Forum Index
»
Health and Medicine
Very interesting re: flu vs rhinovirus (cold)
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I saw this this morning -- I thought it was very interesting. Seems like the rhinovirus has been very severe lately, and people have easily mistaken it for H1N1.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20091112_Tests_show_fall_outbreak_is_rhinovirus__not_swine_flu.html |
Anonymous
| Interesting. I know I'm at the tail end of a HORRIBLE rhinovirus strain. Bronchitis in all of us, complete misery. |
Anonymous
| Can you get a fever with a regular cold? My son has gotten a one day fever twice this fall, with nothing more than cold symptoms. He's never done that before. |
Anonymous
My son just had this as well - fever for one day and fine after that. It's my understanding that yes, you can get a fever from fighting a cold. |
Anonymous
|
This is very interesting! My dd had a fever and cold symptoms for about 5 days in mid October. She had the swab test and was negative, but I assumed that it was a case of a false negative and she had the flu.
I wonder though if it was this severe cold... |
Anonymous
| Same here. My DS had a fever (not particularly) high just for one day and a bad cough, stuffy nose.... that has lasted all week. |
Anonymous
| Most viruses actually cause a fever whether it is rhinovirus or influenza. Viral symptoms in general are cough, runny nose, fever and aches to it is easy to see how these are becoming confused with H1N1 - particularly since the tests we have to do in the office are highly inaccurate. |
Anonymous
| This is very interesting--my son is home for day 4 of fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue and chills. Was tested days ago for H1N1 and strep, both negative. Had an early regular flu shot so that is unlikely. Must be a nasty rhinovirus. But since his negative H1N1 test, I have been thinking that there must be a "look-alike" (for lack of better word (and brain cells....)) virus going around. Hope this helps quell some of the hysteria--not every bug is H1N1. |
Anonymous
|
There is no negative H1N1 test, not really. You're talking about a rapid test flu test, which tests for influenza as a whole rather than H1N1. Many false negatives, see below: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19861069
Yes, that shows the rapid test caught a whopping 11.1% of lab determined h1n1. To really confirm that it is h1n1, they have to do the full lab typing, which they're not supposed to do for anyone who isn't critical at the moment. To me, it sounds like your son has influenza, thus likely h1n1. Very frustrating that many care providers are still not telling their patients that the rapid test is pretty much worthless. |
Anonymous
| pp here, to clarify I guess I'm saying that while there can be a negative h1n1 test, you don't really have one. Rapid test rules in rather than out. |
Anonymous
|
PP here with son on day 4-5 of fever after negative flu test. I wasn't clear (due to lack of sleep, alas)--yes, our pediatrician told me that it is only a flu test--they don't test for h1n1--but I had no idea the high false negative rate. Since his fever is back up to 103.5 tonight, I am thinking this is it.
|
Anonymous
It's so hard to say bc many times in prior years, my son had bad colds (or other viruses) with fevers for a few days. Since they dont have accurate tests for H1N1 I wonder if a lot of people thought they had it but really didn't, and then can get hit with it later thinking that they are immmune... 
|
Anonymous
| My son came down with some virus in October. I took him to the Ped because we thought it might be H1N1 and we have high risk individuals in our house. He tested negative with the rapid flu test. The ped told us that the rapid flu test does have a fairly high false negative rate. He said if it was the flu then it would be at least 3-4 days of consistent fever. If it was some other virus then the fever would break earlier. In DS's case, his fever broke the next morning, came back the following night and then went away. Even though he had aches, sore throat, and a cough that lasted for 4-5 days, I'm fairly certain it was not the flu. The aches and sore throat were just for the 1st 24 hours. |
Anonymous
Yea, common cold! Bring it on! 
|
Anonymous
| Last year at this time, before H1N1 was on our minds, nobody questioned fevers with cold symptoms--I know that when my kids got a fevers with cough, I chalked it up to the garden-variety virus. Both my kids have had fevers with colds in past years. While H1N1 is definitely going around, there are also lots of viruses and I do believe that without the swabbing, many garden-variety viruses are being misdiagnosed as H1N1. |