March 28, 2025 • 11 mins
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Nurse practitioners Nicole Baldwin and Kelli White share crucial insights on preventing and treating RSV, flu, and other respiratory illnesses during this intense illness season. They examine current symptom patterns, effective prevention strategies, and post-exposure protocols based on their clinical experiences.
• Current flu strain presenting with high fever, fatigue, and body aches rather than vomiting
• Lysol products don't kill RSV - bleach, vinegar solutions, or medical-grade wipes needed
• Secondary bacterial infections occurring 7-10 days after initial viral infection
• Antimicrobial mouthwash and tongue scraping as effective preventive measures
• Vitamin D, C, zinc, elderberry, and possibly coffee as immune-boosting supplements
• Balance rest with movement to prevent pneumonia development during recovery
• Start antivirals within 48 hours of symptom onset for maximum effectiveness
• Partners of flu-positive patients should receive prophylactic Tamiflu treatment
This is not considered medical advice and does not constitute a patient-provider relationship.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicole (00:02):
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Tattoos and
Telehealth.
My name is Nicole Baldwin.
This is my friend and colleague, kelli White.
We are both board-certifiednurse practitioners and we're
just having some girl time justchatting about things, and today
we wanted to talk about how tobest prevent RSV, the flu, all
(00:23):
the things.
We are both seeing asignificant increase in
illnesses, and so we just wantto touch on those things today.
So I'll let you get started,kelli.
Kelli (00:32):
Wonderful.
So our attorneys make us saythat this is not considered
medical advice.
This video does not constitutea patient provider relationship,
so we're just here to chit chat.
Yeah, so, like Nicole wassaying, I have seen so there for
the longest time.
I was seeing a lot of COVID andit, you know, really wasn't
(00:54):
terrible, but I just saw a lotof cases.
I'm seeing a ton of flu comethrough right now and, nicole, I
don't know, I don't know whatpopulation of patients you're
seeing with the flu or whatsymptoms that they're
experiencing, but what I'mseeing, unlike what we've seen
in past years, the flu used tobe high fever, nausea, vomiting,
like you couldn't even get outof bed fast enough to throw up,
(01:15):
like you just were vomiting allover the place, and this would
go on forever.
It seems like I don't see a lotof vomiting right now.
I'm just seeing a lot of reallyhigh fever.
That's the key indicator.
Some coughs, some upperrespiratory junk and just
significant body fatigue, justoverall body aches and pains.
But that high fever and bodyaches, that's the dead giveaway.
(01:36):
That seems to be what I'mseeing.
And then a ton of RSV.
Unfortunately, flu A is the bugthat I see right now.
The great thing is they nowhave those over-the-counter test
strips that you can get COVID,flu A and flu B so you can do
that yourself at home.
And that makes our world somuch better, because in
telemedicine they can just showup with their little positive
(01:59):
test strip and be like.
You know, here I'm positive andwe can get them treated pretty
quickly.
But one of the things that Iwant to hit home with is when a
patient comes in with the flu,we need to be sure we're
treating their partner withprophylactic Tamiflu as well.
Um, they're either going to getit, they've been exposed to it,
they need to be on it.
Um, because flu is socontagious.
(02:21):
The flu is so contagious andwhat a lot of people don't
understand is that Lysol doesn'tkill a lot of stuff and it
doesn't kill RSV.
So if you have RSV in your homeand you're just Lysol-ing
everything down, you're notkilling it.
If you're using the little Lysolwipes, you're not killing RSV.
So if you have a kiddo in yourhome, you have elderly people in
your home and they have RSV,spraying Lysol and wiping things
(02:44):
down with Lysol is not gettingit done.
You're going to need to usebleach or vinegar, combination
of one of the other, um caviwipes.
So if you're in healthcare andyou have access to cavi wipes,
um, but yeah, just using Lysoldoesn't, doesn't get the job
done.
So is that kind of what you'reseeing right now?
Nicole (02:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, not a lot of that.
