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Flu shots? For them or against ?

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  • fortcox
    fortcox Posts: 21 Member
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    Its not for me and my family. We've been fine without it.
  • SundropEclipse
    SundropEclipse Posts: 84 Member
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    I don't get them because I always have severe reactions to them and spend up to six months sick. That said, I go through sanitizer like crazy and am hyper-vigilant of breathing on others or being breathed on. This past April was the first time in five years that I've gotten sick, and the only reason that happened was because my husband and I went to the hospital to visit his mother.

    With that said, flu vaccinations serve a purpose. Those most as risk should be given priority for vaccinations, and then move on to the low-risk population that wishes to receive a flu shot.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,467 Member
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    I had one. Bothered my vision pretty bad about 6 months. Couldn't drive at night. Better for a few months. Then totally gone. Had the flu once. Spent a week in bed. Better for about 2 weeks, then gone. I'll take a chance on maybe 3 weeks, vs. surely 9 or 10 months.
  • Strawblackcat
    Strawblackcat Posts: 944 Member
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    I don't bother with the anymore. Every single year that I ever got one, I always ended up getting the flu. I know that getting the shot isn't 100% protection, but I just didn't see the point of i always got sick anyway. Nowadays, I just focus on eating healthy, taking my vitamins/supplements, and staying away from people that are sick as well as I can.

    Ironically enough, I haven't gotten the flu during the past several years after I quit bothering to get a flu shot.
  • lorriemb
    lorriemb Posts: 39 Member
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    I've gotten a flu shot for the past 15 years. Haven't had any negative side effects.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
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    Please get them. If you don't need one, someone else near you does need you to get one. The flu that troubles you for a few days may kill someone's grandmother.

    As far as Guillain-Barré syndrome is concerned, what isn't usually explained is that it's a one in a million reaction between the cells of specific people's nervous systems AND THE FLU VIRUS ITSELF. Although the vaccine can cause it for these people, if the same person were to get the flu without being vaccinated, they would also get it. In fact the overwhelming majority of cases occur following an illness, and have nothing to do with vaccines. And cases caused by illness tend to be more severe than cases caused by vaccines.

    Picture your body as a city and your antibodies as policemen. Now picture the flu as a bank robber. The vaccine is like an APB sent by a neighboring city saying, hey, arrest this bank robber before he robs anyone. So what happens is that the robber is arrested without doing any harm. In certain rare cases, the bank robber has a strong resemblance to an innocent person living in the city - the cells of the nervous system. So when the police get the bulletin, they go after the wrong guy. But if they don't get any bulletin, as soon as the robber robs a bank, they will go after the wrong guy anyway.
  • Mezzie1024
    Mezzie1024 Posts: 380 Member
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    I work in a public school and get the flu shot. I didn't when I was young and had a killer immune system, but that's not me anymore. I got the flu super early one year (before the vaccines were readily available), and it was truly awful. I wasn't going to get the vaccine that year since I'd already had the flu, but my doctor encouraged me to since we didn't know what strain I'd had. That year, a good chunk of my students missed a bunch of school twice due to flu -- early in the year when I had mine, then on the late end of flu season. I didn't get the second round. It may or may not have been because I had gotten the vaccine, but I would have been really upset to have gotten the flu twice in one school year. I'd like to think my doctor spared me some pain.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    mph323 wrote: »
    Well, since this trainwreck is still steaming along, here's my n=1

    I got the flu shot in Oct last year. I got the flu the first week in Jan this year. I ended up in ER, came home with 6 different meds (not an exaggeration), and was seriously ill for over three weeks (I'm normally a perfectly healthy person who gets maybe a couple of colds a year). They did a swab and it was one of the types that wasn't covered by the vaccine (type A?) Did I feel it was a waste of time to get the shot? Oh hell no - people around me were coming down with strains that were covered by the shot, and with my immune system shot, if I had gotten sick again I would have ended up in the hospital, with potentially life-threatening infections like pneumonia. There's no way I wouldn't get my shot, and yes some years it raises a big itchy lump at the injection site. I'll live with it.

    I'm sorry to hear you got it!

    When I've had the flu (I've had it twice, one when I was a teenager, and once as an adult and that was only because I caught it very early in the season before I had a chance to get immunized), that's how long I was sick with it. I really don't think anyone who's sick for a shorter duration has had the flu.

  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
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    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    mph323 wrote: »
    Well, since this trainwreck is still steaming along, here's my n=1

    I got the flu shot in Oct last year. I got the flu the first week in Jan this year. I ended up in ER, came home with 6 different meds (not an exaggeration), and was seriously ill for over three weeks (I'm normally a perfectly healthy person who gets maybe a couple of colds a year). They did a swab and it was one of the types that wasn't covered by the vaccine (type A?) Did I feel it was a waste of time to get the shot? Oh hell no - people around me were coming down with strains that were covered by the shot, and with my immune system shot, if I had gotten sick again I would have ended up in the hospital, with potentially life-threatening infections like pneumonia. There's no way I wouldn't get my shot, and yes some years it raises a big itchy lump at the injection site. I'll live with it.

    I'm sorry to hear you got it!

    When I've had the flu (I've had it twice, one when I was a teenager, and once as an adult and that was only because I caught it very early in the season before I had a chance to get immunized), that's how long I was sick with it. I really don't think anyone who's sick for a shorter duration has had the flu.

    My doctor agrees with you! I've had it twice too - the first time was in Tucson in 1975 during the victorian flu epidemic. My fever went so high I spend a couple of days hallucinating, and the medical system was so overwhelmed that unless you were at risk or a lot sicker than I was (I found that hard to imagine at the time :o ) you were supposed to take aspirin and ride it out. You bet as soon as flu shots were available I was first in line!
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited August 2017
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    I had it in 1975 and was hallucinating too!

    Very high fever. I remember my mother telling me I scared her.
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
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    Probably said this already somewhere in this thread. Flu shots are just not part of our everyday discussion where I live. To have or not to have, is not the question. The question just doesn't come up.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
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    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    I had it in 1975 and was hallucinating too!

    Very high fever. I remember my mother telling me I scared her.

    Oh wow! I've never met anyone who even remembers that! How cool!
This discussion has been closed.

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