I am 22 years old and I have never had the flu.
I was reading the whole deal with flu shots being rationed this year and it really makes me wonder. When did this whole vaccination thing come into being, and is it commonly practiced in other countries? (Europeans?)
I have never had the flu, so I guess I don’t understand the big deal. I have been pretty sick before, but never anything that I wouldn’t consider a cold. Whever I get sick I only get a sore throat, coughing, runny nose, and fever. It sounds like the flu is much, much worse.
So why have I been so lucky? I am exposed to the rest of the world just as much as everyone else is.
I’ve never had the flu. I’m 34. I don’t recall anyone in my immediate family ever having it either. But then, we’re mostly disgustingly healthy in general…
People do get flu shots here in Oz (though it seems to be more of a big thing in the US) but I’ve never really been able to evaluate the pros and cons properly, because of the annoying habit people have of saying they’ve got “flu” when really it’s just a cold and they’re playing the extra sympathy card.
So for the moment I’m just continuing not to worry about it for the forseeable future
I got influenza for the first and only time when I was 27. Good god was it awful-- it was like Mono, but without the hallucinating and lack of consciousness. Bone-deep aches, low-grade fevers, headaches, total fatigue, constant soreness-- it’s nothing at all like the common cold.
Genuine influenza is really, really nasty. I’ve had it once and I thought I was going to die. Totally floored me for nearly a week, huge temperature, hallucinations, sweating, secondary infections, and full recovery took months. It is a big deal.
However, many people claim to have had the 'flu, when all they’ve had is a bad cold. The old adage that I heard on the radio is the $50 test. If you’re lying on your sofa with the “'flu” and you see $50 lying in your front yard, if you can get up to retrieve it, then you’ve only got a cold.
My wife gets the 'flu shot every year from her company. Most European countries seem to offer it free to people who would possibly die if they got the 'flu - elderly people etc. - but it’s available to anyone if you’re prepared to pay.
Lucky for you! I haven’t had it in years, but that was a good description about the $50 rule. The time I had it in 1978, I was immobilized for a week. After the third or fourth day of not being able to get up off the couch to go eat, I literally crawled over to the kitchen to put on a pot of soup, and then I couldn’t even eat it. Man, it was horrible. It was not, however, worse than the pneumonia I had a couple of years ago. That was an experience I hope I never have to repeat!
I’ve only had the true flu once, when I was nineteen. It was the first time in my life I was incredibly sick and all alone. My roommate was in another state (with my car), and I lived 200 miles away from any family member. Plus, it was snowing pretty much 24/7 the entire week.
I don’t remember much of the time. It’s all blurred into one big lump of misery in my memory. I remember being on the couch for a couple days, moving only to go to the bathroom. I remember putting the kettle on for tea, but being unable to get up again once it started whistling. The water had almost entirely boiled away by the time I made it into the kitchen.
My roommate came home on day 7 or so, when I had finally managed to drag myself into my bedroom rather than be uncomfortable on the couch when there was nothing good on TV, anyway. She came into my room, looked at me, and gasped.
“What?” I managed to say, speaking for the first time in at least three days.
Roomie looks actually frightened. “You’ve seen Amadeus, right?”
I nodded, completely unsure where she was going with this, and not particularly caring.
“You know that part at the end where Mozart’s all white and sickly and his lips are blue?”
More nodding, I’m amazed I was still awake.
“You look slightly worse than that.”
Then she made me soup. I worship her to this day for that. The next year I got a flu shot. Which gave me a cold. All winter. But no flu, at least!
I have also never had the flu, but I get offered a flu jab every year because I’m asthmatic. I’ve not had one yet, but I guess here in the UK, being asthmatic is considered a vulnerability.
I don’t think I’ve ever had the flu, and I’m 50. I know I’ve never had the symptoms described in this thread, unless amnesia is one of the symptoms, then maybe I did but forgot…
I attribute it to good clean living.
And luck.
I got flu shots when I was in the Navy and didn’t have the choice, and I think I may have gotten them a couple of times in the last 20 years, but since I never fall into a risk group, I don’t usually bother.
In the US AFAIK, people usually only get flu shots if they’re in a high-risk group, such as tiny babies or the elderly or chronically ill. And many of them don’t bother. But a real flu can kill an already vulnerable person, and will take a healthy person out of commission for a couple of weeks (thus losing productivity).
More people are concerned about it this year, since last year a particularly nasty version went around. Lots of babies and children (and bigger people) wound up in the hospital, and some died.
I used to get free flu shots from the company I worked for. We printed the flyer information for the county health department, they gave us free flu shots in return.
Anyone can get a flu shot (at least, last year, with the new restrictions due to shortages I don’t know what it will be like this year).
I didn’t get sick last year, but I didn’t get sick the year before, without the shot, either.
The flu doesn’t always take you completely out of commission. I’ve never had a cold that had me vomiting and coping with serious diarrhea for three days, but I could still get around the house if I wanted to. There are variations.
The flu is hell. I’ve had patients die from it (generally old or immunocompromised). If you’ve ever really had it, you’ll be a proponent of getting a flu shot for the rest of your life. High fevers (103.5 in an adult is not uncommon) shaking chills, bone pain, hair pain, raging sore throat, and a cough that won’t quit, just to name a few symptoms. If it hits you, you’ll be lucky to be functional in a week. Some people take up to 3 weeks to come back from it. And that’s without complications like pneumonia.
If you’ve got a runny nose and/or plugged sinuses, it’s very unlikely that you have influenza.
And jjim? When I had the flu, I wouldn’t have been able to even try to budge out of bed for anything less than $500. And I would have failed.
We usually get flu shots at work, but this year . . .
The last time I didn’t get a flu shot–maybe six years ago–I got a very bad case. High fever (alternately shivering and burning up), violent headache, two days of constant barfing, aches all over . . . For the first day I thought I was going to die and for the second day I was wishing I would. I live alone, so all I could do was crawl into the kitchen and try to choke down some water or applesauce. Oh, and feed the damn cats.
I am not looking forward to getting it again, and if some SOB on the train sneezes in my face, it’ll be Their Last Sneeze.
I usually get the flu twice in a season. I get it in late October or early November, then again sometime in March. I get bad sick for a week or so, real weak, high temperature, sleep 20 hours a day, ache like a bad car wreck, etc. Then I feel pretty good for a couple days, then I get even sicker for another couple weeks, then I feel good for a couple days, then I feel kinda crappy for another couple weeks. So, yeah, when I get the flu I usually have some kind of symptoms for 5 or 6 weeks.
I got the shot last year for the first time. I got sick for a couple days from the shot, not bad sick, but still I felt like I had the flu. Then I think I got the flu, even after getting the shot, but again the symptoms and duration were nothing like I had without the shot, and I only contacted the flu once last year.
One of my bosses when I was younger had never had the flu. He was in his late thirties. He sort of thought of flu as just a bad cold, and had very little tolerance for people who stayed out of work or complained about flu symptons.
Then Kharma struck…
He came into work one day, pale as a ghost, and obviously struggling to keep up the appearance of wellness. Naturally, we all knew by his gray palor, his sweaty face, and his absent eyes that something was wrong with him. It wasn’t until his knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor that he would finally admit he had a problem.
We took him to the doctor. Diagnosis: flu. He wanted to maintain contact with the office from home, but was too weak to hold a phone to his ear. He took quite a long time to recover enough to return to work. But after that episode, he never again ridiculed anyone for staying out with the flu.
