I never got the flu shot for some reason until about 4-5 years ago. They were giving them out at work like candy, so I figured what the heck? I have gotten one each year since, and the year after my wife started getting them as well (the shots at work are free for both of us). I really don’t know why we waited this long to start getting it.
My college-age daughter got hers this year, but she had flu symptoms last year, which is what prompted her this time around - hers was nominal cost of around $15. Still cannot get my indestructible son to start, but he is still in his teens.
I used to have a fear of needles as well and somehow was able to get over it. I guess I just relax and look at something else. I think being exposed to them often enough and dealing with the poke often enough desensitized me.
A tangential question: Would it be possible to vaccinate everyone in the country/world the way they did with the smallpox vaccine, if there was a breakthru and some common disease had a vaccine developed for it? Could the government mandate everyone get vaccinated, if the evidence was compelling enough? I say probably not, no matter how good the cure is, as there will always be doubters. Makes me wonder if smallpox existed in the wild today if we would be able to contain it.
There are vaccines that don’t exist in oral or mist form (as far as I know): TDAP (tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough), MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), and chicken pox/shingles. If you don’t get these vaccines you’re leaving yourself open to some very nasty diseases. I know that this knowledge isn’t sufficient to overcome your phobia, but it does provide incentive.
If I recall correctly, in some places smallpox vaccinations were conducted under the gun - police or military were dispatched to make sure it happened. Not in the US, but some other places. I wish I could find an on-line reference to that.
During actual outbreaks vaccination was not always voluntary, either.
I suspect that if a new disease was sufficiently horrific/transmissible that coercion might be used to vaccinate people, but it would have to be really, really awful.
That’s not how they eliminated smallpox. Rather than vaccinate everyone in the world, they would rush in and vaccinate everyone in an area where there was an outbreak. This approach worked because the incidence of smallpox got low enough that it had become rare in many parts of the world. We’ve reached the point where the same approach could work with polio. Unfortunately, wars and political problems have made it hard for the WHO to vaccinate people in those places where polio still exists.
This approach wouldn’t work with influenza. The problem is that the disease crosses species barriers too easily. You’d have to vaccinate not just people, but also birds and pigs. Even so, there would be a lot of benefit to a mass vaccination program.
One thing I find frustrating in this discussion is hearing that people have to pay $15 or $30 for a flu shot. I’m a Kaiser member, and a flu shot costs me $0. That’s what it should cost everyone. Vaccination is a major public benefit, and I’d be happy to pay taxes for vaccinations for everyone in the country who doesn’t already get them for free.
When I absolutely must get a shot, I take the strongest sedative I can get my hands on and find someone to drive me and still freak out for days in advance. I don’t avoid vaccines, but I really really profoundly hate the experience.
When I was about five I got a bunch of allergy tests, which in those days were real needles - like 3 or 4 a session. After my mother took me to a nearby store where I got to pick out a plastic dinosaur to buy. I became needle-philic. Perhaps you can reward yourself after getting a shot. Though it may be too late at this point.
Years ago, getting a flu shot was not on my radar. Then, in about 2005 I think, both I and my husband came down with that year’s exceptionally nasty flu.
Someone upthread said that they literally felt like they were dying. That’s how it was, with no exaggeration or hyperbole. I remember thinking that I ought to go to the hospital, but couldn’t summon up enough life force to go to the phone.
Ever since then, I’ve gotten the shot every year. Despite this, in 2016, I got the flu again. It was much less severe than in 2005 - just a few days of feeling like shit instead of two weeks of feeling that death was imminent. 2016’s shot must have provided enough protection to make the flu less severe.
My wife is an RN, and has no patience for people who think the flu is a mild illness, or people who think their sore throat or common cold is the flu.
She used to say that if you think you’re dying, you might have the flu. If you start praying for death, you’re more likely to have the flu…but it’s only when you start to worry you won’t die that you know you have a bad case of the flu.
I’m reviving this old thread to say that I got a flu vaccine today, for the first time ever, and the memory of this thread may be the main thing that convinced me to do it.
Of course, under present circumstances, questions like the following take on new significance:
Got one this past weekend, for the first time ever. I usually only get a fairly mild dose of flu about every second or third year, but with covid-19 numbers on the rise in Ontario and especially in the GTA, it seemed like a good idea. Being over 65, I opted for the high-dose version and outside of a few hours of mild discomfort at the injection site, there have been no after-effects.