Flu Shots? thoughts

RobynUnfiltered

I always hate them, but get one anyway. I work with kids so I am exposed to a million germs

jwdieter

Always fun to see random internet thoughts and anecdotal evidence related to vaccines.

sunfirelynn

I get one every year because my immune system is weak. :frown:

bwatzke

I got the shot today for the first time ever. I am a retired teacher and while teaching I never got the flu even though I had sick kids coming to school and infecting everyone else. Last year I retired and I got the flu! I guess I didn't have the kids to help build up my resistance. The nurse who gave me the shot today told me that she used to not be a believer of getting the flu shot. The clinic she works at made her get it last year. Her son came down with the flu and ended up in the hospital with a high fever. About the same time, there was a child in the area who died from the flu because of a high fever. Everyone in her house, except her, got the flu last year. You can still get the flu if a different strand than what is in the shot comes around. Your chances are greatly reduced, though, if you get the shot.

DatMurse

People who are immunocompromised shouldnt be running around with normal people in the first place. It is one of the precautions medical professionals tell them.

Because people who are immunocompromised don't have bills to pay, especially medical bills.

If they are immunocompromised, the flu is really the least of their worries.

They are not supposed to be around normal people in crowded areas or be in too much contact, bottom line. You dont see chemo patients running around

Really? I will be sure to call work and tell them I can no longer come in because I am not "normal" and should not be around the general population. I have asthma, compromises my immune system. Funny though, my Dr. seems to think I should live a normal life. BTW my wife has a severely compromised immune system. I got the flu shot as did she but still ended up with her hospitalized because someone at work got the flu and I ended up taking shed virus home to her on my clothing.

You are saying your asthma is compromising your immune system? Ok lol

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Have you EVER had an asthma attack?!? I'm sorry but this is where I put my foot down.

Get educated before you start making comments like that son.

So other than the inflamation causing bronchoconstriction, and closing your airway. Please tell me how it makes you more susceptible to infection.
I will be waiting on you to explain the pathophysiology of how it affects your immune response since you are educated

First off do you have asthma?

Answer my question and I'll humor yours.

no, but I asked you the question first on the pathophysiology of asthma lowering your capabilities of fighting off of an infection

OK. So here we go.

There are many stimuli out there that can cause an asthma attack as you probably already know. Asthma being a chronic inflammatory disease, can be triggered by influenza symptoms. Influenza is a respiratory illness. Don't get it confused with gastrointestinal things. That's something else altogether. Being that influenza is respiratory it can trigger a series of bronchospasms which can turn into a massive asthma attack and can hospitalize the person. Pneumonia can also develop from influenza in a person suffering from asthma. Believe me, it has happened to me.

Considering everywhere I go and everyone I talk to says asthmatics, regardless of age, need the flu vaccine, yes...it is kind of important for asthmatics as IMMUNOCOMPROMISED to get vaccinated. We just don't have the capabilities of fighting this stuff off as someone who has "perfect health" would.

Hope this helps.

We are not talking about medication. We are talking about asthma itself and you said asthma attacks.

Nothing in your babbling talk about how asthma attacks lower your capabilities of fighting an infection.

Obstruction due to asthma does not mean you immune system is hindered

Thanks for not being educated

You don't think having inflamed airways from asthma would make it more difficult for the body to deal with an infection like a cold or flu? Really? I could imagine it certainly might. Any inflammation is tough on the body, and certainly may impair one's immune system. Menses and stress HAVE been established to impair immune response. Does this fit in with your view of ways the immune system can be impaired?

Also, immunocompromised people don't "catch" things more often (i.e. have a virus enter their system), their immune systems just have a harder time fighting the infections they do get. Having an immune system disorder (like an autoimmune disease or even allergy) can make the immune system less efficient at fighting harmful invaders such as a virus or bacteria, even without the addition of immunosupressive medication. If the immune system is busy attacking your kidneys, and a nasty virus enters your system, your immune system might not be as efficient at attacking that virus relative to someone with a normally functioning system (i.e. one that attacks harmful foreign bodies and not harmless allergens and/or own body tissue).

People who are immunocompromised have to worry about bacteria that normal people can ignore, just like their normal flora.

