KENT COUNTY. MICH. — You might be starting the new year nursing yourself or your family back to health. The CDC says flu levels are at a 25-year high, and Michigan is among the states at the highest risk.
"We're starting to see the biggest numbers right now," said Dr. Andrew Jameson, an infectious disease doctor with Trinity Health. "Early December, we started seeing those numbers really start to jump up. And so I would expect peak to kind of hit in the next week or two."
Jameson warns that even after you fight off the flu, your health could still be at risk.
"The flu kind of distracts your body and starts putting some of its defenses down. So you're at risk of bacterial super infections, we call it. So that's things like pneumonias," Jameson said. "One of the common things we see is actually staph infections after influenza."
Jameson says he's seeing those post-flu complications in hospitals now, including a surprising case in an otherwise healthy 20-year-old.
"He got better from the flu, he was miserable, started getting better, then all of a sudden, his got a ton of sinus pressure, and it actually caused a brain infection," Jameson said. "And now this poor kid is looking at a pretty significant surgery, all because the flu took him down first."
Here's what to watch for if your recovery may be taking a turn:
"If you kind of seem to get over your fevers, and you were getting better, but then all of a sudden, the fevers come back, or you can't breathe as well, or you're coughing a lot more, that can sometimes mean that you have a bacterial infection that's actually settling down into your chest," Jameson said. "If you do have that abrupt worsening.... five to seven days later, that's not something we'd expect."
While Jameson says the flu vaccine may not be the best match for the new strain circulating, it still helps.
"If you can decrease how much virus you're shedding... that decreases the spread even more. So it is a good idea, and it's not too late," Jameson said. " "It'll take a couple of weeks for [the vaccine to] really kind of kick in, but every second makes a difference, and your body starts responding to it early. You make some antibodies, and you can fight it off easier."
When to seek medical care
A big question if you're sick: When should you call your doctor versus heading to urgent care or even the emergency room?
"Contacting your primary care provider can be really helpful so that they can kind of screen you and assess you and determine, you know, do you need the emergency department or is an urgent care also appropriate?" said Dr. Steven Van Rees, Emergency Department Chair at Trinity Health Muskegon. "For some of these minor respiratory illnesses, urgent cares work really well... as you become more elderly, it's definitely appropriate for you to be evaluated in the ER, because that's where some of these minor things can actually be more significant."
Jameson recommends the basics to recover and stay well: vitamin C, zinc, plenty of fluids and getting lots of rest.
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