Swine Flu? When pigs fly!

"Fear me. FEAR ME!", "No thanks!" I responded. That pretty much wraps up what I have to say about this so-called Swine Flu. It's being reported as a mixture of pig, bird, and human strands of the Influenza virus. C'mon, first it was SARS, then it was Bird Flu, now it's Swine Flu. What next, Sheep Pneumonia? Let's get real folks. Economy in the crapper, health care in the crapper, everyone screaming for change... what better than for some illness to spread and cause people to panic and spend all sorts of money that they DON'T have on doctor visits and hospital visits. Let's just flush the economy now, while it's still in the crapper.

When is someone going to notice that there is a medication, vaccine, or antibiotic for EVERYTHING? If you're wondering why I ask this, you might want to think about these little tidbits of fact:

1. I haven't had the flu (Influenza) since I was 14 years of age, I'm now 26 about to be 27 years old. In fact, I haven't had more than the common head cold, and I'm lucky if that's once a year.
2. I haven't been to the doctor since I went to have my work physical at the about the age of 16.
3. I don't get flu (Influenza) shots.
4. I don't exercise daily, but I do walk just about everywhere I go.
5. I don't freak out if someone coughs or sneezes around me.
6. I don't eat a healthy diet regularly, in fact... I very RARELY get my daily recommended vitamins and minerals. (However I do drink a lot of Vitamin C enriched orange juice, since it's been stated that smoking depletes your Vitamin C.)
7. I do nothing special other than stay active. Laying around all day and sitting on your, excuse my French, ass all day... does nothing but make you a petri dish for illness.

Take all that and put it together, and I'm just your average every day human being. Doing normal day-to-day activities. I work, I tinker around on the computer, I eat food, and I sleep. Occasionally I will take a late night stroll around the city and take in the finer things in life, like... peace and nature, but we're all human, and we all need a release at some point in time. I guess you could say that basically what I'm getting at, is... if you stay active, don't rely on medication to make you feel better or prevent sickness, and tough it out when you get sick... well, your body's immune system will adapt and strengthen over time.

Let's take a second to step back and look at some the following things:

1. Getting vaccinations and such is a generic way of introducing your body to illnesses. Your basically training your body for concentrated amounts of whatever the vaccination may be for. It doesn't allow your body to adapt to the illness in increments. It also only attempts to prepare your body for that single type of illness whatever it may be
2. Taking antibiotics doesn't allow your body to build it's own antibodies and defenses, all it does is give your immune system a temporary boost and in turn disallows it from adapting to fight it off on it's own. Call me a quack, but I see friends of mine who visit the doctor regularly and get flu shots and blah blah blah... and would you believe that 95% of them get sick WAY more often than I do? It's like almost every week I talk to a friend and I hear "I'm sick." or "I don't feel good."

Now don't take this to some extreme level that I am not intending it to be, I'm not saying you'll be superhuman and be able to fight off cancer or AIDS. Nor am I saying that taking the occasional TheraFlu or NyQuil when you're ill is bad. I'm talking about prescription drugs and such, not over-the-counter medications. Over-the-counter medications simply mask the symptoms, allowing you to function in every day life. Not necessarily a bad thing, because they allow you to remain active. When I get a cold, I get out of bed and do more... and when it's time to sleep I wrap up nice and warm and pass out. It makes no difference to me how ill or sick I feel... best believe I'm going to stay active and fight it off on my own. Body aches? I'll take an Aspirin or two, which has been proven good for the heart, and deal with it.

Take all this with a grain of salt if you wish it doesn't matter to me, but should you choose to make use of any of this info... do so at your own discretion... and work your way into it. A sudden change in your own health habits can play back very negatively... so heed that warning, act carefully, and think smart. Those of you who ignore all this, you have fun visiting the doctor, and I'll continue to not get sick.