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I am arguing with my friend Paul about the flu shot. He swears that he gets the flu every time he gets the flu shot. I tell him that it's impossible to get the flu from a flu shot.
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No, I think you may be wrong. My understanding it that there is a chance one can get the flu from the flu shot. I'll have my assistant Kayla look it up for you. Or I'll pull out my reference book, which I lovingly call ClaudiaTherese.
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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Well, side effects do include fever and achiness, which might well be bad enough to mimic a low-grade flu. But it can't actually give you the flu -- no intact virions.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Like I said, you can catch a separate strain of flu from the other people in line. *sheepishly slinks away*
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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I just got a flu shot. I try to get it every year. The flu sucks. Extremely so. I prefer to give it a miss.
You can get rare side effects that might be an achy neck or in a very few people can be so bad as to cause paralysis, so I have read. But this is extremely rare, and many many people die of the flu every year. Every now and then there are flu strains that kill a lot of people, even. Like the Spanish Influenza epidemic near the end of WW I. That one killed millions, I think. Flu is quite nasty. The shot is a much better risk.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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i got a flu shot when i was 15. i came down with the flu that night. unless someone can dispute the incubation period, i stand by the fact that i got the flu from a flu shot, and i am among those who refuse to get the shot.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I've never had the flu, and I went the first 18 years of my life without ever getting a flu shot. Since then, I've had been getting flu shots, and I get sick almost every time. It's not the flu, but it sucks all the same. I'm almost inclined to think that forcing someone to get a flu shot is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. You're mortgaging my health against a pretty uncertain threat. I'd rather just take the risk.
Posts: 224 | Registered: Aug 2002
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usually when i get the flu, i get chills and aches and then a fever. if i go to bed and stay there, the fever will break in 8-12 hours, and then i'm fine. if this isn't the flu, then what is it? and i can count on one hand the number of times i've had this particular ailment.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I have only gotten the shot in years when I was in a recommended group. Oh, and the year it was almost epidemic locally. No significant side-effects. But I don't get the flu most years, thank God, so if I'm not in an at-high-risk group, I don't get the shot.
And I agree, if I had experienced serious side-effects, I would be very hesitant to get the shot.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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ok, i don't fit any of those categories, but i still don't want to take any chances. i can't afford to be out of commission, and since i really don't get sick that often, i thin kit's worth the risk for me.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I think that in the first few years flu shots were given there were more side effects. Perhaps it WAS a live vaccine then and could cause the flu. I haven't looked up the early history of the flu shot to know. Nowadays it can't cause the flu.
The World Health Organization officials this year are encouraging people to get influenza vaccinations so we won't confuse flu symptoms with SARS. Both diseases cause fever and respiratory symptoms. See, if you don't get sick...then you don't have to worry about getting put in isolation or getting tested/treated for SARS. So the WHO thinks it is an additional reason to get the flu shot.
The CDC has specifically NOT given any such recommendations on flu shots helping prevent erroneous diagnoses of SARS, however. The CDC seems to think that the WHO recommendation is confusing and people may start to think that flu shots protect against SARS, which of course it won't.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I'm curious, Many doctors that I know recommend on getting the flu shot not every year, but every other year, for the fact that the flu shot that is given to us in the States, is based on the generation of the year before as well as a few other reasons that I don't readily remember, what does everyone say about that? Or am I the only person that has heard this... Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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The flu shot that you receive is based upon the strain of influenza from the previous year. This is most likely due to the sheer amount of the virus that must be used to manufacture the flu shots.
As far as developing the flu from a flu shot, it depends on whether the flu shot derived from a live attenuated virus, or a killed virus. Honestly I have no idea if there are variations of the flu shot as far as live virus versions and killed virus versions.
But the fact of the matter is that if you are given an immunization with the virus being a live attenuated virus, you CAN contract that particular virus...at least that is what I read once, and I believe everything I read.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Bernard, my understanding was that each year's flu vaccine was based on data collected that year from other areas of the world, particularly China, from which the most virulent strands seem to generate each year.
The explanation I was given was that in these areas of the world, livestock is in much closer contact with the living quarters of humans, and as the virus is multipartate and can exchange information with other viruses, this was the "breeding ground" for new strains. It sounds possible, but also rather xenophobic.
