Is it all right not to go to hospital? Going to hospital, can infection occur more easily? Without going to hospital, doing treatment in one’s own way is NG. When influenza is suspected, even the symptoms not being so severe, you had better visit a hospital. There are cases that it gets spontaneously cured by resting in bed at home, but it is very dangerous to make one’s own judgements. Even if it is thought not so severe, there are potentialities of increasing in severity afterwards, and also it may possibly lead to falling into a very grave status without noticing the development of some complications. And if the disease is not properly taken care of, as the result, there is also the high risk for infection spread at home, schools and offices. You must visit a hospital to protect your own health, of course, but also surrounding people’s health. Need to see a doctor as well, in case you have some symptoms without any fever When infected with influenza, from whatever reasons like one’s constitution, age, having or not vaccination, type of influenza and etc., some cases may not appear having any high fever. Because there is no relation between […]

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Contents of test and treatment methods Currently prevailing test is to use “Quick antigen detection test kit”. Inserting swabs into the nose and back of the throat to scrape off nasal discharge and mucous membrane, dropping into the test kit to find out the presence of influenza viruses, thereafter whether infected or not is established. If influenza is diagnosed, medical treatment is given depending on the symptoms, ages and etc. of the patient. If it is within 48 hours from onset, administration of anti-influenza medicine is to be done to prevent symptoms from getting worse by controlling the multiplication of viruses. As to anti-influenza medicine, there are capsule type of “Tamiflu”, powder inhalant type of “Lyrenza” and “Inaville”, and also for elders and children, for whom oral dosing is difficult, “Rapiacta”, etc. of intravenous drip infusion type. But, because the conditions for capable medical institutions are limited and regulated, if necessary, the search of a capable hospital should be done beforehand.   Treatments for relief of symptoms are also available even when anti-influenza medicine is not effective after 48 hours from onset and so on. Also available are antipyretics and analgesics for a high fever, antitussive drug for painful coughing […]

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If you worry about having flu, let’s check initial symptoms. In case influenza is suspected, first of all, let’s check about what kind of symptoms is seen. The typical early symptoms are listed below: High fever of over 38 degrees Strong fatigue and/or chill Muscle pain, joint pain Severe headache If these symptoms are rapidly appearing, the influenza infection should be highly suspected. In case of having had vaccination, some cases may only have light symptoms so that people may mistake it for a cold. But, in case of a cold, symptoms develop slowly, and get complicated with runny nose or nasal congestion and throat pain etc. When you notice initial symptoms above during influenza seasons, strongly suspect influenza and take appropriate actions such as avoiding unnecessary outings and visiting a hospital and so on. When is the timing for visiting a hospital? When influenza is suspected, the most appropriate timing of visiting a hospital is between 12 hours through 48 hours after from the initial symptoms. There are two big reasons for it. One is for to make an accurate testing for diagnosis. “Quick antigen detection test kit” is usually used for influenza testing, but if the number of […]

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Determine influenza by other factors rather than fever! In fact, there are many cases of influenza having a slight fever only, people tend to not pay attention and lose the timing of visiting a hospital. Because most of the medicines of influenza are to be administered at the early stage of its onset in order to have enough effectiveness, it is important to visit a hospital and get the check-ups as early as possible. When there are symptoms of severe head-ache, severe chills, joint pains etc. other than a fever, you should suspect influenza and visit a hospital at once. And also in the cases where many influenza patients are seen in school or office, or a family member becomes infected with influenza, even if the symptoms other than a fever are light, for the possibility of influenza is very high, you must visit a hospital.  In general, it is known that the high fever term of influenza is about 5days, but if the fever continues longer than that there are possibilities of having disease complication. In the typical symptom of influenza, the rapid rising of the high fever over 38 degrees comes first and it peeks out at around […]

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Having a high fever doesn’t equal to influenza! Many people have some knowledge of influenza that happens every year, because a lot of information on preventive methods, treatment methods and etc. are made available. However people are very often mistaken about the relation between influenza and having a fever. Although the image that influenza must accompany a rapid fever rise is prevailing, it isn’t necessarily correct that “without a high fever, it is not influenza”. Among the patients with a slight fever on the 37 degrees level or the 36 degrees that is about the same level as normal temperature, many cases of confirmed influenza have been reported every year. To the contrary, there seem to be cases that, even though having a high fever, they can’t be influenza but the other diseases like a cold. There are also wrong understandings that having vaccination one will never get infected with influenza as well as the wrong perceptions, many people have, of “influenza should always accompany a high fever”. Vaccination is to expect the effects of making immune system strong. It is to induce the antibodies multiplication by injecting into body viruses whose toxicity is removed. However, because antibodies multiplication varies […]

