Flu shots and immunizations in general.

[wbtravis007]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

[Ritterskoop]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

I am for some immunizations - the ones against diseases that will kill you, but not against measles and like that, for most kids.

I am not a fan of flu vaccinations for healthy adults who don't get the flu. I've never had one. Roomie gets one and so does Mom, because they are in more vulnerable populations.

I think we become stronger by having mild diseases, and in not washing our hands quite so often. Mine is a minority view on this. I also think kids could eat a little more dirt, or else black-eyed peas, which taste the same.

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

Every year, Jeff gets the flu shot at work. Every year he tells me that I am not a "high risk" person, so I don't need a flu shot. I volunteer at both girls' schools and I swear I pick up every bug there is. Every year I get really sick multiple times during cold and flu season and Jeff never gets sick. He tells me what I have is a cold, but I swear I get the flu at least once each year.

This year I was at the Placentia Heritage Festival and they had flu shots. I asked Jeff if I should get a shot. He said that I wasn't a "high risk" person, but if it would stop me bitching if I get sick and he doesn't, then it was worth the $25 that I would have to pay.

So about a month ago I got the shot. We went to New Orleans and I spent two days wading through water and rain, then came home to forest fires and a house that wasn't my ideal, so I was sleeping about four hours a night, until I could return the house to my standards.

I got sick with a bad cold (it's deep in my lungs). Actually I am sick right now. Last night I slept from 7:30 until 6:00 a.m. and feel much better than I have in days.

The worst of flu season hasn't started yet. I will probably get sick around the holidays because I have so much to do, and Jeff will tell me that it's not the flu.

I feel better knowing though that if there is a bad strain of something out there, that I have been immunized and maybe I won't get it and so I will bitch at my husband 25% less this year.

[earendel]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

My doctor advised me to get a flu shot and the government thoughtfully provides them for free each year so I get one. As for immunizations in general, I'm all for them.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

This year I'm considered at risk, so I'll get one.

[peacock2121]

Sting gets one every year. I do not. For years he would say "Peahen claims she has never had the flu."

Pissed me off, because I have never had the flu and he said it like he didn't believe me.

One day, he asked Pealette if I ever had the flu.

She said "What's the flu?"

He said "When you are so sick you think you might die then are afraid you won't die and you are in bed for days and days."

She said "Peahen in bed for days - no she has never had the flu."

He now says "Peahen has never had the flu."

He is also not shy about wishing I get the flu so he can be right and I can be wrong about me not getting the flu shot.

[MarleysGh0st]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

Do you have some concerns about them that prompt the question?

IANAD, but my understanding is that an immunization protects us by letting our body create its own antibodies to the infectious agent, just as it would if we got terribly sick, but without all that inconvenience. Why wouldn't we want to take advantage of that?

This is not like the casual overuse of antibiotics, which can lead to the evolution of more deadly, antibiotic-resistant bugs.

Our county health clinic isn't restricting their flu clinics to high risk people this year, as it has in previous years. I plan to get one. (In fact, the county has a web-based registration process now; as soon as my registration confirmation arrives by e-mail, I'll be set to make an appointment.)

[kayrharris]

I've only had one flu shot and it was back in the 60's when there was some kind of major Swine Flu scare and it was semi-mandatory. I know we went to the high school and got the shot.

I can join Pea in saying I have NEVER had the flu. I am probably considered in that high risk group these days (gulp) but I'm not getting the shot for at least a few more years.

[jaybee]

I just got my flu shot about an hour ago. Didn't used to get them, and I'm not considered high risk, but all it took was getting the flu once about 8 years ago. I don't get sick often and never for long but the experience of having the flu convinced me to get the shots. If you can imagine every cell in your body hurting for over a week - I mean, when I had the flu it hurt to blink - seriously. Not something I'd like to do twice in my life.

Never had asy side effects from the shot, usually hit the free clinics and make a donation so it doesn't even cost very much. Can't really see a down-side to getting shot.

[peacock2121]

The down side is throwing up or fainting - sometimes both.

Peaby don't do shots well.

[peacock2121]

I also believe that if I ever get the flu that you people who have had it describe, I will get the shot.

and deal with the vomiting and/or passing out.

[Ritterskoop]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

Are you wanting to get into the the "does getting immunizations as a baby cause autism?" thing? 'Cause that is way more complicated. I have tried to keep up with it, and my sense is that six years ago they discontinued using the preservative folks said was at fault, and the incidence of autism is still rising, so that must not be it.

My sense is that we simply diagnose autism more accurately or maybe just more than we used to. A third of all cases diagnosed now are Asperger's, which is my family's two cases, and that is a very high-functioning autism. So we can say that cases of autism are rising, but it's the same people that were always wired this way - Einstein, to some degree, many scientists and artists, etc.

So I'm not worried about the immunizations causing autism.

[lilclyde54]

I have never taken a flu shot and have never had the flu. My mother took hers last wednesday and was in the hospital by Sunday. It probably wasn't the shot (she checked in with severe cold symptoms-doc said she had a touch of pneumonia) but the two incidents came pretty close together.

If I ever have the misfotune to suffer through a bad bout of the flu, I might reconsider taking the flu shot.

[hermillion]

Once I started teaching, I began picking up all the stuff the little darlings carried around. I get a flu shot every year.

I also swab down all my tables and chairs with disinfectant wipes. Don't know how effective they really are, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

[SportsFan68]

.

I'm with Skoop in this one. I have my Hepatitis A, B, and C immunizations, and I'm up to date on my tetanus shot. I take chloroquin when I travel to malaria areas. That's it.

I never get a flu shot on the assumption that my own antibodies will take care of it after all the bad colds I've had over the years.

