Tamiflu?

[Missmom]

Ok.... What a week! My pandas son 12yo. and my daughter 9yo. both started with high fever on Halloween night and next morning.. I figured it was probably viral because son is on augmentin already and both children started with high fever within a few hours of each other. Was hoping it was a 24 hour thing but no such luck. I took my son to the urgent care this morning because my daughter would not go and sure enough tested positive for flu. Anyway the doctor went ahead and prescribed Tamiflu but I am very reluctant to give him this. The doctor even mentioned the very rare possibility of neurological side effects from Tamiflu. I think that is enough to make me not want to give him this. I mean, I even explained pandas to him but I don't think he got it. I have a call in to our neuro. to see what she says, but my gut tells me to just keep giving ibeuprofin and Robitussin. Any thoughts??

[Dedee]

I don't know any official stance on it but I did give it to my PANS children once when they were exposed and did not see any adverse reaction. How terrible for you to have two with the flu at the same time. Best of luck and praying for rapid healing.

 

Dedee

[beeskneesmommy]

I don't know anything about adverse responses to tamiflu, but my son gets some adverse responses to quite a few meds. If it were me, I would go with my gut. Hope things get better soon!

[Missmom]

Our neuro said it is ok for him to take. So maybe I should try it.

[MomtoJake]

My DS had Tamiflu once pre-pandas and once post pandas. He did not react to it that I could see and the flu was very mild and of a short duration. However I must say that they gave it to me as a "just in case" because it was H1N1 and it gave me horrible nightmares and a feeling that I can only describe as "doom". I stopped after one two doses because I thought I would go crazy. But as I said, m DS seemed to tolerate it just fine.

[LNN]

When H1N1 hit 3? yrs ago, my son got the flu and we gave him one dose of tamiflu. He developed this strange leg jerking and shakiness that seemed to fit the description of tardive dyskenesia and complained of something that sounded like vertigo. I didn't give him his next dose and the symptoms resolved within 24 hrs. He weathered the flu symptoms and was back to normal a few days later.

 

I don't say this to discourage you. For us, it was a temporary reaction. So if your son's miserable and you want to try the tamiflu you'd probably be ok and you could always stop it. Just realize the tamiflu reduces the duration of the flu, it doesn't cure it. So if you wait too long, the body will probably be thru the worst of it and the tamiflu will be of limited value.

 

Hope it's short-lived!

[Missmom]

Thank you all for the advice. I did give him one dose and so far so good. This seems to be a pretty bad flu this year so I thought I better try. He and my daughter both immediately spiked a fever almost 103 degrees within hours of each other. Very tired and congested and coughing. This is not fun......the fever has gone down with ibeuprofin but not fully and I need to keep giving it or else it spikes again. Just warning everyone to be careful this year as the doctor said my son seemed better than the other positive flu patients he had seen, and my son is not good right now. Take care.