Am I the only one with a sore throat, congested, runny nose and painful cough?

Nope! Strep throat has been going around for about a month, especially in children. And the influenza virus was first spotted in MC about 2 weeks ago. It's not to late to get a flu shot, unless you've already been exposed.

My flu shot didn't work (got it weeks ago).

Question is, do you have real influenza or a bad cold? People call all sorts of thing "flu" when they are norovirus or strep or a nasty cold. The only way to know you have REAL influenza is to have a blood test. Odds are, you don't have influenza but some other ghastly bug we can't vaccinate against.

Main flu going around appears to be the swine flu type, believed to be related to the 1918 pandemic that killed millions. (no alarms going off, so probably not as serious). This strain has proved to be disproportionally dangerous to diabetics, the obese and pregnant. http://www.palmbeachpost....tes/ncTMc/

Fifty per cent with flu symptoms at the Palm Beach facility have some other flu.

[This message has been edited by Don Birkholz (12/26/2013)]

Strep was obviously going around Garfield School. I attended the Christmas program and ended up with strep a couple of days later, as did my daughter. Both grandkids had strep last month. Miles City is a hot bed for illness.

Just reading the Gazette headlines this morning...Influenza Cases beginning to mount in Yellowstone County". Looks like it is that time of year and good if you have had a flu shot.

According to the same article, the vaccine is a good match for the current flu virus so if you got a shot and got sick, it probably wasn't flu. It isn't so much that Miles City is a "hotbed" of disease as children are a "hotbed" of disease. Ask any grade school teacher.

Then again, I have now heard of three people with high fevers who got the flu shot. Wonder what is going around. I will now move into obsessive-compulsive hand washing mode.

I just got my flu shot in Billings and Doc said there was one influenza strain the vaccine did not cover, so not to think I was totally immune to getting sick. She did say that one would likely be less sick however, as there would be some "cross reactivity" that would affect some of the bug. Guess that makes sense huh?

Yes, and the CDC reports that most of the flu cases are H1N1 which is in this year's vaccine.

[This message has been edited by JJC (12/27/2013)]