I don't know if I've had the flu or not. How do you tell if it's the flu or a bad cold?

[Beebs52]

I'm getting one this year. I didn't last year and never got the flu. Allergies and stuff knocked me down at times, though.

I figure I'll do it this year just in case, and since I'm in the high risk group, too, well there you go. Also we're in the part of our insurance plan where everything is paid.

[Ritterskoop]

.


I don't know if I've had the flu or not. How do you tell if it's the flu or a bad cold?

You do not barf with a cold.

That doesn't mean everyone with the flu barfs, but if you have barfage or other irregular spewing, it's not a cold.

A real philosopher would say it is sufficient but not necessary.

[silvercamaro]

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I don't know if I've had the flu or not. How do you tell if it's the flu or a bad cold?

You do not barf with a cold.

My test goes like this: If you have a fever, and you can't lift your head without getting dizzy, and you can't breathe, and you want to throw up, whether you actually do, and you can't breathe so very well, either, and you stare at the ceiling wondering if you should go to the hospital or just lay there until you either get better or die, and it's too hard to decide, so you go back to sleep for another four hours, then wake up and stare at the ceiling, wondering, again, then it very well might be the flu.

Or, if you're still assessing those steps a week later, it might be pneumonia.

I'm hoping to get a flu shot and a pneumonia shot this year.

[kayrharris]

Don't put it off, SC. Go next week. I mean it. All this talk about sickness is catching! I never get sick and haven't a cold in 3 years..I'm dead serious.

I really have never had the flu. I've been fighting something for a week. It comes and goes. I felt bad last weekend then I felt OK Monday - Friday. Throat started hurting a bit again last night.

I have a bit of a low grade fever today. Normal temp for me is about 96.8. Today it's 99.5. So I'm taking Motrin and drinking lots of orange juice and hoping it will run it's course.

Now let's cut out the talk about flu and colds....

[wbtravis007]

Skoop wondered whether I wanted to get into the suggestions that immunizations might be associated with autism. I do.

I'm also wondering what anyone here knows about the suggestion that if somebody gets a flu shot five years in a row their chances of ending up with Alzheirmer's is ten times higher than it would have been if they'd gotten it only a couple of times during that five-year period.

I'm worried now about the aluminum and the mercury.

I've been getting flu shots off an on for years. They've always been cheap around here, and getting a shot doesn't bother me.

I consider this to be my first stop to find answers about stuff like this.

The best for me would be to see a couple of people who at least kind of know what they're talking about go at it from different sides.


d

[Bob78164]

I'd appreciate hearing y'all's thoughts on all of this.

I am for some immunizations - the ones against diseases that will kill you, but not against measles and like that, for most kids.

'Skoop, I'm fairly sure that measles can, indeed, have very serious long-term consequences, up to and including deafness and death, even for formerly healthy kids. They're not common, but they can happen. --Bob

[Bob78164]

I don't know if I've had the flu or not. How do you tell if it's the flu or a bad cold?

If you have to wonder whether you've ever had the flu, then you haven't.

Having had colds will not protect you from the flu. Indeed, my understanding is that having had one strain of the flu won't protect you from a different straint. They're simply different virii, and therefore different antibodies.

My office offers a flu shot every year and I've taken it every year. Even though I'm generally healthy as a horse (to Ms. 63's disgust) and I've never had the flu. --Bob

[silvercamaro]

Skoop wondered whether I wanted to get into the suggestions that immunizations might be associated with autism. I do.

I'm also wondering what anyone here knows about the suggestion that if somebody gets a flu shot five years in a row their chances of ending up with Alzheirmer's is ten times higher than it would have been if they'd gotten it only a couple of times during that five-year period.

I'm worried now about the aluminum and the mercury.

I've been getting flu shots off an on for years. They've always been cheap around here, and getting a shot doesn't bother me.

I consider this to be my first stop to find answers about stuff like this.

The best for me would be to see a couple of people who at least kind of know what they're talking about go at it from different sides.


d

Congratulations, wb. You ask a vague, general question, then answer the responses along the lines of "I don't want to hear from any of you. I only care what the real experts say." Guess what? There's not a single medical researcher with expertise in the manufacture of flu vaccines on this board, and there isn't one anywhere with the additional psychic ability to guarantee the future of long-term effects of any drugs for any single individual into the far distant future. If this was your "first stop," then you'd best start looking for your second.

Frankly, I am curious about the source of what you described as "a suggestion" that annual flu shots provide an increased risk of Altzheimer's, but I don't want you to tell me, because that source undoubtedly would not meet my definition of somebody who knows what he's talking about.

[Bob78164]

Congratulations, wb. You ask a vague, general question, then answer the responses along the lines of "I don't want to hear from any of you. I only care what the real experts say." Guess what? There's not a single medical researcher with expertise in the manufacture of flu vaccines on this board, and there isn't one anywhere with the additional psychic ability to guarantee the future of long-term effects of any drugs for any single individual into the far distant future. If this was your "first stop," then you'd best start looking for your second.

That's not how I read skippy's response at all. I don't think he's looking for locked in expertise (although we do have enough M.D.s on the Bored that a fairly authoritative analysis wouldn't surprise me), merely for help doing his own research. Both the tone and content of his post seemed entirely appropriate to me. --Bob

[silvercamaro]

That's not how I read skippy's response at all. I don't think he's looking for locked in expertise (although we do have enough M.D.s on the Bored that a fairly authoritative analysis wouldn't surprise me), merely for help doing his own research. Both the tone and content of his post seemed entirely appropriate to me. --Bob

Reasonable people can agree to disagree about the interpretation of other people's written words. I have reread his post. I would be pleased to learn I'm mistaken in this case, but I still read his response as dismissive and rather rude.