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" I write about health and fitness for a living, so when it came to flu prevention, I thought I was already armed and ready. I&amp;#039;m a frequent and religious hand washer, and I eat healthy, organic and immune-boosting probiotic-rich foods like yogurt and kefir. I rarely get sick, so imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I found out that I had somehow managed to pick up the most dreaded bug of the year\u2014H1N1.   My doctor&amp;#039;s diagnosis came with an overwhelming feeling of failure. With all the writing I&amp;#039;ve done on immunity, healthy living and germ avoidance, I couldn&amp;#039;t help but scold myself. But the flu doesn&amp;#039;t play favorites, and I quickly remembered that CNN&amp;#039;s health guru Sanjay Gupta contracted the virus too, as did thousands of others here in the U.S. and around the world. If I had to suffer through a bout of H1N1, at least I was in good company.   Day 1 My flu started with a scratchy, mildly sore throat\u2014the kind you wake up with in the morning and think, &amp;quot;Uh-oh, I think I&amp;#039;m starting to get sick.&amp;quot; By midday, I had started to sneeze and felt drained of energy. The laundry needed to be folded and I had a big writing deadline, yet accomplishing both seemed as daunting as climbing a mountain.   Day 2 By the next morning, my sore throat worsened and I was sneezing so often, I was walking around my house with a box of tissues in hand. Still, I had no fever, so I started calling my mystery illness &amp;quot;the cold from hell.&amp;quot;   Day 3 The next day, however, I knew things were going south. I tried to sit down at my desk to write, but I felt so dizzy I had to lie down on the couch. That&amp;#039;s when I turned to my husband and said, &amp;quot;Jason, this has to be the worst cold I&amp;#039;ve ever had in my life.&amp;quot; When the chills and deep body aches set in, it was clear the bug I had wasn&amp;#039;t your garden-variety cold. My temperature was 102.5 and climbing. I knew I had something bad.   The brain does funny things when it&amp;#039;s in fever mode, and mine became plagued with anxiety that night. Of course, I thought of the H1N1-related deaths that had been reported in the media, though they were rare and often associated with underlying health conditions. &amp;quot;What if I&amp;#039;m dying?&amp;quot; I said to my husband, as I shivered under a stack of blankets. &amp;quot;What if I have an underlying health condition that I don&amp;#039;t know about?&amp;quot;   I&amp;#039;m still breastfeeding my 11-month-old baby, Russell, so naturally, I thought of him\u2014and his nourishment. &amp;quot;If this gets really bad, if I die, you&amp;#039;ll have to find him some formula and a bottle,&amp;quot; I said weakly. I was panicked and delirious, but my husband reassured me that everything would be fine.   I knew, at this point, that this wasn&amp;#039;t just a cold. It was most certainly the flu, and most likely swine flu, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes is widespread in all U.S. states. I remembered the friend I visited the previous week who had since been diagnosed with H1N1, the coughing children at the grocery store, the neighbors on my street who had it, my husband&amp;#039;s sick coworkers who had been out with the virus all week\u2014all possible vectors for exposure.   For the next several hours, I huddled under my blankets, unable to get warm. The fever was intense, but it finally broke, with the help of Tylenol. I felt weak, achy\u2014and hungry, which was a good sign.   Day 4 The next morning, I called my doctor&amp;#039;s office, aware that H1N1 was circulating heavily in my city, and explained my symptoms. She said the clinic was no longer routinely testing for swine flu, because &amp;quot;99.9 percent of the flu circulating is H1N1.&amp;quot; I asked, &amp;quot;So you think that&amp;#039;s what I have?&amp;quot; She responded, &amp;quot;It sounds like classic H1N1.&amp;quot;   She encouraged me to get lots of rest and fluids. &amp;quot;How do I know if it gets really bad?&amp;quot; I asked. The biggest complication of this flu, she said, is respiratory problems\u2014difficulty breathing\u2014and a persistent high fever, which could indicate a secondary infection.   Days 5 and 6 By the next day, I coughed more than a human being ever wants to cough, and my fever bobbed around between 99 and 100.5 degrees, which left me feeling drained. By day 6, I finally shook the fever and began to get my energy back.   My kids\u2014the baby and a 2-year-old\u2014caught the bug too, but they fought it off better than my body did and managed to have only mild symptoms. My husband still hasn&amp;#039;t gotten it, which makes me suspect that he has the immune system of Superman.   What should you do if you start to get sick and suspect H1N1? Here&amp;#039;s my advice:   1. Don&amp;#039;t overreact. A lot of the reporting on this flu has been hysterical and overblown. True, this is a new virus that health experts aren&amp;#039;t that familiar with and, like other viruses, it does seem to affect people with underlying health conditions in alarming ways, but in the majority of cases, people are recovering just fine. And some doctors I&amp;#039;ve interviewed on the topic say that this flu tends to hit most people in a &amp;quot;milder&amp;quot; way\u2014that is to say, if you get it, you might not even be that terribly ill.   2. Call your doctor before coming in. Unless you have breathing problems or a persistent high fever, you may not even need to go to the clinic. Call first, and your doctor&amp;#039;s office should be able to assess your symptoms to see if you need to be treated.   3. Tamiflu isn&amp;#039;t a must. Back in the spring, if anyone suspected they had H1N1, doctors were handing out the antiviral drug Tamiflu like aspirin. This isn&amp;#039;t the case anymore. Though this drug, and others like it, has the potential to help people in certain cases, just because you have the virus, or suspect you do, doesn&amp;#039;t mean you need to take it.   4. Stay home for a few days. The best thing you can do to fight off an illness, whether it&amp;#039;s H1N1 or just a bad cold, is to stay home and rest. So call in sick and spend a day on the couch! Plus, you&amp;#039;re most contagious within the first few days of showing symptoms, so consider sparing your office-mates your germs.   Sarah Jio is the health and fitness blogger for Glamour magazine. Visit her blog Vitamin G. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/real-women/a4356/i-survived-the-h1n1-flu-100163/>