It's time for that flu shot, doctor says

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer

As flu season progresses, state health officials advise flu shots as "cheap insurance."

Those considered high-risk include anyone 65 and older; anyone with a chronic health condition, such as asthma, diabetes or a heart or lung ailment; women who are more than three months pregnant; healthcare workers; and anyone living with or spending time with someone in the high-risk groups.

"Just by moving around the community, you can end up taking the virus home," Marzolf said. "Even if you're not at risk yourself, you put a lot of other people at risk by not getting a flu shot.."

Marzolf said most people think of the flu as a minor inconvenience, but because of it many healthy people end up missing a week of activities.

In Marzolf's view, getting a flu shot is "just cheap insurance."

Nationally, Marzolf said, there are 50,000 to 60,000 deaths a year due to flu, which he characterized as "a persistent and potentially lethal disease which is preventable."

Last year, 270 people in Hawai'i died.

Dr. Owen Nishikawa works at the Family Practice Center, which is affiliated with Kuakini Medical Center. He encourages his patients to get flu shots from now through the April flu season and he works with them to distinguish between colds and flu.

"Flu tends to be more severe. You have a higher temperature — 102 or 104," Nishikawa said. And it usually comes with a sudden onset, very intense headache and strong muscle aches.

"With the flu, you feel like you're totally out of it," he said. "With the cold, you can still function."

Nishikawa said that when a person doesn't want to get out of bed and, instead, sends a family member to pick up medication, the individual is more likely to be suffering from the flu.

But he still sees more people with cold symptoms such as runny nose, headache, sneezing, sore throat and cough. He urges them to rest; drink a lot of fluids to make sure they don't get dehydrated; and use antihistamines or decongestants. For a sore throat, he suggests saltwater gargle, lozenges and ibuprofen for pain.

Nishikawa supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to give flu shots to healthy children 6 to 23 months old.

The CDC has also launched a campaign to encourage smarter use of antibiotics, the antimicrobial drugs that fight infections caused by bacteria. Since their discovery in the 1940s, the drugs transformed medical care and brought about a sharp reduction in illness and death from infectious diseases. But as the use of antibiotics became more common, the bacteria they are intended to fight became more resistant, which is a growing public health concern.

Sometimes patients do ask for antibiotics but Nishikawa said he tells them that those prescription medications will work only on a bacterial infection and not a virus, which causes a cold.

Nishikawa said some patients seem to get over a cold faster when they use over-the-counter zinc products such as lozenges. "I think zinc can be helpful, if you take it early on in the course of your illness," he said. "Zinc to me is like echinacea (an herbal remedy that some say prevents colds). Some people swear by it."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.