How scary that must have been and how fantastic is it that you had the strength to beat it!

Quoted Text

So, yes, Spring and Jane: By the time the Storm hits, the patient is probably no longer in position to be playing with elderberry cap decisions at home. It hit me when I'd been ill over a week and in hospital a day or so

This is the very reason I printed this stuff out - so my family can be aware of such an awful thing that can happen to our very healthy bodies! I am so glad that the people helping you knew how to do what needed to be done. Who would have ever thought that getting slammed with a "killer antibiotic" would actually be the only thing that could have saved your life?! In another situation it might have earned its name. One of my sons was nearly overcome with pneumonia in just a few hours when he as 16. We thought, and he did too, that he had a virus because he was nauseated, but felt fine otherwise and was normally healthy as a horse. Suddenly, around midnight his fever started shooting up, so we jumped in the car and took off to the ER. (Which was about five minutes away.) We had to practically drag him out of here because he kept saying he felt fine!   By the time we got to the desk, he was turning purple. A male nurse happened to look out and saw his color and started waving frantically for him to come on back. After signing him in we went back and the nurse was checking his reflexes. (There were several cases of spinal meningitis in town at the time.) I told him it wasn't that because I had been checking his reflexes and neck every fifteen minutes. They did an x-ray and found both lungs nearly full. Of course, they were rushing around like crazy doing all this. They immediately gave him a shot of a VERY strong antibiotic. I must have been crazy but later I talked them into letting us bring him home because we were going to sit up with him the rest of the night. In a very short time, his breathing became normal, his normal color returned and his fever went down. The next day his regular doctor nearly had a stroke when he found out we had brought him home after he saw the x-rays. If our son had been having any fever at all, he would have sent him straight back to the hospital. Anyway, that time everything turned out all right, but we wouldn't risk something like that now for anything! Never!

at least you are here to tell the tale.. all the best

Quoted from Jane

How scary that must have been and how fantastic is it that you had the strength to beat it!

When you have the strength, you may not know you are having the strength. You may, in fact, be weak to the point of unconsciousness, but your body's various systems are doing whatever it is they were designed to do, just because they're programmed that way. Kin'a nifty, no?

Over half a century of good health was already packed into my l'il frame. For whatever reason, it didn't give out. If I were someone else, my number might have been up...So many variables.

Anyway, here I am, doing the really hard part: Recovering at home. I assure you, this is really daunting. After a strenuous first week, I had a couple of increasingly strong, upswinging days. Now I've kind of crashed. I take nothing for granted. Thanks for prayers, etc.

And if you have cool links, always welcome.

Quoted from san j

And if you have cool links, always welcome.

SanJ et all - You know how they say that laughter is the best medicine, go on you tube and surf for funny videos. Bill Cosby has some funny ones - type - Bill Cosby Bifocals.  

chocolate cake!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRmN4KnfPxQ

Quoted from Lola

chocolate cake!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRmN4KnfPxQ

OMG Lola, this is absolutely hilarious! Loved it!

Quoted from Lola

chocolate cake!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRmN4KnfPxQ

Yummmmmm!

I haven't watched it (yet) but I actually do have a "Just Desserts" chocolate cake in the house -- very uncharacteristic and unusual -- that I'm having trouble consuming.

Appetite had been returning, but then disappeared...

Thanks, Lola. Maybe later I'll watch?

Oh mon Dieu!
I am so sorry you had to go through that, San j!  
Prayers will continue for your return to "sante"...
Feel better soon, amie!  

San J, you need to keep us posted on how you are doing. Hope your recovery is going well.

I’m so sorry to hear that you had to go through this but glad you are doing better now.  

Just posted this elsewhere, but I realize I should share it here:

Anemia is a typical, expected complication of the cytokine storm (also called Cytokine Release Syndrome, especially - but not necessarily - when not of "storm" proportions). Cytokines mess with the erythropoietic process and/or are destructive of more mature erythrocytes. When I was in hospital, the doctors prescribed an iron tablet every day.

Convalescing at home, I'm quite exhausted, so I've added iron p.o. to my program, and I think it's a good idea to continue it for quite some time hereafter, from what I read. Sorry no MD told me about this, but the literature is clear: Cytokine storm takes its toll on the iron level.

Does B12 help with iron absorption too? It seemed to help with mine... All the best!!

Just came across this in my travels, for those asking about elderberry and cytokines...

http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/04/letter_re_sambucol_and_the_cyt.html

Funny insurance story:

The insurance carrier sent me a letter about a certain claim they received from the Intensivist medical group (pulmonologists in the ICU) on my behalf.
The carrier is questioning whether or not the Diagnosis on this claim is actually a "Pre-existing Condition", i.e., did I have this medical condition before coverage began in 2011.

The claim was for ICU Induction: The 30-74 minute period when a patient is admitted to the ICU from either another ward (in my case) or the ER. During those crucial minutes, the patient is typically in a life-death struggle, and the doctors and nurses must rally quickly to hook him/her up to the various life support and monitoring apparati on hand.

Here is the diagnosis the insurance company is wondering about as a condition existing for months:

"Acute Respiratory Failure".



Go figure!

They need some new people!! These are plain stupid!

Glad you made it through this terrible ordeal sanj. Thank you for sharing. I have never heard of this before. When I was laid up in bed not so long ago, I am now wondering if it had something to do with elderberry. I have not been sick like that in years. I just happened to be taking elderberry drops. Always learning something on this forum.

Quoted from PrincessMia

Glad you made it through this terrible ordeal sanj. Thank you for sharing. I have never heard of this before. When I was laid up in bed not so long ago, I am now wondering if it had something to do with elderberry. I have not been sick like that in years. I just happened to be taking elderberry drops. Always learning something on this forum.

Frankly, I have my doubts about that, PM.

The cytokine storm is part of a disease process with any number of origins/etiologies. It is a component in severe sepsis and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), for instance, as in my case. The initial insult to the lungs (or other organ) is - according to NONE of the lists I've seen, on the internet medical sites or in medical texts - eating the wrong variety of berry. I don't know about your underlying conditions, but there are some serious medical conditions that may predispose to sepsis and/or hyperimmune response. If this concerns you, it bears more rigorous study than merely reading anecdotal accounts on this Forum.

For those of you who may now be hypervigilant about elderberry/cytokines, NOTE:

The point in the disease process at which the Cytokine Release Syndrome becomes apparent is usually well after the patient has become very sick. As in my case, most sepsis begins when the patient is already in the hospital. I was an Emergency Room admission to a regular ward with a diagnosis of pneumonia for two days before my condition became critically acute and the anti-inflammatory process went haywire. So don't get scared when you have mere colds and flu, okay?

May want to up your vitamin D.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/154759.php

Yes - thanks Dr. D. I'd been thinking about that, and your post sent me on a little research journey. Taking large doses of D3 at the first sign of influenza is recommended by some, to head off the sort of problem I had. (Though in my case, the ER influenza test came back negative - I didn't have the flu.) Nonetheless, this is an exciting line of enquiry in Medicine, and one I'd never pursued before.

Here's something interesting on Vitamin D/Sunlight and the seasonality of influenza epidemics.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=529704

As for me, I've been taking D3 2,000IU, but I shall increase the dose.

Rapid flu tests done in hospitals are not accurate false negatives are common. We keep patients on isolation even if the screen is negative for 4 days.

Quoted from Andrea AWsec

Rapid flu tests done in hospitals are not accurate false negatives are common. We keep patients on isolation even if the screen is negative for 4 days.

Y'know, I was thinking that right after I posted. Thanks for mentioning it!  
Because even after it came back negative, the med. team was unwilling to entirely rule it out.

In any case, the symptoms leading up to the ER exam were themselves atypical -- very distinct from any flu I've ever had, over the 50+ years of my lifespan. I personally never thought what I had was the flu, though friends would assume it's why I was home with a cough.

Also: It seems to be generally agreed that Vitamin D deficiency causes not only this catastrophic sort of inflammatory response to viruses such as flu, but also increased susceptibility to viruses/bacteria in general. People that low in Vitamin D stores tend to catch flu whenever there's an epidemic, and to suffer from frequent colds and infections. I, on the other hand, have been particularly hardy in that regard, escaping colds and flu year after year, never having had a flu shot in my life.

So - if this WAS flu, it was unusual for me, but a Whopper!
Thanks for your input.
What a fascinating field.

It's not so much about the dose you're taking orally; it's about the blood levels of vitamin D. I was taking 4,000 iu daily when a blood test confirmed low vitamin D; either I wasn't absorbing the vitamin well, or my body used it up too fast. Upping my dose (10,000 iu for a while, with frequent lab tests to monitor my levels) brought it up within a few months.