Flu Shot This Year?

[GuingesRock]

Might be time to get a flu shot.

This just arrived by email:

There have been a number of patients admitted to QE2(approximately 15) who are in isolation with possible H1N1(not verified yet).

If you have not yet had your flu shot, you are strongly advised to do so---it seems to be a bad year for the flu and it appears to have just started in NS.

[Tony L]

I get it every year. Not like I have to pay for it and you never know.....

[Jimmy]

I don't know if I've ever had the flu shot, and I can't remember the last time I had the flu...now I'm probably going to end up with the flu

[mr x]

I can get them for free and refuse.

[GuingesRock]

They are free for everyone in NS.

[Tony L]

Free for everyone as far as I know. My chances of getting the flu is probably higher than most as I have contact with the public on a daily basis. Since I have started getting the shot, I haven't had the flu. A plus in my mind.

[Juniper Hill]

I got the flu from a patient many years ago. Was so sick I was almost admitted to hospital (and I'm young and healthy!). Ever since then I've gotten my flu shot every year, and haven't had the flu again.

Getting the flu sucks. Its like a comination of the worst cold you've ever had and being beaten up (muscle soreness can intense).

[redoubt]

This strain of H1N1 really seems to kick the stuffing out of you. Don't normally get the flu shot but, since Keely sees patients all the time and works with people who have school-age kids and *always* get sick, I'll get one this year. Who has the time or energy to be that sick for that long? Not I. Bring on the needle.

-Kirsten

[GuingesRock]

I got mine before Christmas. I'm self employed and can't afford to lose half a month's work.

[akr71]

This year (back in November) and every year. The wife is a nurse and 2 school aged children... I can't recall the last time any of us had the flu (knock on wood)

[CorneliusAlphonse]

The flu shot is not just for your own sickness prevention, but also preventing you from passing it to vulnerable others (old, young, deficient immune system). That being said, I dont usually get them.

[akr71]

The flu shot is not just for your own sickness prevention, but also preventing you from passing it to vulnerable others (old, young, deficient immune system).

I get seriously annoyed at co-workers who continually drag their sorry asses into work coughing, sneezing and otherwise spreading their illness (flu, cold or whatever) around the office and saying "I'm not really that bad." Stay the fuck home - that is why you have sick days. Not so you get better, but so you don't spread your crap to everyone else! I don't really care how you are feeling - stay the fuck home!

[dean2k]

This year (back in November) and every year. The wife is a nurse and 2 school aged children... I can't recall the last time any of us had the flu (knock on wood)

Similar environment as you know at my house, but despite shots we're still getting the occasional bug. HOWEVER... what most of the public doesn't seem to understand is that the flu shot doesn't prevent getting flu-like symptoms (thanks NHL), but it helps to prevent INFLUENZA. The big fucking Kahuna.

[gm-]

Got my shot in November, as I work at a University, everything is filled with germs. I got the flu in 2012 and it was bloody awful, even had to go to the hospital for one night since my fever was so high, first time I hallucinated due to high fever

[redoubt]

HOWEVER... what most of the public doesn't seem to understand is that the flu shot doesn't prevent getting flu-like symptoms (thanks NHL), but it helps to prevent INFLUENZA. The big fucking Kahuna.

Just got my jab at lunchtime. Had a fun chat with the pharmacist who administered it about the flu shot myths that he has to answer ad nauseum including this one. More often, though, he has to disabuse people of the notion that the flu shot *causes* the flu (and is part of a great big Big Pharma conspiracy of doom, making sick all us little fry whilst growing fat off our suffering, and so on).

-Kirsten

PS: Crap. Cue the deadarm. Damn jabs. But... better than weeks of ick.

[mr x]

He'll have a tough time convincing me flu shots are awesome while he's still dispensing Prozac. FWIW, one of the guys got a shot at work a few years ago and became violently sick, hospitalized.

[redoubt]

He'll have a tough time convincing me flu shots are awesome while he's still dispensing Prozac. FWIW, one of the guys got a shot at work a few years ago and became violently sick, hospitalized.

Point well taken re: the pharmaceutical industry. Have you read Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma? A good read on the subject.

As I understand it, the viruses in the shot are all dead and can't actually cause the flu. I'm no expert but I assume it's at least possible there's another explanation for your coworker's illness (e.g., a bad reaction, which can happen, or falling ill during the couple weeks before the shot takes effect). I'm entirely open to being wrong, though. Should go edit my last post to be a little less aggressive, and make it a bit clearer that I am open to be wrong. Humility. Also fun.

-Kirsten

[akr71]

^^ egg allergy?

Don't they incubate/culture they viruses in chicken eggs?

[dean2k]

Way to roll over Kirsten. Worst. Internet. Fight. Ever.

[mr x]

lmfao. From the website, 5 Reasons Why I'll Never Get a Flu Shot:

5 Reasons Why I’ll Never Get a Flu Shot...

I’m not a chemist, a physician or someone with an advanced degree in biology. I’m just a mom with an Internet connection...there are horrible things in the flu shot...neomycin is an antibiotic that has been shown to have multiple effects on your body...sometimes leading to mental retardation

[CorneliusAlphonse]

Haha haha perfect!!

[chalmers]

FWIW, one of the guys got a shot at work a few years ago and became violently sick, hospitalized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Yeah, anything could be the cause of anything else, but taking in consideration the circumstances surrounding what happened in this circumstance, nobody in the medical field was making flow charts in latin to a bad doughnut.

[AllanMar]

Isn't some precentage of anything always going to have a negative outcome (especially when it comes to medicine)? Does "one guy at work a few years ago" really mean anything to the discussion about flu shots being safe?

Just like the concept "I got the flu shot and still got sick last year" is not really a useful critique of a vaccine.

[GuingesRock]

Potentially fatal anaphylactic reactions do occur very rarely. It happened once during my career (30 yrs) to a nurse, her colleagues yelled for me and said “we’re losing her”. It wasn’t me that gave the flu shot, but I happened to be in the building. I jumped on her with adrenaline (epinephrine) injections, hairy ambulance ride to the hospital with her. Just as we got to the hospital she sat up and started talking and smiling.

Everyone who gives flu shots has to keep adrenalin on hand, and people are advised to stay on the premises for 15mins following the shot.

There are risks. There are risks to not having the flu shot also. The risks of not having outweigh the risks of having it I think, especially when there is a nasty flu epidemic. People get killed and paralysed on the road driving to Halifax. I still go to Halifax.