From just about every doctor I've spoken to and every report I've read, if you're between the ages of 25 or so and your late forties to early fifties, you can just about depend on getting H1N1 at some point this year.  It doesn't seem to be as widely affecting younger people or older people.  My son was 8 when he got it and he bounced back in about 4 days.  I am 45 and I am still tired four weeks later.  
 
The true, hard core symptoms I suffered through lasted about 10 days.  There was about another week or so where I could feel my joints still aching and the fatigue factor a burden.  On one of my follow-up doctor visits I asked my friend and Internal Medicine doctor of the past twenty years why it hit me so much harder.  He said it has a lot to do with immune systems.  The younger people have the stronger immune systems and the elderly have most likely suffered through a variation of this strain when they were much younger via another hybrid flu.
 
That is his theory as he really has no explanation outside of that and admitted that most in his profession have been perplexed at the wide variety of differences in this virus.  One thing he does believe, as I do, the number of people who will suffer from this flu will be huge before all is said and done.  From a first hand perspective, I can tell you it's a real bastard.  My symptoms came on me so quickly I didn't even have time to worry about it.  This was quite different than the other couple of times I've had influenza in my life.
 
My son ran a very high fever on a Sunday which responded to liquid Advil quite well.  At first we thought it was just bronchitis or a sinus infection since he wasn't showing any other symptoms.  That Sunday evening I was feeling perfectly fine.  By early Monday morning my son had a fierce headache, his fever was back up and his throat and ears were hurting badly.  My wife and I took him to the doctor later that morning first thing.
 
Our pediatrician is a friend of my wife's and she had access to the nasal swab H1N1 flu test.  It tested positive within about fifteen minutes.  She said she would send if off and confirm with us in a few days but we needed to treat it accordingly.  My son was put on Tamiflu but had no signs of an infrection, so no antibiotics.  As I said earlier, other than general lethargy, fever and sore throat my son never really got a bad cough.
 
By Monday evening I was really feeling bad.  My neck was the first thing sore and my head hurt badly.  I had no fever, as a matter of fact my temperature was running low, below 98 degrees, yet I had tremendous chills.  By midnight I was coughing profusely.  I went to sleep in the spare bedroom.  I used Delsym cough syrup which is the strongest over the counter cough syrup and it didn't even touch it.
 
I called my friend and doctor first thing that Tuesday morning and he worked me in after lunch.  Still no fever, but my entire body was sore, aching and my cough was sporadic and came in waves of spasms.  My sinuses weren't stopped up or running and my throat wasn't sore like my son's.  We never had really more than a couple of symptoms in common.  I was diagnosed with H1N1 as well.  I had a bacterial infection secondary to it already.  It had set up in my bronchial system which most often occurs with me.
 
I was started on Tamiflu, Codeine based cough syrup and strong antibiotics.  I was told we both needed to stay in at very least the rest of that week.  The next three days I was only out of bed maybe a grand total of an hour a day.  I was so sore that even walking up and down the stairs was difficult.  We were so bad that my wife had to stay home to help take care of us a couple of days.  Thankfully she didn't get the flu.  She has an iron immune system.
 
By Wednesday my cough was so bad that I had to switch to a hydrocodone based cough syrup called Tussionex.  Two things about Tussionex, it works to stop a cough w hen nothing else will,  and it will put your lights out.  I'm a pretty big guy and it takes a lot to put me out, but this stuff did.  Maybe the flu had quite a bit to do with it also.  I was tired prior to that, but couldn't sleep because of the persistent cough.
 
I'm not going to go out and tell people to get vaccines, or get your children vaccinated because it's not my place.  You have to do your due diligence where you and your family are concerned, but I can tell you this, if you've never had a reaction to flu vaccines and have a compromised immune system like I do, you would be foolish not to get it when and/or if it becomes available.
 
It has reached epidemic proportions in the school systems of this region.  A lot of schools have already been closed and I suspect with President Obama designating this flu outbreak as a disaster, other schools will follow.  There were 6 confirmed cases in my son's third grade class the same week he had it.
 
The most important thing I would forewarn each of you about with this flu is that you don't  have to have a high fever as a symptom.  I had never had the flu minus a fever before, but this thing behaves very differently in each individual.  So if you feel yourself getting achy and sore and you start coughing, please do yourself, your family, co-workers and the public in general a favor and go to the doctor if you can.  I would also please say don't be heroic, plan on staying home and resting or you may never get better.