Some of the symptoms that I'mseeing a lot of is the sudden
onset like sudden, like I wasgood five minutes ago and now
I'm not, and that's very, veryindicative of a flu, of a viral
attack.
And so it is important thatwhen you have that acute attack,
that you're reaching out,because getting started on
(03:20):
antiviral within the first 48hours of symptoms is super
important.
So you want to make sure thatyou're reaching out for that.
I'm having a lot of diarrhea,too, with patients that are
really getting this virus andit's just, they're just having
lots of diarrhea.
So hydration with that is goingto be super, super important.
But it is rampant.
It is rampant.
I mean everything we touch.
You know everything.
(03:40):
It's.
I mean the doorknobs, yourkeyboard, like all those things
you know it's like.
Then you go touch somethingelse and you come back and it's,
it's just, it's, it's awful,it's just awful.
And especially if you haveyoung kids, I mean they're just
little walking Petri dishes,right, because they're in school
, and all the things, and it'sdefinitely just rampant.
(04:01):
And I thought it would beslowing down by now, but it is
just not.
And everybody is super, supersick and they're really
struggling.
They're really, reallystruggling.
And then they're getting thesecondary bacterial infection.
So they're going through someviral stuff and then they're
coming back saying I have allthis green stuff and my chest is
full, and so it's turning intojust a monster.
Kelli (04:23):
Yeah, it really is.
So last week and over theweekend I made I don't know how
many house calls with patientsthat were doing just that.
They had had a little bit offlu, upper respiratory virus
stuff, and then seven, eight, 10days later they were down for
the count.
They had junk in their chests,you know, coughing up nasty crap
.
Their chests were heavy, theycouldn't keep.
(04:44):
I mean, it was just awful.
But secondary bacterialinfections, um, I hung a few IVs
on my patients, made severalhouse calls.
People were just sick.
Um, so yeah, hydration is thename of the game, trying to keep
yourself very hydrated.
So, having said all that, aswe've scared everybody to death,
lots of information aboutpreventing the infection before
(05:06):
you've been exposed.
So let's talk about that firstand then we can kind of talk
about you know what to do whenyou do get sick, or if you've
been exposed, et cetera, etcetera.
So there's a few things thatyou can do Antiseptic,
antimacterial mouthwash.
Guys, I know Nicole just saidchildren are petri dishes.
So is your mouth.
(05:26):
I don't mean that to be ugly,but gargle twice a day, don't
swallow it.
Gargle twice a day with a goodantimicrobial mouthwash.
Choose a mouthwash thatcontains chlorhexidine.
You can look this stuff upcombinations of eucalyptus,
menthol, thymol, uh, somethinglike that, to really really
clean your mouth out gargle,spit it out.
(05:48):
My, my mom was always really,really hyped on the warm salt
water with a little touch ofvinegar.
We would gargle with that andspit it out as kids and that
just keeps anything that is notsupposed to live in your mouth
out of your mouth so you don'tinhale it, continue to breathe
it, swallow it and get yourselfill.
Vitamin D y'all have all heardme on my functional medicine
(06:08):
soapbox talking about keepingyour vitamin D levels, you know,
towards the high end of normal.
That presents a higher serumconcentration level to keep you
healthy.
Vitamin C the recommendation isabout 500-ish milligrams twice
a day.
If you can Zinc, anywhere from20 to 50 milligrams a day, that
helps to boost your immunesystem.
(06:28):
Melatonin, elderberry syrupsupplements, gummies Be careful
with gummies.
Sometimes there's a lot ofsugar in those guys, so be real
careful with the gummies.
But If you take elderberry inany form syrup supplements
during high periods oftransmission of these types of
viruses, you're going to startto see that it'll help increase
(06:49):
your immune system, boost yourimmune system, um, to make it be
able to fight these things offa little bit easier.
Nicole (06:56):
Yeah, be sure to brush your tongue too, or get a tongue
scraper.
Those work amazing.
