2009, I take my mother to the doctor so she can have her flu shot, while I’m there the doctor tells me I can have a flu shot for free because I’m a Carer, I start to tell him “no than… ow what the hell!!!” some how he managed to inject me without my consent!
Six months later I get hit with the Worst Flu Ever. 8 or 9 weeks debilitated.
Winter 2010 the doc comes to the house, he gives mother her shot, then gives me mine before I can even see what he’s doing - seriously, he’s like a ninja or something!
Six months later I’m laid up for 4 ~ 5 weeks with a Very Bad Head Cold. Four months after that I was laid up for 5 ~ 6 weeks with an Even Badder Head Cold.
Winter 2011, mother gets her flu shot at Daycare, and I avoid going anywhere near the doctor.
End of Feb I catch a Bad Cold, it’s finally gone, but last night and this morning I’ve been getting that horrible scratchy throat, itchy nasal passages signs of another cold.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah why? why?!?
Prior to 2009 I’d had one flu and a couple of sniffly days, I hadn’t had a full blown head cold/flu since I was a teenager. I have been taking preventative echinacea since - I forget when, 1999 maybe? I didn’t take any 2009/2010 or 2010/2011 (free flu jabs, why waste money buying tablets?), I did take it last year when I had the second bad cold, and have taken a months supply since the most recent cold started to subside but wouldn’t quite go away. Yes I do get hayfever, but the current itchy/scratchy isn’t hayfever type itchy/scratchy.
Correlation does not equal causation, unless you’re not actually seriously contemplating the concept that a couple injections of some killed virus gives you a recurring, annual upper respiratory infection. :dubious:
I’d be more worried about a doctor who apparently gives influenza injections without prepping the site first. (And wear long sleeves next time you go. )
I’d be MUCH more worried about a doc who treats you without your consent, and apparently without knowing any of your history (medical history, that is).
My speculation is that you’re getting sick more often because you’re going to the doctor more often with your mom. You’re probably coming in contact with more germs than you used to be exposed to (I’m sure the doctor’s office, daycare facility, etc. are crawling with germs). The flu shot is not 100% effective (some years their guesses about what strains will be prevalent are better than others) so it is possible to get the flu even after getting the shot, but it doesn’t make any biological sense that it would cause you to get a cold.
Once I started working in hospitals I started getting sick a lot more often than I used to…but the only time I had a really bad illness that probably was influenza was the year I didn’t get a flu shot.
A flu shot only protects against what is considered to be the greatest danger for that particular year. It doesn’t protect against all strains of the virus.
Alcohol wipes do very little to prevent local contamination unless it’s allowed to dry completely. Wiping with plain water is just as effective.
As far as the Op goes, there are many strains of flu, and even more cold viruses. The flu shot you got 6 months before is not the same strain as that which made you sick.
There are strains that only appear once in a great while. That’s why the last round of swine flu vaccine was recommended for people under 50. Those over 50 likely had some residual immunity from exposure in their teens.
In other words, it’s all coincidental.
You didn’t say how old you are. You could also be creeping into the age group whose immune systems are weaker than they once were.
Hmmnnn. IANAD, and am pulling this from thin air as they say, but. . . symptoms are caused by the bodies immune response. And the purpose of the flu shot is to give your body the “head’s up” to recognize and respond to a particular protein associated with a virus or germ that causes illness. The expectation is that the body will respond to the first tiny bits and knock it out before the bugs have had a chance to multiply and take over.
So, if you are experiencing an enhanced immune response, but not necessarily a quicker recovery, that could be an indication that the flu shot did it’s job, but your immune system is not up to par. Sounds like your stress level has gone up dramatically in the same time period, so it stands to reason.
Did all these illnesses come about the same time of year? Because the length of response realy sounds more like allergies than cold or flu.
I’m also going to guess that considering the stress you’re under caring for your mom, it’s done a number on your immune system. Eight or nine week recovery from the flu is extremely long. In fact, it’s a good reason to go to the doctor (a different one) and get checked for pneumonia, a common complication of the flu. Oh, sure, you think you can’t get it, because you’re not old, bedridden, or what have you. My brother was in his twenties when he was diagnosed with “walking” pneumonia.
You’re relating an illness six months after a vaccine to the vaccine itself? And then another four months later? That’s…a bit of a stretch, frankly. It’s much more likely that the other explanations offered are the valid explanations.
If you’re a caretaker, you DO need those shots. I don’t know how much I believe about the OP, because when I got a flu shot I had to sign several consent forms first and consult with a nurse about my history. But who cares? You take care of someone, you get the farkin’ shot. There’s no cause to refuse, unless you like endangering the sick/elderly person you take care of.
No, really? Tell me more… I’ll take notes! Or do you have a flyer I can read?
He gave my mother her shot, then appeared to be disposing of the gizmo he used (they don’t use a syringe and a bottle of whatever around here, no siree, they have these prepacked needles with a “bubble” on the end), as I was helping my mother to put her coat [or cardigan] back on, I felt something touching my elbow, then he stabbed me in the upper arm with the needle, while I had my back to him.
I’ve been told he’s ‘famous’ for sticking needles in people (he’s my mother’s doctor, not mine) when they’re not looking. One woman said he gave her an injection in the butt without her taking her clothes off. Yes, seriously, he asked her to stand up, so she stood up, and next thing she felt a jab in her arse! Apparently he thinks everyone under the age of 80 is terrified of needles, or something so he does nothing to suggest he’s going to give you an injection and distracts you if he thinks you can see what he’s got hidden in his hand!
