There's nothing gradual about the flu: it slams you like a hammer. One minute you're feeling fine. Next thing you know, you're shivering, you're burning up, then shivering again. In minutes, your legs turn to jelly and your body aches in places that have never hurt before.
"Influenza has such a sudden onset that people can sometimes say, 'It hit me at exactly 9 last night,'" says Dr. Carolyn Bridges, an expert on influenza (flu's proper name) at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. But whether the flu strikes at night or on the bus to school, there's just one thing a victim wants to do: collapse into bed.
Right now there's a whole lot of collapsing going on. Flu season lasts from November through April, and this year's bug is a doozy. "I'm sending home about twice as many kids as I usually do," says Jane Allen, a school nurse in Lubbock, Texas.
Thirty-one states have big outbreaks of flu. Clinics and hospital emergency rooms are bursting with feverish, coughing, miserable patients. "My nose is so stuffy, I just want to cut it off!" groans Nekedria Clark, a student at New York's Pace University.
It's too soon to say just how bad this flu season will be. Certainly, it won't compare to the famous epidemic of 1918, when influenza struck 1 out of 4 Americans and killed 20 million worldwide. But even in an ordinary year, about 1 in 10 Americans gets the flu. And as you may have noticed from all those empty desks at school, kids are the most frequent victims.
Tiny Viruses, Big Miseries
Like the common cold, influenza is caused by a tiny virus. Several million flu bugs could fit on the period at the end of this sentence. The virus spreads from person to person on the tiny droplets produced by a sneeze or a cough.
Once inside the body, flu viruses settle into the delicate cells that line the lungs, nose and throat. There the sneaky invaders steal the body's own building tools to create billions of copies of themselves. These viruses quickly spread into more cells. Most awful flu symptoms--fever, runny nose, body aches--are caused not by the virus itself but by your body's attempt to get rid of it.
A healthy person can fight off the flu in three to five days, though a cough and tired feeling can last two more weeks. But often an attack of the flu is followed by another illness. That's what happened to Phillip Winston, 10, of New City, New York. After a week of headaches, dizziness and fevers as high as 104°F, he finally beat the flu. "Then I got an ear infection, and I'm still taking medicine for it," he says.
Doctors believe the damage done by the flu virus makes it easier for other germs to attack, including the bacteria that cause ear infections and pneumonia. The one-two punch of flu followed by pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. Nine out of 10 of these deaths occur in elderly people.
The lesson for people of any age: if you aren't getting better after four or five days of the flu, or if you get better and then get worse, see a doctor.
Medical Weapons
This year lots of flu victims are seeking relief with drugs that target viruses. Two new ones--Relenza and Tamiflu--have been heavily advertised on TV. They don't cure the flu, but they can make it a little less awful.
Doctors recommend that people who are old, or people of any age with heart or lung problems like asthma, get an annual shot of the flu vaccine. Because flu viruses change all the time, a new vaccine must be prepared each year to protect against the latest versions. Right now a medical team at the cdc and others in Britain, Japan and Australia are busy studying the current crop of viruses to develop next year's shot.
Should healthy kids get the vaccine? "That's something to talk over with a doctor," says Bridges. The main side effect, she notes, "is a sore arm." If that sounds bad, stay tuned. Researchers are developing a new kind of vaccine that's nothing to sniff at. It enters the body the same way the bad old virus does: through your nose!