Oseltamivir (Tamiflu)

Ladies and gents, I have acquired for my own personal use a flu bug. Posts will resume when I can get out of bed. Cheers.

Update: I can eat solid food once again! Yes!

Thank you for all your kind words, readers!

Some factoids about our good friend oseltamivir:

• used to fix people with the flu (the flu being an infection with the influenza virus, not a bacterial gastroenteritis, natch)
• used in those who: (a) aint none too good at fighting infections (babies, kids, old folks, etc.) or (b) are infected with crazy deadly strains of the influenza virus
• works against both Influenzavirus A (the one that keeps on mutating and causing all these pandemic scares) and Influenzavirus B (the one that pretty much just keeps to itself, oh, and makes people wonderfully miserable during that special time in the winter)
• inhibits neuraminidase, a viral enzyme that the bugs need to escape from cells after they infect and multiply like crazy inside them
• given the current limited supplies of this drug, it could be potentially given along with probenecid, a drug that inhibits the elimination of oseltamivir from the body via the kidneys (urine), in order to stretch supplies
• probenecid was used in this manner to deal with a limited supply of penicillin during the Second World War
• recently reported to have caused a number of Japanese kids to go nuts (hallucinations and delirium)
• got myself ten boxes of this bad boy in the fallout shelter out back fer when the Bird Flu drops its mighty payload of retribution on the world's populace

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