[patience]

Antivirals:
Chicken soup with LOTS of poultry seasoning (has thyme in it) and red pepper to taste (bumps fever up?)

Thyme in any form, fresh is better.

Honeysuckle, whole plant, make tea. This kicked a stubborn virus for us last year. We are blessed with the stuff here, growing wild, sort of like Kudzu down south as far as being a tenacious weed. Harder to get rid of than Johnson Grass.

[Grautr]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'T')o my friends and my foes here on Peak Oil. I don't talk about this much, but I am a Licensed Herbalist. I offer this advice free and it has always worked for me. Go to the Health Food Store buy Elder Flowers and Peppermint, either loose or in tea bags. Try to get it as fresh as possible. Brew a tea as strong as you can stand. Sweeten with honey if you can't stand the taste. You can drink it hot or cold. Do not waste it. As soon as you feel a fever make some up and start drinking it. Also if you have to go out everyday eat raw garlic. Or slice it fry in butter and make a sandwich. Please pass this on. It seldom fails. And is a very old recipe. Good Luck.

[strider3700]

elderberry can be effective against many cold's and virus's but if it's a totally new type like the current flu then it's actually worse for you due to it increasing the cytokines which can be the major cause of death with these new flu's

same goes for the old standby Echinacea.

Our immune system will initially react totally wrong to this virus and the stronger the response the more likely it will be that our immune system will kill us before killing the virus.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

don't forget to get yourselves a good lanolin based hand cream. If you are all washing your hands and stripping them of oils and moisture, your hands will try to suck up any kind of moisture they can.

so at the end of the day when you are sitting in front of the tv with nothing in your hands slick them up with hand creme to overload their up-take mechanisms with hand cream. they will also more comfortably withstand all the hand washing you put them through the next day.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nefarious', 'I')'m going to make a point about everyone buying these dust mask for protection.

They are made for dust and have a protection rating of about N95. That means they will filter out about 95% of the particulates in the air of about 0.3 microns. That doesn't sound so bad does it. Draw back is they do not make an air tight seal against the face. You will usually have gaps around the nose area where air will pass freely with no filtration.
Lets examine the size of a virus. They are about 100 times smaller than a bacteria. Let's put that into perspective. If I had a block that was 100ft x100ft x100ft (that's a bacteria) in comparison a virus block would be a 1ft x1ft x1ft block. They range in size from 0.005 to 0.3 microns.There is no filter that I am aware of that can filter out particles as small as a virus, but we can filter out the aerosols like the mucus and saliva and such that carry the viruses.
Now dealing with something so small would you really want to have a dust mask that doesn't preform an air tight seal and allows particulates to pass through gaps(even small ones) and can only block 95% of particulates?
I personally would like the best protection possible. Either a full face or half face respirator with hepa cartridges that filter out 99.97% of particulates of 0.3 microns, it has a protection rating of n100. That when you put it on you can actually test to make sure you have an air tight seal around your face. You must have an air tight seal for any kind of filter to work properly.

I have worn SCBAs,Air fed respirators, Full face respirators, and half face respirators almost everyday for about 15 years in hazardous environments so I might know a little bit about them but I'm no doctor and don't know much about viruses.

[rangerone314]

I thought the reason the flu hits in the winter is not lack of vitamin D production, but the virus being coated by a gel-like protein that melts in heat (hence in a warm body it becomes infective, but in a warm external environment losing the exterior coating makes it more vulnerable to breakdown, UV etc.

[patience]

I forgot to mention GrapeFRUIT Seed Extract (NOT grape seed extract). Proven antiviral for us. 6 to 10 drops in a LOT of orange juice, to hide the bitterness, a couple times a day did it for us. They even use the stuff for an agricultural spray for something or other. (Anybody know?) See Amazon.com,, search for GSE. Bigger bottles are much cheaper per ounce.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he highly contagious equine influenza A virus subtype H3N8 was found to have been the cause of Greyhound race dog fatalities from a respiratory illness at a Florida racetrack in January 2004. The exposure and transfer apparently occurred at horse racing tracks, where dog racing had also occurred. This was the first evidence of an influenza A virus causing disease in dogs. However, serum collected from racing Greyhounds between 1984 and 2004 and tested for canine influenza virus (CIV) in 2007 had positive tests going as far back as 1999. CIV possibly caused some of the respiratory disease outbreaks at tracks between 1999 and 2003.[2]

H3N8 was also responsible for a major dog-flu outbreak in New York state in all breeds of dogs. From January to May 2005, outbreaks occurred at 20 racetracks in 10 states (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia).[3] As of August 2006, dog flu has been confirmed in 22 U.S. states, including pet dogs in Wyoming, California, Connecticut, Delaware, and Hawaii.[4] Three areas in the United States may now be considered endemic for CIV due to continuous waves of cases: New York, southern Florida, and northern Colorado/southern Wyoming.[5] There is no evidence that the virus can be transferred to people, horses, cats, or other species.[6]

[Subjectivist]

Great now every time the pooches sneeze on me I will be wondering if they have Dog Flu and if I can catch it.

