Calm down. The risks of a severe reaction to the vaccine are quite low whereas the flu sucks and has greater risks. You also can’t get the flu from the flu shot. That’s all WhyNot and I are trying to point out. My desire to get the shot was enhanced after listening to a friend suffer through it last year. She was miserable.
I get the flu shot every year. When I worked at the hospital it was free and they started in early September. This year I have to go get it at a Kaiser medical center, but it’ll still be free. They only start up in October, though, so I’ll have to wait a couple more weeks.
I can never convince my husband to get one, because he never seems to catch anything that’s going around. He’s pretty sure he’s invincible.
You need a cite for that, Pardner. And don’t give me one from Jenny McCarthy or Andrew Wakefield.
I see this rationale a lot and find it somewhat mystifying. I never had chicken pox before I had it either, but that didn’t make me somehow magically immune to it. Other things that never happened to me before they happened: the common cold, stepping on a bee, and all other human experiences.
I don’t always get the flu shot, out of what I freely admit is total laziness, but I always get it for all of the kids.
I usually wait until October or November to get the flu shot. Am I wrong that it only lasts a few months? Often flu season doesn’t really get going around here until March, so if I got the shot now, it would be 6 months until I might be exposed to the virus. Would it still be effective?
The last year I didn’t get the shot, my whole family was so sick on Christmas Day that even the young kids agreed to postpone opening presents. You have to be totally miserable to be 6 years old and not want to open presents!
No. The flu shot is a killed virus, incapable of causing the flu. Quite spreading lies.
No. Many healthcare providers offer free flu shot clinics (my HMO starts them October 1). Quite spreading lies.
I lost a friend to H1N1 in 2009.
Precisely. I haven’t been in a car accident in years, so I don’t need my seatbelt? Wrong.
The flu shot isn’t perfect by any stretch - manufacturers do have to gamble on which strains are going to be prevalent any given year. But “I haven’t gotten the flu, so I’m not getting the flu shot” people miss the point.
Just a note to ask you to dial the outrage notch back some.
Got mine-and a pneumonia shot- Friday. I should be good to go.
But not the presumption that I’m a complete fucking idiot and have no notion of the concepts of correlation and causation? I made a statement–a simple factual statement about a condition that occurred coincident with inoculation–and instead of being queried about how I was confident that the vaccine was the causative agent of my ills I was subject to what the poster no doubt believed was very clever ridicule of my reasoning abilities and a baseless accusation that I do not understand the function and result of the application of inactivated virus.
Fuck them and fuck you for engaging in this kind of absurd horseshit defamation. If this is the level of asinine discourse that you wish to bring this forum down to, I have little interest in continued participation.
Stranger
A gentle reminder to those who, like me, are within sight of their “golden years” (and no, 60 is not the new 40): the older you are, the more likely you are to have grave complications or even die from the flu.
I work in a middle school, with snotty kids who are old enough to wash their own hands but young enough to forget most of the time. School has been in session for five weeks now, and we’ve already had rounds of what seems to be a run-of-the mill cold virus, a nasty gastrointestinal bug and a fair amount of strep. I’ll be getting my flu shot before the end of the month.
Are you ok? Asking in seriousness. I’ve seen you posting around here for years and don’t remember you flying off the handle in rage like this before.
The rules have always been very clear: If you don’t like what someone has said about you (insinuations count), take it to the Pit.
Now I strongly suggest you step away from the keyboard for now and cool yourself down. It was just a note to dial it back some, not worth getting suspended or banned over.
Now this is a warning for you for your post here, but I again, I would urge you to take a step back and calm down a little.
I finally got the regular flu shot* for the first time last year. It made me feel a little sick for a day, but I figured it was better to feel a little sick for a day than to get the full-blown flu and miss important dates/activities. So I’ll probably get the flu shot again this year.
*I’d had the H1N1 flu shot before, but not the one for regular flu.
I’ll get one as soon as I get over this bronchitis mess.
All of these symptoms are relevant reasons to discuss with your doctor if you should skip a flu vaccination, sure:
None of these are:
and to present them in isolation, in a thread which will sway some people to vaccinate or not vaccinate, is irresponsible. Many people do believe that the flu vaccine can give them the flu, and they post things exactly like your first post. So even if you didn’t need a lesson in correlations, someone else reading your post and nodding to themselves in agreement did.
I’ve never had a flu shot and I’ll never get one.
I don’t get sick. But several people I work with have got quite ill shortly after getting them. And not just a few of them either.
Flu shots are a predictive batch based upon a guess of which strains of flu will be prevalent each year. It isn’t science and it isn’t health. It is a health care industry propaganda money machine.
If it makes you feel good to follow the herd, go ahead. It is a false sense of protection that cannot be demonstrated to actually work.
Cite please?
My current work project is with a health care company. They require all employees and contractors to get a flu shot. It’s part of the employment agreement. I’m happy that they provide me with a flu shot on site so that I don’t have think about arranging my schedule to go get one.
The last time I had the flu, it had a profound effect on my energy level and I’ve got a ways to go before I’m officially a senior. I don’t want to get a major flu again. Ever.
Man, it really is taking us longer than we thought, isn’t it? :rolleyes:
The hospital where I work vaccinates a few thousand employees within a week’s time span, starting with the most vital inpatient wards and then doing an all-hands general vaccination day. Many health care facilities use similar methods. If there was any kind of causality, don’t you think that hospitals of all places would notice that as their employees all got sick at the same time?
We sure as fuck noticed when H1N1 killed or severely harmed people outside the usual categories, including middle-aged people and pregnant women.