But as I said, It was already established at the beginning of the thread that if you have to worry about fighting off of an infection such as the flu due to an impaired immune system, you shouldnt be running around normal people.

Your statement is too broad. The immune system is more complex than that. It depends on the specific nature of the immunodeficiency. If it is broad scale, like a general depletion of white blood cells, the person would be more susceptible to any type of infection. If it is small scale, such as interfering with a specific TLR pathway, the immunocompromised person might only be more susceptible to certain specific viruses, and react normally to bacteria and other types of viruses. (A good example of a small scale immunodeficiency, is the increased infection rate and infection severity by H1N1, but not by rhinovirus or several other viruses in asthmatic children. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2012 Jun 15;185(12):1275-9. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201109-1635OC. Epub 2012 Feb 23.)

And by the way, think about everyone who has an impaired immune system compared to 'normal' for a minute. That's anyone under stress, so anyone overworked, not getting enough sleep, not getting complete nutrition, people under a caloric deficit, etc. Add in the very young, the over 50's, and anyone that has another active infection or is recovering from an illness or is on any kind of immunosuppressive drug. Ironically enough, it also includes anyone who's had a vaccine within a certain vaccine-specific window of time. Plus others.

Kind of a lot of people. Your argument's really only valid if the person has a broad scale and severe immunodeficiency - and those people are advised to stay away from crowds, wear a mask if they need to go out, etc.

we are specifically talking about people who are immunodeficient TO A HIGHER DEGREE that would have to worry about getting the flu. IF YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GETTING THE FLU BECAUSE IT CAN CAUSE SOME SERIOUS DAMAGE, YOU SHOULD NOT ENTER CROWDED AREAS

Your claims are too general and, due to that generality, are not correct. Overly general statements are funny that way. Even "flu" is quite general and some strains could be very serious even to "normal" people. In your education, I suggest you learn to think a bit more critically and use caution when making very broad statements. Did you see the citation above of the paper discussing the increased infection AND severity rate of a FLU in children with ASTHMA? Or did you just choose to ignore that? It is about people with ASTHMA being at increased risk from FLU.

I hope you are more open to learning in your coursework/program than you are here. This reply suggests you did not even read the excellent (and obviously knowledgeable) response above.

You are correct about one thing. People with extreme immunodeficiency are advised to avoid crowds and take certain extreme precautions, but that does NOT imply that anyone at an elevated risk from flu must be severely immunocompromised.

I read it.
there is a difference between at a higher risk versus having an impaired immune response

anyway we were talking about people severely compromised due to the fact they would have to worry so much.

I also wasnt the one about making the original "general statement", I interpreted as someone who is severely compromised, and I had people come in here to tell me that asthma itself makes you immunocompromised.

mixedbag4444

Nope. I hate needles and haven't had the flu for years. I guess I'm lucky :P

retrobyte

I've worked for companies who offer free flu shots to staff, and given it came out of my budget, I've done a few studies over the years into the impact of flu shots on sick leave levels. I've analysed annual sick days for the staff who have flu shots, and compared that to the average number of sick days per annum for the staff who don't have flu shots. And, guess what ..... it makes no difference to the number of days per year staff take off as sick leave.

So, from a corporate point of view, providing free flu shots for staff is a waste of money.

From a personal point of view, the last time I had a flu shot was probably 15 years ago, and since then I've been off work sick 3 days in those 15 years - one of those was when I had 10 stitches in my head from a sporting injury, and the other 2 were food poisoning when living and working in Indonesia.

I call BS on flu shots, unless you have other health issues or are immune challenged.

Angie_Fritts

No I don't. I have gotten the shot a few years in the past. But, I have never had the flu. I guess if I ever do get the flu, I'll start getting the shot.

marciebrian

I am 59 years old, got the shot for the past 20 years and have NEVER had the flu. As a matter of fact I had a doc apt today and while I was there got the shot. some people are skeptical of flu and other vaccines but I believe the science is more right than wrong so I just go with it

xxmarysmxx

I've gotten the flu shot a few times. Never gave to my kids until my youngest got the flu last Nov. Ended up in the E.R 4 very scary days. This was while we were in Disney World. This year we are all getting the flu shot!

sk_pirate

People who are immunocompromised shouldnt be running around with normal people in the first place. It is one of the precautions medical professionals tell them.

