How's The Norovirus Doing At Work?

[PlecMama]

Ripping through our place a treat, we had calls from customer services today asking for help from our dept. because they were down to one person to run the contact center.

I hate things like this, though I appreciate it has it's place in the world, I'd rather not meet it if I can possibly avoid it. I'd rather have a real horrid cold then something like this, diseases should be considerate and at least give you some warning, I can't imagine anything worse then throwing up in public - except for it's other symptom!

 

[three-fingers]

I hate viruses, for biology a few weeks ago I had to do a basic presentation on how viruses attack our cells and replicate.

Gotta admit I find them interesting, but the more you learn about them the more you hate them .

I read the wiki page on the norovirus and it sounds horrible.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The only thing i don't like about this virus in particular is that any immunity you build up against it from fighting the virus in your body is not permanent in the long term, so sooner or later your imune system will become just as vunerable to it as you were in the past to it etc.

Eat a healthy diet full of fresh fruit and veg and your body will become stronger at fighting off viruses like this though, for example you need vitamin C (which unfortuatenately your body cannot store, so you need to consume foods with vit C in them everyday- vitamin C is destroyed by heat though so the best way to get it in your diet is to eat fresh raw fruit etc) to make white blood cells which are obviously essential in your body for helping fight off diseases and virus etc .
Also just keeping up good hygiene is good, the norovirus can be picked from infected surfaces you touch, so lots of washing of hands and stuff is good to help prevent you getting stuff like this .


Thankfully though the norovirus isn't that long lasting.
The most nightmarish illness i ever got was glandular fever when i was a teenager- severe stomache pains and migraines, fever and cold sweats, vomiting and constant feeling of sickness, extreme lack of energy/tiredness etc- it went on for many weeks and took months for me to really properly recover (i lost like half a stone in just the first 2 weeks, which wasn't good considering i was already quite underweight at that point in my life), during the worst phases of the symptoms i really thought i was dying (had that feeling of impending doom) it was that bad, i remember praying to god and saying to him something along the lines of "if you've decided i'm going to die, please kill me quickly and so put me out of my misery" lol.
But yeah, i recovered from it eventually- it did do me some liver damage back then since i was anemic at the time as well (i recovered from the damage it did to my liver after about 6months though). Some people don't get that bad a symptoms in reaction to glandular fever, but for some people their imune systems react very badly to the virus and it is a hellish sickness to go through.
Food poisening was pretty bad as well....Anyhoo. If i ever get this "norovirus", i know its gonna suck, but i've been through some really nightmarish sickness already in the past and this norovirus doesn't sound like the worst of them, so i know i should be able to deal with it well enough .

 

[Lateral Line]

BBC hospital ward closures.

 

[PlecMama]

And NHS Direct said calls about vomiting and abdominal pain had been the number two reason for people calling over the Christmas period.

I wonder what the number one reason was?


I emailed my BIG boss at work and asked what measures we were putting in place to prevent it's spread, like asking people not to come back until two days after the symptoms have ceased. No reply yet.

I bought three sprays of hand sanitizer yesterday, one for each of us. Reminds me of 28 Days Later, going out trying to avoid "the infecteds".

 

[kribensis12]

Is it possible to get it in the U.S.? I have never heard of it!

 

[sarah86]

norovirus is airbourne so you only need to be in the same room as someone with the bug who vomits for the spores to get into the air and then you catch it. from what i remember when we had it on the ward in feb hand gel does not work against it the only option is vigorous hand washing.
it is a horrible bug and you can literally go onto the ward one day and have some with diarrhea and vomiting and then come in the next and find half the ward if not more infected. the problem is most staff get it (although i always seem to be the only one immune) so everyones off sick too but you cant have agency staff because of the bug, one big circle. like someone rightly said though, i believe once youve had it you're immune for 2 months then you can catch it again. i know in the last 2 weeks we have had atleast 9 wards closed at one time from the bug, and unfortunatly its one of those things and has nothing to do with ward cleanliness.

please is anyone knows more info than me or ive stated the wrong facts feel free to correct me, im going from memory of nearly a yr ago now

 

[PlecMama]

CDC have a good page on it, droplet by vomit splash works, but it's most likely contact, like touching something someone infected has touched.

We are hand washing and alcohol rubbing. I figure we'll all have it by Friday since Dylan goes back to school tomorrow and there's no way I can protect him in a class of 30 little germ bugs.

It's already in the States, it's every where, we're just having a big outbreak here, that's the only reason why it's all over the press. It's around every year almost everywhere.

Last time we all had it was Dylan's third birthday. He'd been ill the previous day and was just getting better, and Dan and I came down with it that night and were over the symptoms by midday next day. Nasty but short lived. I don't so much bother once I have it, you just have to up-chuck for a while, but I hate the waiting. I have an hour and a half's bus ride twice a day. Coming down with it suddenly could be very inconvenient and embarrassing.

 

[Lynden]

I bought three sprays of hand sanitizer yesterday, one for each of us. Reminds me of 28 Days Later, going out trying to avoid "the infecteds"

You realize that those antibacterial sprays will not kill a virus, and that using them helps create resistant strains of bacteria (superbugs). That is unless that particular one is chlorine based, which, as I just read from wikipedia, will deactivate noroviruses. Alcohol and detergents are less effective.

I had this for the past couple of days, the pain was bad but the real kicker came in the fact that I couldn't, for two nights, get comfortable enough to fall asleep. I'm not sure if you Brits have this same product, but Gravol tablets really helped keep the nausea away, if only for about 3/4ths of the time it advertised. I managed to get a few tablets on the third night and I slept like a baby; was a real relief.

 

[raptorrex]

my poor little daughter Morgen has it at the moment, guess we will go down soon! her mental and physical problems stop her telling us just how bad it feels, suffice to say it is distressing to see her.

 

[PlecMama]

That sucks Boboboy, poor Morgen.

Re the hand sanitizer....the town I work in is so dirty I am probably immune, through exposure, to everything including y.pestis about now, but at least it makes us feel cleaner.

 

[raptorrex]

well with all little "M" problems, both antiseptic wipes and hand gel, are on tap 24x7. and the addition of masks, did avoid any of the rest of the family going down, yet. she did go down with a vile chest infection, as she recovered, but is well on the mend now. she caught it from here school, it wiped the school out for almost a week.