I did catch something from them last winter now that I think back, but it was pretty mild and passed after 72 hours. Up until then I never realized humans could catch anything except rabies from dogs.

[Timo]

That might be handy information to post at municipal dog parks. We used to take our dogs to our local bark park, but that was several years back. It started getting too crowded, leading to bad behavioral issues among several dogs. Still, i'd hate for H3N8 to get a foothold in my part of the country, and lead to the deaths of any number of canines.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'T')hat might be handy information to post at municipal dog parks. We used to take our dogs to our local bark park, but that was several years back. It started getting too crowded, leading to bad behavioral issues among several dogs. Still, i'd hate for H3N8 to get a foothold in my part of the country, and lead to the deaths of any number of canines.

[Subjectivist]

Great, one of the dogs just sneezed all over me. I sure hope I don't catch anything, my experience with cross species contagion last winter was not pleasent at all.

[Subjectivist]

Can't say for sure of course, but just got done cleaning up dog vomit because one of my pooches has puked at least three times this morning, once in her kennel, then twice more on the floor before I realized she was ill. The batch on the kitchen floor was very mucous thick and sticky with almost nothing solid in it. Cant leave her outside, she only weighs 12 pounds and it is 3F outside. 5 kilos and -20C for the non Americans. Have not been feeling especially well since I got sneezed on last week but we thought it was mild food poisoning from our Dinner out at a resturaunt over the weekend.

[Subjectivist]

Saint Judes Childrens Hospital has a new report out on this.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Memphis, Tennessee, September 4, 2014
A study led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists found the avian influenza A H3N8 virus that killed harbor seals along the New England coast can spread through respiratory droplets and poses a threat to humans. The research appears in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications.
The avian H3N8 virus was isolated by scientists investigating the 2011 deaths of more than 160 harbor seals. Researchers discovered the virus had naturally acquired mutations in a key protein that previous laboratory research had shown allowed the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 virus to spread though respiratory droplets. Scientists reported that the avian H3N8 seal virus infected and grew in human lung cells. Researchers also found that the virus spread in ferrets though respiratory transmission, which is uncommon for avian flu viruses and raises concerns about possible person-to-person airborne spread of the harbor seal virus. Investigators found no evidence of human immunity to the strain.
“This study highlights a gain-of-function experiment that occurred in nature and shows us there are avian flu viruses out there beyond H5N1 and H7N9 that could pose a threat to humans,” said corresponding author Stacey Schultz-Cherry, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Infectious Diseases. In recent years, human cases of highly pathogenic avian H5N1 and H7N9 flu have been confirmed in countries around the world, with mortality rates approaching 60 percent.
“Avian H3N8 viruses are established in horses and dogs. This study raises a red flag about the threat this strain poses to humans exposed to animals infected with the virus,” Schultz-Cherry said. While no human illness was linked to the 2011 harbor seal virus, a different flu virus has spread from infected seals to humans who came in close contact with the animals. Avian H3N8 is also believed to have triggered a human flu pandemic in the 1880s.

[onlooker]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-y ... -cdc-says/

I wonder how much of this is related to flu vaccine. I personally, do not like ingesting any medicine as this is a way to over the long term weaken the body and it's natural defenses. So this maybe the case with the flu. Hope everyone takes care and is wary of the flue.

[Rod_Cloutier]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') wonder how much of this is related to flu vaccine

[WildRose]

I wonder why California has such a low incidence of flu? It will be interesting to see if that state is just slower to develop widespread flu incidence like other regions, given that it is such a highly populated area.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', 'I') wonder why California has such a low incidence of flu? It will be interesting to see if that state is just slower to develop widespread flu incidence like other regions, given that it is such a highly populated area.

[jedrider]

I got the flu while traveling to Central America, but came down with it fully the day after I got back. So, about three days of being under the weather. Perhaps, I could have opted for the high-tech flu vaccination solution. Anyway, not severe enough to warrant seeing a doctor. Some years, I just get colds and no flu, so I wonder if it is really worth getting vaccinated? I was one of the first to get the swine flu when that went around - again travelling to Central America via Mexico, and I wonder what the efficacy of flu vaccination was for that?? That pretty much ruined my vacation completely