I have never had the flu. Up until about 33, I had also never had a flu shot.
Around that time I thought maybe I should get one.
In the last four flu shots:
-One year no problem
-One year medium arm pain
Considering I went 33 years without the shot and never got the flu, I am thinking a 50% chance of feeling like s**t the day after is not really compelling to keep getting them.
The flu shot is not only to protect you from the flu, but to protect other vulnerable individuals (too young, sick, depressed immune systems) from getting what could be a deadly disease.
Get the shot.
I generally agree. My sister died from the flu several years ago when the nasty H1N1 strain was going around. That said, I would personally exempt anyone who regularly has a nasty reaction to the shot.
I acknowledge there is a little bit of that, but doesn’t that presume you will get the flu? Which, as far as I can tell, seems to be pretty rare. And I will stay home.
Influenza can be asymptomatic. In fact, depending on where you’re getting your data from, anywhere from 1/3 to over 3/4 of all influenza infections are very mild to asymptomatic.
Get the shot.
That is not what I am seeing here:
“We performed a systematic review of published studies describing the relationship between viral shedding and disease transmission. Based on the available literature, we found that there is scant, if any, evidence that asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals play an important role in influenza transmission. As such, recent articles concerning pandemic planning, some using transmission modeling, may have overestimated the effect of presymptomatic or asymptomatic influenza transmission.”
How do you intend to stay home during the period when you’re sick and spreading the virus, but before you show symptoms or realize you have it?
Get the shot.
influenza is a respiratory illness. I don’t believe diarrhea is one of its usual symptoms. you’ve probably contracted something else coincidentally. A heck of a lot of viral infections all start out with “aches, chills, and fever.”
edited to add: and I was one of those guys who thought “I never get the flu” until my dr. probed a little bit. I said a few times over the past number of years I had a “cold” where I ran a high fever. he asked how high, I said “104° until I took a tylenol.” He said “no, that was probably the flu.”
I felt similarly in my early 40s, i.e. the last time I remembered having been sick enough to call it the flu, I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. Other than that, I was generally quite healthy; I got a cold once in a great while, but seemed to have a less-than-average propensity for getting sick. So I never got a flu shot.
And then in my early 40s I got what I’m pretty sure was the flu. In contrast to your post-vaccination day of aches/chills/fever/diarrhea, this was a couple of weeks of abject misery, including fever as high as 104F, waking up in the middle of the night with a genuine feeling that I might die soon, and eventually a coughing fit so bad that I threw up violently enough to tear my esophagus (the ER folks suspected pertussis, but I tested negative).
I’ve wised up. I get my flu shot every year now - mostly to minimize my risk of becoming miserably ill like that ever again, but also partly out of a sense of social responsibility to minimize my risk of becoming part of a transmission network for a contagion that kills thousands of people in the US every year. It’s a logistical hassle, and I hate injections, and my arm is sore for a day or two afterwards, but it beats the alternative.
I’d skip it, maybe the illness is unrelated, or maybe you don’t tolerate something in the shot.
My experience is the opposite. I got flu all the time as a kid – every winter, twice one year. When I was about 35 I got a flu shot for the first time. I “treated it” with a cold pack, and got a very sore patch of arm. A month later, everyone in my family got the flu. My husband was sick, my parents were sick, my sister and her husband were so sick they couldn’t even walk the dog (I went over and did it for them) and I was fine. So I decided the flu shot was a good idea.
The next year I didn’t do the cold-pack thing, and I just had a slightly sore spot for a day and no other symptoms. Same since then. And I haven’t had the flu since I started getting flu shots.
I’m a big fan of immunizations, but various people react badly to this or that shot for whatever reason, and I don’t think you have an obligation to make yourself ill for the sake of herd immunity against an ordinary seasonal flu. (And we already have indications from the far east that this year is a somewhat ordinary flu year. A little early, but normal severity.)
Thanks everyone for their input.
As I read this over again, I guess I just should have left “skipping it in the future” part out. I know immunizations are like a third rail around here along with declawing your pets, and I don’t want to start a holy war. I mostly just wanted to complain.
I’ve been doing more research and found out that many also have eggs in them. I am very mildy allergic to uncooked eggs, but I don’t know how that stacks up against the shot. Maybe I will see if they have the non-egg version available next year.
Yeah, it’s all part of that “fighting ignorance” thing.
I had what the Dr. called the flu last month. He said there had been several people in with it and one could get the flu at any time during the year. It was bad. I will still get the shot real soon.
I’ve gotten the flu shot regularly for the past 25 years, and never had the flu. Get the shot. If you’re allergic to any of the ingredients in the vaccine, see your doctor and get their advice. There may be an alternate vaccine available.
I believe there are egg-free versions for exactly this reason.
The high points are:
So, I dunno if your reaction was an allergy. You might want to discuss it with your doctor. But you might be one of those people who aren’t supposed to get the flu shot going forward.
Last year I forgot to get mine. Guess what - I got the flu and felt like absolute shit for 5 days.
Thanks for the reminder!
Influenza is more than “pretty rare”.
“…on average, about 8% of the U.S. population gets sick from flu each season, with a range of between 3% and 11%, depending on the season.”
I wouldn’t blame the OP for thinking of skipping a flu shot over apparent reactions to it, unless he’s likely to come into contact with especially vulnerable individuals either casually or through his job. Feeling somewhat crappy for a day or so does have to be balanced against the real possibility of being deathly ill with influenza for up to a week or more, and the slim chance of being one of those unfortunates who develops “cytokine storm”*, in which the immune system revs up to such an extent that it becomes life-threatening.
*this has been documented in recent years in otherwise healthy younger individuals.
I take all the flu shots. And I encourage my close kin to get them. I’m one bad infection or odd circumstance from death at any time. I’m one of the vulnerable ones. Do not want to take that chance.
Get the shot, please.
I usually feel pretty crummy for a day or two when I get my shot, which I’ve gotten every year for the past 20 years.
I feel crummy. For one day. So what? I avoided getting the flu (which I hear is MISERY for DAYS) and I avoided passing on the flu to anyone else. The rewards highly outweigh the risks for me.
FWIW I didn’t feel crummy this year after the shot, for the first time in a long time.