The tongue scraper I tried itfor like the first time.
I hadn't done it in likeprobably a decade.
I did it the other day and Iwas like well, that's.
Kelli (07:11):
Yes, the first time you actually do it after a while,
you're just like, oh, that wasseriously in my mouth.
Um, one of the things that Ifound really interesting when I
was doing some research was oneof the preventions that they can
use.
That they call to use is one totwo cups of caffeinated or
(07:31):
decaffeinated coffee per day.
Coffee.
Nicole (07:35):
I'm on that.
Kelli (07:36):
I'm all over that, I'm pretty sure I just got
permission to drink coffee allday.
I know it said one or two cups,but more is more is better,
right?
Oh yeah, more is always better,more is always better, more is
always better.
And then, of course, ivermectin, and there's a ton of research
out there about ivermectin.
We've talked about it just alittle bit and there's a lot of
(07:58):
information about there, and inabundance, about natural
immunity and how to use thatmedication to help boost your
immune system, and even whativermectin does on the cellular
level.
I could bore you to death withthe science behind it, cause I
think it's fascinating, truly.
I think it's fascinating, um,but that medication does some
fascinating stuff on thecellular level, and what it can
do to cells that areaggressively attacking your body
(08:21):
is just incredible.
It really is.
Nicole (08:24):
Absolutely.
Kelli (08:26):
Yeah, and the the interesting thing about a lot of
this stuff is most of these arethings that we probably should
be doing anyway.
Right, like we, we should bebrushing our teeth at least
twice a day.
We should be using mouthwash.
When we brush our teeth acouple of times a day, we should
be brushing our tongue weshould be, you know, we should
be taking these supplements tostay healthy, washing our hands,
et cetera.
Tongue we should be.
You know, we should be takingthese supplements to stay
(08:46):
healthy, washing our hands, etc.
And so, after you've beenexposed, nicole, what do you
recommend patients do to preventinfection once they know
they've been exposed.
Nicole (08:56):
Definitely, if you're not up to par on your vitamins
and your elderberries,definitely jump on that right,
right away.
Right away, cleaning everything, like Kelli said.
You know, don't, don't add tothe mix, trying to clean, get
everything as as clean aspossible and then just making
sure you're keeping moving, keepthose lungs working right.
It's when we're sedentary thatthe fluid likes to settle in our
(09:17):
lungs and that that's whatleads to pneumonia.
That's why a lot of hospitalpatients get pneumonia because
all they do you're, you'relaying in the bed, right, you're
attached to all these monitorsand you have a bed, and so
patients get pneumonia in thehospital because they're not up
moving around.
And so keep moving, even if youfeel kind of crummy.
You're starting to feel crummy.
Keep moving, work those lungs.
Add the mucinex if you can.
If it's, you know if it's okaywith your, with your, your
(09:40):
prescriber, um, you know youalways want to make sure
everything goes well with thecurrent medications that you're
on, but keeping what's in yourchest thinned out.
But if you've been exposed,reach out.
If you've had a direct exposure, reach out to your, to your
health care provider, see if youcan get a prescription.
If your partner, like she said,if your partner tested positive
for influenza, you know um, goahead and get on it the sooner
(10:04):
the better with those antivirals, for sure.
For sure.
Kelli (10:09):
I think something else that people don't consider is
that sleep is incrediblyimportant.
When you don't feel good,that's your body's time to
recover, your body's time torepair itself, to fight off
infections.
When you're sleeping, that'swhy you find yourself, you know,
laying around, laying in bed,laying on the couch and, like
Nicole said, again, that's whenpneumonia can settle in.
So it's almost like you're youknow it's working against you.
(10:31):
Yes, we want you to rest, yes,we want you to lay down and we
certainly want you to get plentyof sleep, because that's when
your body can care for itself.
But, again, that's that finebalance between, you know,
keeping things moving around andand getting plenty of breath.
So, yeah, that's all I have.
Nicole (10:47):
Nicole, that's good.
