequently and get them a small bottle of hand sanitizer to keep in their desk, backpack and/or cubby.