Influenza: Signs and Symptoms
Lisa Surratt: People have common thinking that the flu is going to be a stomach bugs, some kind of vomiting and diarrhea and so forth and that's not the flu at all. The flu symptoms are fever, body aches, soar throat, coughing; it's more of a respiratory virus than anything. It actually mimics the RSV virus which is very common in the children. So when - if your child was to come down with those symptoms, your pediatrician would consider both RSV virus as well as the flu.
Influenza: The Season
Lisa Surratt: The flu season runs between October through about February. The best time to get the flu vaccine is October/November. In that way you are covered for that season. The actual flu virus really is not going to around much later than that, and through the summer, and early fall, we don't see very much of it at all.
Influenza: Prevention
Lisa Surratt: Of course, hand washing is very important. Using hot water and soap to basically prevent yourself from touching door handles, and then touching your mouth or face. That's probably the next thing that you possibly can do. Other than that, I mean, there is really no other way to know who has the flu virus.
Influenza: Vaccinations
Lisa Surratt: There are two different types of flu vaccine; one is the injection which is an in-activated flu vaccine which is the killed viruses, we have talked before. The second one is called a live attenuated influenza vaccine and what that is, it's a nasal spray but it does have a weakened influenza virus. So that one is actually alive but it is weakened so it won't exactly cause the same symptoms necessarily more just mild, very mild symptoms. I mean some people have no symptoms at all. So we offer the injections just because it seems that people have less side effects with it.
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