No, that's it.
That's good, short and sweet.
We don't want to make thingstoo complicated.
You know, take the long way tothe bathroom, do one lap around
the house, you know per daywhatever you can do to keep
those lungs moving.
Otherwise, I hope you guys staysafe and let us know if you
guys need anything.
You can find me at Hamiltontelehealth.
com and you can find Kelli atChari health.
(11:09):
com C, h, a, r I health.
com.
All right, reach out to us ifyou need anything.
We'll see you again.
All right, guys, you
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Tattoos and
Telehealth.
My name is Nicole Baldwin.
This is my friend and colleague, kelli White.
We are both board-certifiednurse practitioners and we're
just having some girl time justchatting about things, and today
we wanted to talk about how tobest prevent RSV, the flu, all
(00:23):
the things.
We are both seeing asignificant increase in
illnesses, and so we just wantto touch on those things today.
So I'll let you get started,kelli.
Kelli (00:32):
Wonderful.
So our attorneys make us saythat this is not considered
medical advice.
This video does not constitutea patient provider relationship,
so we're just here to chit chat.
Yeah, so, like Nicole wassaying, I have seen so there for
the longest time.
I was seeing a lot of COVID andit, you know, really wasn't
(00:54):
terrible, but I just saw a lotof cases.
I'm seeing a ton of flu comethrough right now and, nicole, I
don't know, I don't know whatpopulation of patients you're
seeing with the flu or whatsymptoms that they're
experiencing, but what I'mseeing, unlike what we've seen
in past years, the flu used tobe high fever, nausea, vomiting,
like you couldn't even get outof bed fast enough to throw up,
(01:15):
like you just were vomiting allover the place, and this would
go on forever.
It seems like I don't see a lotof vomiting right now.
I'm just seeing a lot of reallyhigh fever.
That's the key indicator.
Some coughs, some upperrespiratory junk and just
significant body fatigue, justoverall body aches and pains.
But that high fever and bodyaches, that's the dead giveaway.
(01:36):
That seems to be what I'mseeing.
And then a ton of RSV.
Unfortunately, flu A is the bugthat I see right now.
The great thing is they nowhave those over-the-counter test
strips that you can get COVID,flu A and flu B so you can do
that yourself at home.
And that makes our world somuch better, because in
telemedicine they can just showup with their little positive
(01:59):
test strip and be like.
You know, here I'm positive andwe can get them treated pretty
quickly.
But one of the things that Iwant to hit home with is when a
patient comes in with the flu,we need to be sure we're
treating their partner withprophylactic Tamiflu as well.
Um, they're either going to getit, they've been exposed to it,
they need to be on it.
Um, because flu is socontagious.
(02:21):
The flu is so contagious andwhat a lot of people don't
understand is that Lysol doesn'tkill a lot of stuff and it
doesn't kill RSV.
So if you have RSV in your homeand you're just Lysol-ing
everything down, you're notkilling it.
If you're using the little Lysolwipes, you're not killing RSV.
So if you have a kiddo in yourhome, you have elderly people in
your home and they have RSV,spraying Lysol and wiping things
(02:44):
down with Lysol is not gettingit done.
You're going to need to usebleach or vinegar, combination
of one of the other, um caviwipes.
So if you're in healthcare andyou have access to cavi wipes,
um, but yeah, just using Lysoldoesn't, doesn't get the job
done.
So is that kind of what you'reseeing right now?
Nicole (02:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, not a lot of that.
Some of the symptoms that I'mseeing a lot of is the sudden
onset like sudden, like I wasgood five minutes ago and now
I'm not, and that's very, veryindicative of a flu, of a viral
attack.
And so it is important thatwhen you have that acute attack,
that you're reaching out,because getting started on
(03:20):
antiviral within the first 48hours of symptoms is super
important.
So you want to make sure thatyou're reaching out for that.
I'm having a lot of diarrhea,too, with patients that are
really getting this virus andit's just, they're just having
lots of diarrhea.