Nearly 50
shakes fist and yells at kids to get off lawn
The very bad flu and the first of the very bad head colds did occur at the same times of year (end of March/beginning of April) If I get hayfever that doesn’t usually start till late May/early June and there’s no given that I will develop it… other than that I don’t have any allergies - except bee stings. Or is it wasps? It’s one of the two - I haven’t been stung for a long time.
I’ll probably get stung by something tomorrow now, and I’ll blame you TC!
My thoughts as well, but I’ve been caring for her for nearly 15 years and my immune system seems to have been fairly robust during that time. It just struck me as so weird that first time I get a flu shot all hell breaks loose afterwards
I used to get a lot of head colds/chesty coughs as a child; when we lived in a far more industrialised area than we do now, I was delighted to get through a year without having a persistent runny nose accompanied by a chesty cough in the winter when we moved! That became the pattern for the next 20 years, I’d have of a bit of hayfever now and again, but no colds and only one flu, until two years ago…
I went to a different doctor after about 5 weeks and told her I had the flu and it was a helluva bad dose that I wasn’t getting better from it after a month. She LOLed and said “well it’s too late to give you anything for it now” and left it at that. She wouldn’t even listen to my chest to make sure my lungs were okay - and I did ask, bearing in mind my childhood ailments.
(Yes I did try to register at another clinic but they said their books were full and couldn’t take any more patients. Next clinic is in another town, about 15 minutes drive away, one of the doctors there sadly passed away, so they’re not taking any new patients for the forseeable future.)
There is NO COVER for caregivers around here. I rang the Nurse to tell her I was ill, she said there was nothing she could do about it, if I wanted a Home Help then I’d have to fill out a form, be Means Tested and have an Inspector from the HSE asses whether I needed a Home Help or not (a process that will take anything from 6 to 10 weeks). The fact that I was ill, and couldn’t look after myself never mind my mother (Ooh and let’s not forget endangering her health with my illness), didn’t mean a thing. YOU GET NOTHING. I’d have to pay someone privately (at a base rate of €15 per hour) to cover my illness. I can’t afford to pay someone that kind of money for anything up to 9 weeks.
That may not be the way things are where you live, but it’s the way they are here. I recall hearing of a mentally ill adult who was left alone in the house with the dead body of his Carer (his mother IIRC) for several weeks, he couldn’t use the phone to tell anyone, and due to his condition thought she was asleep. I’m sure that’s not the only case of it’s kind. I know one woman who was caring for her husband and she dislocated her shoulder while lifting him, she got no help from anyone and if it hadn’t been for her two sons and their wives she doesn’t know what would have happened.
I’m not sure if you misunderstood my intent or what. I think it’s wonderful that you take care of your mom (whether you want to or have to, either way it’s noble). I just believe you owe it to her to get a flu shot, whether you want one or not. That’s all.
That is extraordinary. Please tell me you reported him to whatever licensing authority oversees physicians in your area (somewhere in the UK, right?). Jabbing you with a vaccine without your consent would be legal malpractice in the US, and I suspect that your country has similar rules about requiring informed consent. What if you’d been anaphylactically allergic to eggs??? (many vaccines are egg-derived and NOT recommended for an egg-allergic person). What if you’d had some other health reason that meant a vaccine was not a good idea.
Oh - and it sounds like you got sick this year as well even though you did not get the shot, right? Actually you got sick earlier in the year, if I’m following the timeline right.
I’m with the crowd that says “exposed to more” + “aging / weakening immune system”. Plus, as lousy as a cold-from-hell can be (and I’ve had my share of them, plus mine stand a high probability of turning into an asthma flare / bronchitis), if you weren’t praying for the sweet release of death, they probably were “just” a cold.
To answer your original question, I’d guess that it was the same thing they told you: a regular, plain old flu vaccine, incapable of giving you influenza. Or a head cold. Which are not the same thing.
Well, she was a crap doctor too. Yes, five weeks later is too late to do anything about the flu, but the flu doesn’t last five weeks. Two, tops, and then the opportunistic infections set in, especially pneumonia. Since you’ve got a history of lung ailments, it could easily have been a post-viral inflammation, which isn’t an infection and could have been stopped in its tracks by a course of steroids like prednisone.
At the very least, she should have listened to your lungs.
I have a suggestion, and in making it, I don’t mean to imply in any way that you’re anything less than knowledgeable, sincere, and capable of communicating your symptoms to the doctor, but that may be the problem. Sometimes medicine is the search for the cause of the symptoms and applying the cure. Far more often, it’s just the treatment of the symptoms. That being the case, when you speak to your doctor, don’t say “I’ve had this damn flu for five weeks”. Say “I’ve been coughing a lot, running a fever, sore, achy, and too tired to brush my teeth for the last five weeks.” The latter gives the doctor solid symptoms to consider and treat. The former causes the (bad) doctor to roll their eyes and dismiss you, because the flu doesn’t last five weeks, so of course you’re exaggerating and making stuff up to get attention (you’re not, but she thinks so).
That sucks. That sucks a lot. Now, go fill out the forms, go through the process, and get the assessment. Because, you will get sick again. You will need respite again, and as much as the process sucks, if you can get through it, the resources you need will be ready and waiting the next time you’re in need.
I say that as someone who’s struggling to get VA benefits for my dad when he should have had them twenty years ago, before he went deaf. I’m pushing my mom to get them as well, before she needs them. I’m also going to bug her to get long term care insurance, which we should have had for Dad but never even thought of.
)