However, I am working hard at having no opinions for at least a week, excepting maybe eBay art. (I think there should be a huge sigh of relief just about now. )
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I wouldn't get a flu shot, though I did read most of the book "flu" about the Spanish flu epidemic (and Survivor explained the parts I didn't read). It's apparently common for a flu strain to come out in the spring. It will tend to be less fatal, and spread and multiply among the population. Then in the fall, it hits harder. If I "had to" get a flu shot, I would get one as early as possible.
I believe that virus and bacterial infections sometimes enable each other, so even the small bout of virus-like stress might make one more susceptible. I wouldn't predict this, just say it to describe what people are experiencing.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I had the flu last february. I'd never had it before.
I never, ever, EVER want it again.
Did I mention ever?
I couldn't get out of bed for three days. I had a fever, a headache, my whole body ached. No pain medication touched the aches. Then the fever breaks, the pain recedes, and you think, oh, it's nearly done.
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Yes, I've had it some years, and it felt like I was going to die. Then after I got well it took weeks and weeks for me to get my strength back.
One time I had something (I don't know if it was influenza, but it was some virus) that made me sick for about a month (I relapsed twice), got painful conjunctivitis in both eyes, was the most miserable I've ever felt with any illness, and I never did recover from that one. That was four years ago (right before the first hatrack picnic, in fact) and I'm still trying to get my strength and health back from that one. My mother got it at the same time and was a semi-invalid for about six months afterward. We thought about polio and West Nile and other viruses that leave people paralyzed, and we think it must have been something a little bit like that, only not that, thank goodness.
Anyway, my dad also got it at that time, and since then he's died of cancer. Since then my insulin resistance turned into full blown diabetes. I think in addition to the actual course of the disease itself, these bad viruses put a huge strain on your immune system and all of your organs (there is usually a LOT of cell death) so that any underlying potential conditions you have may be rendered active.
So any of these that can be avoided should be.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Never had the flu, never want to have the flu, I've had the flu shot every year since 6th grade. I'm in one of the groups at risk, but even if I wasn't-the symptoms from the shot are WAY better than what I've seen the flu to be like
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Personally, I don't buy it. Everytime my mother-in-law got the flu shot, we all got the flu. I still blame her. The flu shot may not cause the person getting the shot to get the flu, but what about the rest of us? I'm beginning to wonder if the flu vaccine isn't the cause of the flu epidemics every year to begin with! Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Interesting enough, I got the flu shot two tuesdays ago. Last wednesday I got the flu and am currently recovering. Can't say I actually blame the flu shots because I could have caught the bug from many places, but question their preventative properties.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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It takes longer than a week to develop an immunity to flu virus. Furthermore, the strain you got and the strains in the flu shot may have been entirely different.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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We are hitting prime flu season soon. People are showing up with it at ERs, so it's definitely out there.
(All the "got hit by a Mack Truck" cases I've seen have been unimmunized. I'm not offering any opinions, though, except to say that there was a sad/despairing theme to eBay Art today. )
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I never, ever want to get the full bout of influenza again. One episode of bronchitis where I was out-of-state and wheezing to outline my ribcage, too tired to cough up the phlegm, was more than enough for me.
Plus, as I'm in contact with a lot of children, it seems ethically obligated to me. Children have the second highest rate of hospitalization and death, just behind the elderly.
Give me at least partial immunity any day. (*Whew!)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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As a teacher, I suppose that I should get a flu shot every year. But, as I haven't gotten sick in the 3 years I have been teaching, aside from the occasional head cold, I am in no hurry to get a shot for something I have never gotten anyway. Besides, I don't like shots, and I am not going out of my way to get one unless required to by law, which hasn't happened for the flu shot.....yet.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Yeah, it's not 100%. For one thing, there are always a number of strains of influenza and they have to guess ahead of time which will be the problem strains each year. For another thing, not everyone will be made completely immune, even to those strains that ARE included in the shot. You are playing the odds either way. Having had the flu, though, I KNOW I want to do everything I can to keep from getting it again. The odds are just heavily weighted towards getting the shot.
Like, if I worked with kids, and say I got the flu and before I knew I had it I passed it to some of the kids, and say one of them got very sick and got pneumonia and died. Had I not done EVERYTHING in my power to prevent that, I would feel pretty awful about that. I guess I'm always looking at worst case scenarios and deciding if I can live with them or not. I personally feel responsible for all the bad things that happen that I could have prevented and didn't.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I get the flu shot every year and offer it to everyone else in the company. Some years, everyone still gets a strain of flu- I presume it's one not covered by the shot. Every year, the people who got the shot are sick for less time than those who didn't get the shot.