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Treatment methods of influenza encephalopathy It is said that it is necessary to start its treatment before the diagnosis is established, because influenza encephalopathy progresses very rapidly. In case of encephalopathy, it is the principle to hospitalize the patient because it need make it possible to quickly treat the patient according to symptom changes. And as to treatment methods, the support therapy is basically applied, which can keep the whole body situation by controlling respiratory and circulatory, in addition to that, the specific treatments like antivirus medicine and high dose administration of gamma-globulin are also to be adopted. If the expected result could not be achieved even by giving those therapies, special treatments such as brain hypothermia therapy and plasma exchange therapy would be used, but because their working examples are very few, as well as problems of the high cost and the side-effects, these special treatments are deemed as very limitedly applicable. Regarding the prevention of influenza encephalopathy Although influenza encephalopathy is a very serious disease, its effective method of prevention is not yet found out. So, even for now, the best prevention method for it is to prevent influenza infection itself. From the influenza vaccination, the effects of making […]

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Why does influenza encephalopathy emerge? Among the influenza encephalopathies, it is suspected that using aspirin is the factor that develops Reye encephalopathy. However, exact causes for the other influenza encephalopathies have not been identified. Anyway, since it emerges only when one suffers from infectious diseases by viruses like influenza, the best preventive measure of influenza encephalopathy is, most of all, to do the prevention to avoid catching flu. The number of influenza encephalopathy patients reported during one season For the season of 2017 ~2018, the reported patient number of influenza encephalopathy was 168 cases. 58% of it was under 10 years old. And the ratio of 5 years old under was 33% which was the smallest ratio for the last three seasons. Among elders over 60 years old, the influenza encephalopathy cases were also seen, accounting for 13% of all reported number. Features of influenza encephalopathy In many cases of influenza encephalopathy, the symptoms rapidly develop within several to 24 hours after the symptoms like high fever etc. of usual influenza. The major early symptoms are impaired consciousness, convulsions and abnormal behavior and speech. If these symptoms are seen, it is necessary to promptly take a medical examination at the […]

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What is influenza encephalopathy? Influenza encephalopathy is a serious disease that affects the brain, after onset of influenza, developing impaired consciousness, convulsions, abnormal behavior and other symptoms. It primarily develops in infants under 5 years and is characterized by the rapid progression of impaired consciousness, etc. from its onset. There are also mild cases with good convalescence, but sometimes sequelae may remain and they may become mortal. Recently, adult cases of influenza encephalopathy have also been reported, it seems we can’t say it is limited to infants. Various influenza encephalopathies Influenza-associated encephalopathy is not exactly a single brain disease but a syndrome including plural diseases that develop impaired consciousness and etc. Find some of them below. Acute necrotizing encephalopathy This is a virus-induced, acute encephalopathy with diffuse brain edema accompanying both side symmetric thalamus lesions. It is characterized by that a lot of cases has been reported especially among the infants in South East Asia. The symptoms like rapid loss of consciousness and convulsions follow fever developed by the virus. The lesions are often observed onto cerebral side periventricular white matter, epithelial brainstem tegmentum and, the medulla, the internal capsule and the putamen of cerebellum. Reye syndrome This is an […]

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Regarding influenza prevention methods/measures that breast-feeding mothers can use without concerns: Mothers who take care of infants are apt to become sleep-deprived from the lack of rest by the breast-feeding in the middle of night, baby crying at night and being driven by daily childcare and so on. It is regarded that mothers are easy to have infectious diseases due to the immune system falling from chronic fatigue, since milking also consumes energy. It is advised that, first of all, mothers should have vaccination before the flu season begins, because, as explained before, having vaccination during breast-feeding term has no harm, and it is also important to always take preventive measures. Because the infection route of influenza is mainly droplet infection, try to refrain from going out and avoid crowded places as possible as you can during the flu season. When you need to go out for errands of foods and groceries, avoid the crowded time and always wear a mask. Masks that can tightly fit the shape of the face are recommended. When you come home, throw out the used mask and make sure you always wash hands and gargle. Preparing alcohol-based hand sanitizer is very useful so that […]

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Symptoms usually seen when infected and after infection: When being infected with influenza, breast milk may temporally become difficult to flow. One of the reasons is the decline of “oxytocin” secretion. “Oxytocin” is a hormone which has important roles for producing breast milk, but its secretion may be reduced if strong stress is given. When infected with influenza, hard symptoms like high fever, severe fatigue and joint pain, etc. continue for several days, and those symptoms become strong stress. As the result, function of hormone reduces and conditions for producing breast milk may become difficult. Because about 80% of breast milk consists of water, water loss caused by sweating from high fever may make breast milk difficult to produce. Well hydrating is very important, let’s keep it in mind. When breast milk becomes difficult to flow, one tends to try hard to milk and let baby drink. But trying hard makes mother’s body more tired and breast milk become even more difficult to flow, which results in causing a vicious circle. First of all, curing disease is the most important. Make them rest enough and drink water well. Effect on breast milk of anti-influenza medicine The suitable anti-influenza medicines which […]

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