We all want to avoid the flu altogether — or at least shorten our time in bed if nothing else. If you do start to feel the familiar flu symptoms, such as chills, aching muscles, headache and fever, there is an antiviral drug that may help your body bounce back quicker.
Researchers have found that if you take oseltamivir (commonly known by its brand name Tamiflu®) within 48 hours of symptoms, it may reduce a typical seven to 10 days of illness by about 1.3 days. It works by interfering with the proteins that the flu virus uses to reproduce. This allows the virus to be destroyed and killed by your own immune system.
However, this drug isn’t for everyone. Matthew Faiman, MD, Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic’s MyCare Online, answers several key questions about the pros and cons of oseltamivir.
Q: Who are the best candidates for this antiviral medication?
A: The best candidates are people at risk of complications from the flu because their immune system doesn’t work well. Also, I would consider prescribing this medication to those with diabetes, asthma or other respiratory disorders, heart disease, chronic kidney disease or to patients who are significantly overweight.
Q: What are the potential complications of the flu for these patients?
A: About seven days after flu symptoms begin, people with compromised immune systems or other conditions (listed above) are at risk of getting a secondary bacterial infection of pneumonia. In some cases, this can put them in the hospital. Using oseltamivir to help shorten the flu also reduces the risk to these patients of contracting pneumonia.
Q: Why would low-risk people want to take oseltamivir?
A: Some people would say it is worth taking this medication to reduce the time they’re sick, even if it’s only by a day or so. They look at it as a way to get back to work sooner.
Q: Are there some downsides to taking this medication?
A: Typically, oseltamivir costs between $75 and $150, depending on your insurance. And the potential side effects of oseltamivir can include moderate to modest nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. So you have to weigh how much that one day means to you. Also, it doesn’t work on bacterial infections. And it’s not a substitution for the flu vaccine.
Q: What are typical flu symptoms, which would be treated with oseltamivir, and how do they differ from cold symptoms?
A: The usual symptoms that people would recognize as the flu include a very high fever, sore throat, muscle aches, cough, headache and maybe even a runny nose.
Your typical common cold might involve a runny nose and cough, but it will not cause a high fever or muscle and body aches that come on very quickly.
Q: How do you obtain this medication?
A: You can only obtain this medication by visiting your doctor within the 48-hour window of feeling any symptoms. Once prescribed, patients take it twice a day for five days.
Q: If someone is not a good candidate for oseltamivir or is past the 48-hour window, are there any natural options that you recommend?
A: I recommend lots of fluids and rest. Chicken soup, Echinacea and elderberry treatments are fine too, but these options have no scientific basis. They’re more for comfort.
What is most important is hydration. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink. Make sure you control your fever. I suggest alternating acetaminophen, which is generic Tylenol, and a generic anti-inflammatory, such as Advil® or Motrin®. Then you just need to give it time, because it can linger.
Best approach is prevention
Dr. Faiman says the best approach is to take steps to avoid the flu if possible.
“If people can prevent the flu first and foremost by getting the flu vaccine, they do themselves a much greater service,” he says.
He believes that’s the most important message for flu season: Get the influenza vaccine each year. It helps you stay well and it helps everyone around you too. Your doctor will not have to manage as many sick people in the waiting room that pass the virus on to other patients, nurses and staff.
Also, you help reduce the billions of dollars of lost productivity each year from people taking sick days when a flu shot may have prevented their illness, he says.
Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter