Relocate in old age, where to?

[Faux Pas]

another safety feature for you and your family in Ukraine is Tamiflu!
did you know that the lethal strain of influenza known as "swine flu" is endemic to Ukraine as is the avian bird flu

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-flu-idUSKCN0US1BO20160114

I kept a stockpile of this while I was there.
In 2005-2006 there was an outbreak of bird flu in Ukraine and after it was too late the Ukrainian government destroyed thousands of infected chickens.
one winter morning during this period I walked to the shore of the black sea and saw the bodies of dozens of sea birds lining the shore, something I had never seen before.  meanwhile, many Ukrainians happily feeding pigeons out of their hands even though the birds appeared to be sick

get the tamiflu!

Did you know the active ingredient in Tamiflu is the very same as NyQuil? Sounds crazy I know but, if you start taking Nyquil at the first signs of flu it will ward it off just like Tamiflu. Both are useless if you wait more than 32-48 hours before the first signs

[krimster2]

I'm sorry but that's NOT TRUE!  Tamiflu is an anti-viral called Oseltamivir, it works by the following mechanism:

"Oseltamivir is a neuraminidase inhibitor, serving as a competitive inhibitor of the activity of the viral neuraminidase (NA) enzyme upon sialic acid, found on glycoproteins on the surface of normal host cells. By blocking the activity of the enzyme, oseltamivir prevents new viral particles from being released through the cleaving of terminal sialic acid on glycosylated hemagglutinin and thus fail to facilitate virus release"

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseltamivir

Nyquil contains:

Active Ingredients (in each 30 mL) (Purpose)

Acetaminophen 650 mg (Pain reliever/fever reducer)
Dextromethorphan HBr 20 mg (Cough suppressant)
Doxylamine succinate 12.5 mg (Antihistamine)
Phenylephrine HCl 10 mg (Nasal decongestant)

source: http://vicks.com/en-us/browse-products/nyquil/nyquil-severe-cold-flu-liquid

don't bet your children's lives on that information!

[krimster2]

just to show you how seriously to take your kid getting sick with the flu in Ukraine, in 2006 during the bird flu epidemic my youngest came down with 'something', at first symptom she got the Tamiflu, wife and rest of the kids left our apartment to live in another apartment I owned, I stayed by my daughter's side 24 hours straight to monitor her breathing and potential tamiflu side effects, bird flu can kill in that time period, when I figured out it was just a 'cold" called wife and rest of the family back, ahhh good times!

[Faux Pas]

just to show you how seriously to take your kid getting sick with the flu in Ukraine, in 2006 during the bird flu epidemic my youngest came down with 'something', at first symptom she got the Tamiflu, wife and rest of the kids left our apartment to live in another apartment I owned, I stayed by my daughter's side 24 hours straight to monitor her breathing and potential tamiflu side effects, bird flu can kill in that time period, when I figured out it was just a 'cold" called wife and rest of the family back, ahhh good times!

You are correct, my bad. I stand corrected. Instead it's Alka-Seltzer Cold plus that has the same ingredient. I stated that from memory which isn't what it use to be.

[Faux Pas]

Quick story on that, My SIL is an MD. Several years ago I was on a trip, actually my annual Super Bowl weekend gig that I and some long time friends do every year. Just as I arrived at my destination I was feeling "fluish" and called SIL to ask for advice. He phoned in a prescription of Tamiflu to a near by pharmacy and I started on it right away. I felt like shit for the weekend but the flu did subside several days later. The Tamilflu cost $60 bucks and that was with my prescription plan. A few weeks later upon catching up the SIL did he tell me that Alka Seltzer was the same thing and I could have used it.

It's another example of Big Pharma screwing the public

[krimster2]

keep in mind that tamiflu isn't a cure, it just decreases the severity and duration of the flu, but that might be the difference to save a life.
this subject touches on the pretty important issue of medical care in Ukraine.
Ukrainians all have their own 'network' of 'connections' which includes medical care
after I 'evacuated' my family to potentially save them from infection, my wife got on the phone to her 'network'
she quickly found out that the only local hospital in Sevastopol that had a respirator was the "Belbeck Military Hospital", which is a Russian military hospital, she could use her family connections and some cash to get our daughter admitted there if it became necessary, so if my daughter got worse and we thought it was the flu taking her to Belbeck was our plan.  I will have to say that after returning to the US, my kids are sick maybe about 1/3 as much as when they were in Ukraine, and their colds are much less severe, Ukraine must have really strong viruses

oh yes, big pharma screws us big time!

[SANDRO43]

Since the flu is a viral infection, it can only be prevented through vaccination - but not cured once established. Only its symptoms can be alleviated using anything from old Aspirin (Hippocrates, ca. 460–377 BC, left records describing the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree) to more modern - and costly - medications . 

[krimster2]

hello Sandro,
   Tamiflu and other anti-virals don't treat symptoms but perform something similar to what antibiotics do for bacterial infections, although in my opinion, they're not as effective as antibiotics, IMHO the best thing they do is give you some "hope" and a feeling that you're doing some kind of "treatment"... something you need when you have a sick child!!

[Faux Pas]

Chemistry and biology wasn't my strong suit but if the flu virus is attacked early enough with an anti-viral rather than later, the life of the virus is considerably shortened. The problem with that method of treatment is that the virus is usually active and highly contagious before the affected shows any symptoms

[fathertime]

You continue making posts that seek to distort the reality.

Hilarious, considering the source!
 


Fathertime! 

[fathertime]

Hi all,
   I just received a PM from someone who used to post here a lot, “Boethius”
She’s Ukrainian and used to live in Kyiv, and has probably 10X more real knowledge about Ukraine than the rest of us put together, with her permission, I post what she wrote to me:

 

Why no more posts from boethius?


Fathertime!   

[Muzh]

hello Sandro,
   Tamiflu and other anti-virals don't treat symptoms but perform something similar to what antibiotics do for bacterial infections, although in my opinion, they're not as effective as antibiotics, IMHO the best thing they do is give you some "hope" and a feeling that you're doing some kind of "treatment"... something you need when you have a sick child!!

I'm gnashing my teeth as I read this. Not even close to "performing similar to what antibiotics do for bacteria."


Krimster, are you familiar with the variable zones in certain immunoglobulins?


Please read about it and then compare that to what antibiotics do to bacteria.

[krimster2]

hey,
   I'm an electrical engineer not a microbiologist, to me interfering with viral replication sounds similar to the properties of some antibiotics that interfere will bacterial cell division.  from an end-user's stand-point I've seen 3 grams of amoxicillin completely eliminate a bacterial infection in 24 hr, no anti-viral will do anything remotely like that

[Muzh]

hey,
   I'm an electrical engineer not a microbiologist, to me interfering with viral replication sounds similar to the properties of some antibiotics that interfere will bacterial cell division.  from an end-user's stand-point I've seen 3 grams of amoxicillin completely eliminate a bacterial infection in 24 hr, no anti-viral will do anything remotely like that

That's the point. There is no viral replication.


As opposed to antibiotics.

[krimster2]

semantics, google says:

"Viral replication is the formation of biological viruses during the infection process in the target host cells"

we both understand the underlying process, for brevity's sake left out details like fusion of the sun creating heavy elements, spinning out large pieces of matter that would become the earth, methane, co2, water vapor exposed to UV creating amino acids, which then give rise to self replicating RNA like molecules, evolution, etc
and stuff like that

[krimster2]

hey fathertime, Boethius didn't elaborate in detail in her PM to me, I think a conflict with someone on the board, too bad for the rest of us, to me a super, super smart lady she is someone who if she ever sat down and wrote a book about her life's experiences I would pay to read it, because it would be THAT interesting...

[Anotherkiwi]

...I've seen 3 grams of amoxicillin completely eliminate a bacterial infection in 24 hr, no anti-viral will do anything remotely like that

I have a cast-iron constitution, but amoxicillin is the one thing that I can't stomach!    I've had it prescribed a couple of times, and I was feeling far worse a few minutes after taking it than I had been beforehand.    Maybe it's designed that way to make you give it up quickly, knowing that whatever you have could not be worse than the "cure."

[krimster2]

hi anotherkiwi,
   about 10% of people are allergic to it, I'm one of them, I break out into hives, yeah antibiotics are pretty nasty, I'd have to have something major to take it

[BillyB]

Take a flu shot every year. The latest flu shot every year will cover most of the ever evolving viruses so your immune system is prepared.

[BC]

a viral infection like the flu or common can make one more susceptible to bacterial infection especially in the lungs when that yellow and green gunk starts to be an issue.. so an antibiotic can help alleviate this complication.  At least that's what the doctor told me last time.  I'm fairly allergic to penicillin so get Tavanic (generic name levofloxacin) (Levaquin in the US) which is pretty cheap over here, about 2 bucks with a prescription, 7 bucks without.  I'll usually put some in my travel kit along with the aspirin tylenol and other otc meds.

[krimster2]

hey BC,

In Ukraine, antibiotics are available over-the-counter without a prescription, an example would be Indian made pack of  20 500 mg of flagyl or cipro for maybe a price of around $5 in the local “anteka”, because of this Ukrainians take LOTS of antibiotics, and as a result antibiotic resistance is pretty widespread, Ukraine has a lot of cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, see this:

http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/tuberculosis/country-work/ukraine

Putin’s Donbas war has increased this, when I lived in Sevastopol ‘lo these many years ago there was a special clinic for (MDR) tuberculosis patients a couple of miles from where I lived, they traveled there for their treatments in public transport (cough, cough, cough), this is one reason I never took the marshrutka, ahhhh good times...

[AkMike]

Maybe Dr Pepper should have his own medical advise thread?

[LiveFromUkraine]

Maybe Dr Pepper should have his own medical advise thread?

Upset people are talking about something else besides how bad Russia and Russians are? 

[AkMike]

Not at all. Russians are alright but their aggressive leadership leaves much to be desired.
 One on one I get along with thn just fine but the 'herd mentality' takes over quickly.

[krimster2]

hey mike!

I just spent the last 30 minutes making love to a beautiful Ukrainian woman, so if you’ll pardon me, I’m in a pretty good mood, you on the other hand seem content to do the equivalent of yelling at the neighborhood kids to, “get off my yard” like some grumpy old man, “why 'ya 'gotta be that way”?  life’s too short dude! I know how the tensions build from living in Ukraine, BELIEVE ME, I KNOW, BEEN THERE!  but for your own well being, find someone or something to love, and do the things that make you happy.  getting rid of your anger and frustrations by yelling at people on this board really doesn’t work, now does it, do you really feel any better when you do?  there’s room for everyone here, my presence here takes nothing away from you, can’t we all just get along?

sincerely, Dr Pepper (so misunderstood)