They had them for free where I work. So Free shot + 20 minute break seemed hard to pass up.
While having egg proteins up your nose may be safer for you than in your muscle, the nasal mist is contraindicated in asthma, point blank. It’s made with a live, weakened vaccine, instead of the dead one in the injection, so it can theoretically cause a case of influenza. Since the flu tends to be unpredictable veering towards horrible and life threatening for people with asthma, the doctor doesn’t want to risk you getting the flu from the nasal vaccine, small though that chance is.
So, the fact I have very mild, intermittent asthma is not a mitigating factor at all? I’ll got 8-10 months at a time with no symptoms and normal lung function as confirmed by testing. Ah, well, I understand about the potential for a attenuated virus vaccine to cause illness, but I can’t help but wonder if the risk of that is still less than the risk of my getting “wild flu”. Still, I do have trust in my current doctor so when he says “nope, not advisable” I tend to believe him.
Of course, even WITH a vaccine I could still get a strain that’s not in the vaccine. I understand that, too. Which is why I wish people who DO get sick would STAY HOME - and that employers who either discourage or outright forbid employees to take sick days could be coated in HFCS and left on a hill of fire ants.
It’s just very annoying to be constantly berated to GET A FLU SHOT! YOU HAVE ASTHMA! FLU COULD KILL YOU! and have to constantly remind medical personal that I have an allergy to egg-based vaccines and the freakin’ vaccine could kill me, THEN be told the one alternative is off limits.
I am any day now expecting yet another call from my health insurer doing the YOU MUST GET A FLU SHOT! lecture and have to REMIND THEM AGAIN about the vaccine allergy. We do this EVERY year, every goddamned year, and I am getting heartily sick of it, as it’s starting to feel like harassment.
I’ve had real flu. I would very much like to get a vaccine for it but I CAN"T. I would happily trade a mildly sore arm and maybe a day of feeling a little off for never having flu again yet I can’t… and it annoys me no end, I must confess, when people who CAN get the vaccine don’t.
With a newborn at home, we’ll get them this year to try to reduce things we bring home.
Got mine a couple weeks ago and as always, no side effects at all.
We just got back from getting ours. Even if the risk of getting the flu is somewhat low, I don’t want to try to deal with being sick, and the drawbacks of getting a shot are so tiny for us - it’s totally covered by insurance up front, and we just had to drop in to the Walgreens. (Then we got ice cream next door!)
My kids have an appointment at their ped to get the nasal spray. They will be very happy with me for sparing them the needle!
For all the people that said “I NEVER GET THE FLU” or “I’M NOT IN A RISK GROUP” as a reason to not get the vaccine…get your head out of your selfish ass!!!
10,000 - 15,000 people in the US alone die from the flu every year. Even if you are not in a high risk group, if you get the flu, you are likely to pass it on to someone else, possibly someone that IS in a high risk group. You don’t get the vaccine necessarily to protect yourself, you get it to protect those that you come in contact with. People like Broomstick, who mentioned that she’s allergic to the vaccine, but in a high risk group, depend upon not coming into contact with someone that may have the flu. The more people that get the vaccine reduce the number of deaths that come from the virus.
GET THE VACCINE!
No. 
If you can supply some evidence that clearly indicates that people who get the flu shot have a reduced incidence of flu infection (which means a reduced chance of them passing the illness to other people who might be affected worse than they are, of course) every year compared to people who don’t get vaccinated, I might reconsider.
Of course. I work in an emergency room. I will be constantly interracting with sick people many of whom were apparently raised in a barn and never taught to cover their mouth when they cough.
I haven’t yet; I plan to, but on the day they were doing them at work, I was sick. I’ll haul myself to Walgreens one of these days soon. As an asthmatic whose great-grandfather died in the 1918 flu pandemic, leaving a wife and six little girls, I’d be silly not to get one.
Already done, at work. I’ve done it every year for I don’t remember how long. One exception being one year some time ago (don’t recall the year) when there was a severe shortage of vaccine.
Remembering quite vividly how utterly miserable it made me the last time I got it, I just don’t want to take the risk again.
I’m in the same boat as Broomstick with asthma and an egg allergy. I also have other health issues which all put me in the high risk group who should have the vaccination.
I’d love to get the flu shot, especially since the last time I got the flu I ended up with pneumonia.
The best I can do at this point, is to hope the people around me who can get the shot, do get it. Fortunately, I work for a city government and they give us plenty of opportunities to get the shot.
As I read this story today, I thought about the posters who believe that being young, having good health and “superior” immune systems will protect them from influenza and don’t need vaccination. It involves a 24-year-old graduate student who came down with H1N1 (one of the flu strains including in this year’s shots):
*"Ludwin’s health continued to decline. Her liver, lungs, kidneys and heart were under attack by the flu and the sepsis that followed.
She had acute respiratory distress syndrome, and doctors shifted her from a traditional ventilator to one that more gently and continuously delivered oxygen to her stiffened lungs.
The doctors got special permission to use an experimental antiviral medication called Peramavir in hopes that it would improve her chances of survival.
But reduced blood flow to her extremities led to gangrene. Her hands and feet were dying.
Three days after Ludwin was admitted to the hospital, her major organs were failing…Ludwin held on…During the eight-hour surgery in late November, she lost both legs a few inches below the knee. She lost all of her fingers on her left hand. On her right, she was able to keep part of her fingers and all of her thumb."*
She’s doing pretty well now, getting around on prosthetic limbs.
Of course, the vast majority of flu cases are much less severe than that. But this story does illustrate that H1N1 (and even “conventional” flu, for that matter) can have devastating consequences for even young, healthy adults.
I don’t think there’s an overwhelming moral obligation for everybody to get immunized against the flu to protect the especially vulnerable (unless you’re in close contact with such people, as in the case of health care workers for example). There’s something to be said, though, for taking a simple step to protect yourself, even if the odds favor you without it.
sigh. I’ve been down with the flu for four days now and I’m going to miss Halloween. 
oddly enough, I was going to be a doctor this year…
OK, I got my flu shot at a drugstore on Friday.
It’s now Sunday. I have been SO SLEEPY for two days, and I could hardly open my eyes this morning. Coffee hardly helps.
Luckily I had nowhere to go and nothing to do yesterday but vegetate in front of the TV House-a-thon, but I kept dozing off. If I’d had any money I would have ordered a pizza instead of having to cook.
So, does this happen to anyone else? There’s nothing about extreme tiredness on the piece of paper they gave me, after I got my shot.
Well, I’ve been sleepy in a similar manner the past couple days and I have NOT had a flu shot - sometimes you just get tired and run down. Sometimes this happens when the weather goes from hot to cold or vice versa. Probably has nothing to do with your flu shot, it’s just coincidence.