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Thread: Flu shots -- are you going to get one?

  1. #1
    Senior Member Greg44's Avatar
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    Flu shots -- are you going to get one?

    It seems like every drug store chain is now advertising now is the time to get your flu shot. Over the years it has been sort of hit or miss with me getting one.

    Generally I am a very healthy person. I took my 1st sick days last winter (3 days off work) - in over 11 years.

    For the most part I am for vaccines - I think they have saved many lives. I do a lot of historical newspaper research - late 1800's, early 1900's and I can't believe how many people died the diseases we now are vaccinated for. Back then flu was often called "LaGrippe" and was often the cause of death in the winter.

    With that being said - I still haven't decided if I will get one. I must admit my trust in the drug companies is questionable at best.

    What are your plans?

  2. #2
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    I think I've mentioned this before, and it may have had nothing to do with the flu shot, but around l995, I had a flu shot and in the winter I got so sick I thought I'd die. I got the flu, then pneumonia, then several ear infections, then IBS, then sensory neuropathy, then Fibromyalgia. So......I'm opting out every year. Both DH and I haven't had one in about 16 years and neither of us have gotten sick. (Knock on ALOT of wood!).
    (Just to clarify, the real "flu" is an upper respiratory illness.)

  3. #3
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    We both get one each year due to underlying conditions (asthma) aggravated by the flu. Have avoided emergency room visits and have not had the flu since I started gettting the shot.

    Healthy individual = choice
    Underlying condition or age = pretty mandatory

    Note: I wont take most medicine (hubby worked for pharma and I got to know a little too much) but the value of the flu shot has been proven to me for my health.

  4. #4
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    We get them every year. I have asthma, and while I am generally symptom free and drug free, and have been for years now, if I get any kind of upper respiratory infection, it almost always has led to a major problem, emergency room visit, etc., as my asthma flares up at those times, and my lung passages attempt to help me by shutting down (yay lungs....NOT), so I look at it as insurance.

    Luckily it seems to be many years between any such incidents, and I credit getting the flu shot with helping with that. It may not protect me from all flu germs, but does contain a basket of the common strains, which help me dodge the bullet.

    I also got the pneumonia vaccine. I'm also pushing 70, which, while to me, means that I'm quite healthy and fit, to the medical community it means I'm in a "high risk" group, both because of age and because of the asthma.

    Incidentally, I applaud the fact that flu shots are now available in supermarket pharmacies, drug stores, etc., as with the huge number of folks in this country with no health insurance, at least they can get a flu shot, which might prevent an expensive illness, without also having to pay a doctor for an office visit. I'm sure a lot more people are protected this way, and wish more basic preventative health care was available in the same ways.

  5. #5
    Senior Member treehugger's Avatar
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    I'm pretty ambivalent about healthy people getting the 'flu shot. I avoided it for years and also never got the 'flu. But 2 winters ago, my husband got his transplanted kidney, so of course his immune system is purposefully repressed. So we both need to get the shot, and that's OK, too. I still don't enjoy the idea of it, but I get it because it's important for his health.

    My company offers the shots for free (we will have our "clinic" in the next couple of weeks), and our HMO offers them to members at no extra cost. So, we are both covered at no expense and little extra bother. Does anyone know how much they are charging at the drug and grocery stores that offer them?

    Kara

  6. #6
    Senior Member daisy's Avatar
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    I've had the flu twice (once in elementary school and once as an adult) and I don't want it again, so I get the flu shot. I'm also around some elderly family members several days a week and I would hate to make them ill.

  7. #7
    Senior Member bekkilyn's Avatar
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    I've never had the flu or any sort of flu shot, so don't want to potentially screw up my immune system by putting something into me that still seems to be "unproven".

  8. #8
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    I had my one and only flu shot in 1976, in hopes of avoiding the swine flu. I don't remember if the flu I got was of the swine variety, but I do remember being just about as sick as I'd ever been within a week of the shot. Based upon that one event, I've never had another one.

    But I must say that I've been re-thinking that stance the last few years as I realize just how much older I'm getting and seeing how few problems other people have with the shots. Maybe this will be the year I'll try it again.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

  9. #9
    Senior Member Sad Eyed Lady's Avatar
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    Like alan, I had my one and only flu shot back at that time when the swine flu was thought to be a threat. I only got it then because where I worked really pushed it and I complied. I was too young to think for myself back then! Since I am an extremely healthy person I opt out of taking the shot myself.
    "Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in the midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free." Leonard Cohen

  10. #10
    Senior Member Kestra's Avatar
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    I don't get them. If I (or DH) was immunocompromised in some way I would consider it. But I'm not sure about the benefits of (likely) non-lethal disease vaccines vs. potential complications of that vaccine. What if the vaccine overstimulates the immune system resulting in other immune disorders or a greater potential for other viruses to get through? I think the exposure to a bunch of viruses in the normal fashion of being around people a lot combined with healthy diet, sleep and low stress lifestyle is enough. I'm also not sure what viruses the "flu" vaccine is supposed to protect against. Don't viruses mutate all the time? And aren't there many types of viruses that can cause the type of illness that we call the flu? And if they create a new flu vaccine every year, they hardly test it to my level of comfort. How many drugs were thought to be safe and then years later were found to not be? What if in 2015 we find out that 2011 vaccine cause __________? Just too many concerns about the vaccine and not enough about the flu.

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