Because people who are immunocompromised don't have bills to pay, especially medical bills.

If they are immunocompromised, the flu is really the least of their worries.

They are not supposed to be around normal people in crowded areas or be in too much contact, bottom line. You dont see chemo patients running around

Really? I will be sure to call work and tell them I can no longer come in because I am not "normal" and should not be around the general population. I have asthma, compromises my immune system. Funny though, my Dr. seems to think I should live a normal life. BTW my wife has a severely compromised immune system. I got the flu shot as did she but still ended up with her hospitalized because someone at work got the flu and I ended up taking shed virus home to her on my clothing.

You are saying your asthma is compromising your immune system? Ok lol

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Have you EVER had an asthma attack?!? I'm sorry but this is where I put my foot down.

Get educated before you start making comments like that son.

So other than the inflamation causing bronchoconstriction, and closing your airway. Please tell me how it makes you more susceptible to infection.
I will be waiting on you to explain the pathophysiology of how it affects your immune response since you are educated

First off do you have asthma?

Answer my question and I'll humor yours.

no, but I asked you the question first on the pathophysiology of asthma lowering your capabilities of fighting off of an infection

OK. So here we go.

There are many stimuli out there that can cause an asthma attack as you probably already know. Asthma being a chronic inflammatory disease, can be triggered by influenza symptoms. Influenza is a respiratory illness. Don't get it confused with gastrointestinal things. That's something else altogether. Being that influenza is respiratory it can trigger a series of bronchospasms which can turn into a massive asthma attack and can hospitalize the person. Pneumonia can also develop from influenza in a person suffering from asthma. Believe me, it has happened to me.

Considering everywhere I go and everyone I talk to says asthmatics, regardless of age, need the flu vaccine, yes...it is kind of important for asthmatics as IMMUNOCOMPROMISED to get vaccinated. We just don't have the capabilities of fighting this stuff off as someone who has "perfect health" would.

Hope this helps.

We are not talking about medication. We are talking about asthma itself and you said asthma attacks.

Nothing in your babbling talk about how asthma attacks lower your capabilities of fighting an infection.

Thanks for not being educated

You don't have asthma.

I do.

I never mentioned anything about medication in this post.

Can you read?

I dont know. can you? I asked you first and you are justifying because you have it doesnt mean you know what you are talking about.

If you get sick you will still have a normal immune response.


Immunocompromised- having an impaired immune system.
Immune system- a system (including the thymus and bone marrow and lymphoid tissues) that protects the body from foreign substances and pathogenic organisms by producing the immune response

So does your body have a normal immune response?
yes.

Bottom line you dont know about, and when you "put your foot down". you made yourself look completely wrong

Edit....you're not worth my time.

Good luck with life and whatever else you do, pretty lady :flowerforyou:

jennifer_417

The only year I got a flu shot, I got 5 sinus infections in 8 months. Never again.

kiwitechgirl

The only year I got a flu shot, I got 5 sinus infections in 8 months. Never again.

There is no way a flu shot could have caused that. You've fallen victim to the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy - because it happened after the shot, the shot must have caused it. Wrong. Correlation doesn't equal causation, just like the plural of anecdotes is not data.

brevislux

I do. I'm way too frugal with my money and time to stay in bed for days and days and do nothing because of flu.


By the way, on the "humans evolved for years to battle illnesses" - the flu only got to affect humans just about 10,000 years ago, and in evolutionary terms, that's pretty much like last night.

Jacobedward02

Is there any difference between cold and flu?

http://www.belmarrahealth.com

PudgyPlatypus

I'm a big fan of the flu shot. I have to get it every year because I'm immunocompromised, and anyone who has close contact with me (my family and boyfriend is supposed to get it as well). I'd rather have a chance of feeling poorly (headache, fever) for a day or two afterwards than get the flu and have my life put at risk. Any % of effectiveness it gives me is better than nothing at all, even if it mutates so much that it is only a small %. It could be serious for me to come down with the flu. Luckily I have had no side effects, and since I started getting yearly flu shots, I have never had it.

I'm also a big fan of the meningitis, hib and pneumovax shots.

*Sings* Shots, shots, shots, shots! Everyboooooody!