There are hardly any medications available to treat the flu. Among these, Tamiflu is the only drug that is good for treating the flu. Here I will cover some of the symptoms of the flu. This will tell you when to take Tamiflu and what other medicines are available for the flu.

Flu symptoms

The symptoms of the flu are sore throat. This is the beginning of the chapter called flu. This may be the common flu or the beginning of the bird flu. But the sore throat will worsen to a condition where you will know that this is not just a sore throat but something worse than that. He is stoned in the second chapter by high fever reaching temperatures over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And along with this, as a subsection of the second chapter of the flu, you will have muscle aches, weakness, loss of appetite, and chest pain.

Introduction of Flushot

That was the way things were when the Spanish flu hit in the 1918s. It took a number of people with it. The estimated loss of life was about 20 million worldwide. The flu vaccine was introduced. This is a vaccine against the common flu. People lost their lives not only because of the flu. The flu turned into pneumonia and this turned into a bacterial infection. It wreaked havoc, and the result is what we faced in the 1918s. But a shot when the flu is with you won’t have much of an effect. It had to be taken long before the flu hit you. The tablets available at the time were amantadine and rimantdine. Both drugs had to be consumed as tablets. These drugs work like this. They could prevent the flu virus from replicating after it has been inside human cells. They couldn’t mutate and form a group with which they could attack the body. But there were limitations for the drugs amantadine and rimantdine. They were effective only against the viruses that cause type ‘A’ influenza. They were ineffective against influenza type “B” viruses. For this, an alternative medicine had to be conjured.

New drugs: Tamiflu and Relenza

It was at the beginning of this century that new drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza were formulated. They were effective against the viruses that cause type “A” and type “B” influenza. They belonged to a separate class of drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors. Tamiflu contained the drug Oseltamivir and Relenza was made from Zanamivir. Both drugs worked in a similar way. They could also prevent virus particles from being released into human cells. This limited the spread of infection.

The drug Tamiflu is taken in pill form. It comes in capsule form, a yellowish gray capsule with seventy-five milligrams of the drug contained in it. There is also another form in which Tamiflu is supplied, it is the suspension form. This suspension form is for children. They are given the medication according to their weight. For a child who weighs less than 33 pounds, thirty milligrams of the drug is given. In all weight categories, the drug is administered in the appropriate proportions.

Relenza is a drug that requires an inhaler to take the drug. This medicine is inhaled directly into the lungs. This medication was approved by the FDA around the same time that Tamiflu was approved. However, people suffering from asthma and other related respiratory illnesses faced deaths after inhaling this drug. Experts in the field have weighed the options against the risk involved in taking this prescription inhalation medication. They have justified the risk involved against the risk of infection.

Tamiflu has been considered too expensive compared to older drugs.