So hydration with that is goingto be super, super important.
But it is rampant.
It is rampant.
I mean everything we touch.
You know everything.
(03:40):
It's.
I mean the doorknobs, yourkeyboard, like all those things
you know it's like.
Then you go touch somethingelse and you come back and it's,
it's just, it's, it's awful,it's just awful.
And especially if you haveyoung kids, I mean they're just
little walking Petri dishes,right, because they're in school
, and all the things, and it'sdefinitely just rampant.
(04:01):
And I thought it would beslowing down by now, but it is
just not.
And everybody is super, supersick and they're really
struggling.
They're really, reallystruggling.
And then they're getting thesecondary bacterial infection.
So they're going through someviral stuff and then they're
coming back saying I have allthis green stuff and my chest is
full, and so it's turning intojust a monster.
Kelli (04:23):
Yeah, it really is.
So last week and over theweekend I made I don't know how
many house calls with patientsthat were doing just that.
They had had a little bit offlu, upper respiratory virus
stuff, and then seven, eight, 10days later they were down for
the count.
They had junk in their chests,you know, coughing up nasty crap
.
Their chests were heavy, theycouldn't keep.
(04:44):
I mean, it was just awful.
But secondary bacterialinfections, um, I hung a few IVs
on my patients, made severalhouse calls.
People were just sick.
Um, so yeah, hydration is thename of the game, trying to keep
yourself very hydrated.
So, having said all that, aswe've scared everybody to death,
lots of information aboutpreventing the infection before
(05:06):
you've been exposed.
So let's talk about that firstand then we can kind of talk
about you know what to do whenyou do get sick, or if you've
been exposed, et cetera, etcetera.
So there's a few things thatyou can do Antiseptic,
antimacterial mouthwash.
Guys, I know Nicole just saidchildren are petri dishes.
So is your mouth.
(05:26):
I don't mean that to be ugly,but gargle twice a day, don't
swallow it.
Gargle twice a day with a goodantimicrobial mouthwash.
Choose a mouthwash thatcontains chlorhexidine.
You can look this stuff upcombinations of eucalyptus,
menthol, thymol, uh, somethinglike that, to really really
clean your mouth out gargle,spit it out.
(05:48):
My, my mom was always really,really hyped on the warm salt
water with a little touch ofvinegar.
We would gargle with that andspit it out as kids and that
just keeps anything that is notsupposed to live in your mouth
out of your mouth so you don'tinhale it, continue to breathe
it, swallow it and get yourselfill.
Vitamin D y'all have all heardme on my functional medicine
(06:08):
soapbox talking about keepingyour vitamin D levels, you know,
towards the high end of normal.
That presents a higher serumconcentration level to keep you
healthy.
Vitamin C the recommendation isabout 500-ish milligrams twice
a day.
If you can Zinc, anywhere from20 to 50 milligrams a day, that
helps to boost your immunesystem.
(06:28):
Melatonin, elderberry syrupsupplements, gummies Be careful
with gummies.
Sometimes there's a lot ofsugar in those guys, so be real
careful with the gummies.
But If you take elderberry inany form syrup supplements
during high periods oftransmission of these types of
viruses, you're going to startto see that it'll help increase
(06:49):
your immune system, boost yourimmune system, um, to make it be
able to fight these things offa little bit easier.
Nicole (06:56):
Yeah, be sure to brush your tongue too, or get a tongue
scraper.
Those work amazing.
The tongue scraper I tried itfor like the first time.
I hadn't done it in likeprobably a decade.
I did it the other day and Iwas like well, that's.
Kelli (07:11):
Yes, the first time you actually do it after a while,
you're just like, oh, that wasseriously in my mouth.
Um, one of the things that Ifound really interesting when I
was doing some research was oneof the preventions that they can
use.
That they call to use is one totwo cups of caffeinated or
(07:31):
decaffeinated coffee per day.
Coffee.
Nicole (07:35):
I'm on that.