Last year, a flu that hit those without the shot for 3-5 days, hit those who had gotten the shot for 2-5 hours. Yep- I'm a believer!
I'm one of those that gets fluish symptoms within a few hours after getting the shot; slightly achy and nautious. But I always look at that as my system changing gears to create antibodies.
Something I haven't seen mentioned here is the pneumonia vaccine. It's a once every 5 year shot. I had one 3 years ago after suffering near chronic bronchitis every winter for 4 years. Boy has it made a positive difference in my health.
My husband got one too. Neither of us has had anything more than a minor/short lived respiratory illness since we've been vaccinated.
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Wow, Ladydove. I'm going to look into that.
Since I was a teenager, there've only been a few years that I didn't get some kind of bronchal illness.
Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I have had the flu. It was a nasty business, being as I'm in one of those danger groups, (moderate-to-severe asthmatic) and it spread to my lungs, incubated, and brewed a pretty bad case of pneumonia. Yep. I don't want that to happen again. Thinking I might get a flu shot this week, being as I'm feeling extra-special asthmatic lately. Thanks for reminding me, I'm getting nagging from all sides about this. First Reader's Digest, now Hatrack.
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Well, I think the odds of all 150 of my kids(I teach high school math) getting pneumonia and dying are pretty slim. But, your point is well taken. I do feel, however, that I am at more risk of catching something from them, rather than vice versa.
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LadyDove, is that the same as the pneumoccocal vaccination? This vaccinates against Strep pneumoniae, the most common cause of bacterial pneumonias. You can still get viral pneumonias and other bacterial pneumonias, though, although they tend to cause less trouble.
But, e.g., "walking pneumonia" (or Mycoplasma pneumoniae) is still a possible problem.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I'm actually planning on getting mine today. My company offers the shots for $5. I am in the lowered immune system category after having two surgeries this year. I wanted to wait until I was good and well from my tonsilectomy before I got the shot though, just in case. I find I do get achy for a day or two but I never got anything worse than a bad cold last year.
Allucard... My friend who is a pharmacy tech in Oklahoma says that the flu has hit early and hard down there. In the last two weeks they have set all time records for the # of prescriptions filled (and they are doing it with two full time workers out on maternity leave) Is the same phenomenon happening where you are?
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If I understand correctly, there are two types of flu vaccines, a killed virus and a live attenuated virus. It is not possible to get the flu from the dead virus, but it is possible to get it from the live attenuated virus. As a result, the live virus is counter-indicated for adults over 65 and immunocompromised patients.
My mother-in-law was recently in the Oncology ward at the hospital and there are signs all over the floor saying that if you have had the live flu vaccine you will not be allowed on the floor and should not visit an immunocompromised patient for at least three weeks.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I'm completely superstitious about the flu shot. In years I got the flu shot, I also got the flu. Admittedly, one of those times was the summer after the flu season had ended, but the other was in flu season.
The summer one "knocked me on my @$$" as the kind physician I saw in Kingston , PA. put it. They were having a water crisis at the time, and I thought I'd ingested something from the non-potable water I'd showered in, or something. Nope. Flu.
The next time I was sick for at least 8 weeks. Flu. Secondary sinus infection (antibiotics) when the antibiotics were done, It caught in my throat and I couldn't talk (more antibiotics). When THOSE antibiotics were done, I got all congested everywhere. I stayed home from work with a gallon of OJ and wrapped myself in blankets, sweating it out like my Native American ancestors. Got better.
Somewhere in that time I flew to Florida, and almost burst an eardrum as we landed. Not fun.
I know I probably got a different strain than I was immunized for, or something, but part of me suspects that smudge ceremonies and sacrificing small animals works just as well. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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CT- I believe that's the one. I was never diagnosed with pneumonia, just bronchitis. It would last for weeks, and it even caused pleurisy the year before I got the vaccine.
I assume that I was susceptible to the Strep pneumoniae, because the vaccine fixed what was ailing me.
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In the military, or at least in the Corps, we get the flu shot 2 or 3 times a year, whether we want it or not. And maybe "You can't get flu from a flu shot," but I sure as hell get sick everytime I get it.
Posts: 186 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Or I'll pull out my reference book, which I lovingly call ClaudiaTherese.
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But I don't get the flu most years, thank God, so if I'm not in an at-high-risk group, I don't get the shot.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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