Kelli (07:36):
I'm all over that, I'm pretty sure I just got
permission to drink coffee allday.
I know it said one or two cups,but more is more is better,
right?
Oh yeah, more is always better,more is always better, more is
always better.
And then, of course, ivermectin, and there's a ton of research
out there about ivermectin.
We've talked about it just alittle bit and there's a lot of
(07:58):
information about there, and inabundance, about natural
immunity and how to use thatmedication to help boost your
immune system, and even whativermectin does on the cellular
level.
I could bore you to death withthe science behind it, cause I
think it's fascinating, truly.
I think it's fascinating, um,but that medication does some
fascinating stuff on thecellular level, and what it can
do to cells that areaggressively attacking your body
(08:21):
is just incredible.
It really is.
Nicole (08:24):
Absolutely.
Kelli (08:26):
Yeah, and the the interesting thing about a lot of
this stuff is most of these arethings that we probably should
be doing anyway.
Right, like we, we should bebrushing our teeth at least
twice a day.
We should be using mouthwash.
When we brush our teeth acouple of times a day, we should
be brushing our tongue weshould be, you know, we should
be taking these supplements tostay healthy, washing our hands,
et cetera.
Tongue we should be.
You know, we should be takingthese supplements to stay
(08:46):
healthy, washing our hands, etc.
And so, after you've beenexposed, nicole, what do you
recommend patients do to preventinfection once they know
they've been exposed.
Nicole (08:56):
Definitely, if you're not up to par on your vitamins
and your elderberries,definitely jump on that right,
right away.
Right away, cleaning everything, like Kelli said.
You know, don't, don't add tothe mix, trying to clean, get
everything as as clean aspossible and then just making
sure you're keeping moving, keepthose lungs working right.
It's when we're sedentary thatthe fluid likes to settle in our
(09:17):
lungs and that that's whatleads to pneumonia.
That's why a lot of hospitalpatients get pneumonia because
all they do you're, you'relaying in the bed, right, you're
attached to all these monitorsand you have a bed, and so
patients get pneumonia in thehospital because they're not up
moving around.
And so keep moving, even if youfeel kind of crummy.
You're starting to feel crummy.
Keep moving, work those lungs.
Add the mucinex if you can.
If it's, you know if it's okaywith your, with your, your
(09:40):
prescriber, um, you know youalways want to make sure
everything goes well with thecurrent medications that you're
on, but keeping what's in yourchest thinned out.
But if you've been exposed,reach out.
If you've had a direct exposure, reach out to your, to your
health care provider, see if youcan get a prescription.
If your partner, like she said,if your partner tested positive
for influenza, you know um, goahead and get on it the sooner
(10:04):
the better with those antivirals, for sure.
For sure.
Kelli (10:09):
I think something else that people don't consider is
that sleep is incrediblyimportant.
When you don't feel good,that's your body's time to
recover, your body's time torepair itself, to fight off
infections.
When you're sleeping, that'swhy you find yourself, you know,
laying around, laying in bed,laying on the couch and, like
Nicole said, again, that's whenpneumonia can settle in.
So it's almost like you're youknow it's working against you.
(10:31):
Yes, we want you to rest, yes,we want you to lay down and we
certainly want you to get plentyof sleep, because that's when
your body can care for itself.
But, again, that's that finebalance between, you know,
keeping things moving around andand getting plenty of breath.
So, yeah, that's all I have.
Nicole (10:47):
Nicole, that's good.
No, that's it.
That's good, short and sweet.
We don't want to make thingstoo complicated.
You know, take the long way tothe bathroom, do one lap around
the house, you know per daywhatever you can do to keep
those lungs moving.
Otherwise, I hope you guys staysafe and let us know if you
guys need anything.
You can find me at Hamiltontelehealth.
com and you can find Kelli atChari health.
(11:09):
com C, h, a, r I health.
com.
All right, reach out to us ifyou need anything.
We'll see you again.
All right, guys, you
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