Flu Vaccination - Yes or No?

[MillauFr]

I started getting them the year perfectly healthy people with strong immune systems started dropping dead of the flu.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Received our shots about a month ago.

You may be perfectly healthy and feel that at anytime you actually get the flu it's a minor inconvenience but it is not to the many immune compromised people you interact with in the course of daily living.
I lost both my biological paternal grandmother and great grandmother w/i one week of each other during an influenza pandemic. My father and his younger brothers were all under the age of 11 when this happened and they were left to wander the country side of Barbados looking for relatives that lived several parishes away. From all accounts it was a harrowing experience.

 

[TheDisneyNurse]

Yes, every year since I started nursing school. At my hospital, you can choose not to get the flu shot— but if you decide against it you’ll have to wear a mask on the floor from Nov-March.

I’ve never had the flu, or any of the “flu symptoms” from the shot. A little bit of exercise helped with my arm soreness.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

Yes, every year. I’m very pro vaccine in general. They don’t get it right every year, but I’d rather do what I can for herd immunity because I don’t have anything other than mild injection site reaction.

I think we all forget that the flu can absolutely be deadly.

 

[Cubbiecakes]

I cruise a lot, so I end up being around a lot of old people. I get my yearly flu shot as soon as they are available (paid by insurance), because I care about the health and well-being of the people I come into contact with.

 

[kimblebee]

I should get one due to being immunocompromised but I won’t get it again.

I had to get it two years ago as a prerequisite to my ms treatment and for five days after I got the shot I felt like I had been hit by a bus.

I’m not supposed to have live vaccines and I know that I did get a non live (dead?) version two years ago.

I’m very careful about who I’m around and soon we’ll start the house rule of using Purell when you step in the door..visitors too.

 

[mrodgers]

Anyone else get sick the day after getting the flu shot? I do every year.

It's part of our health insurance available at work (next week I think.) So I'll be sick next week, then good the rest of the year.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Its free with my health insurance.
I did not used to get it when I was young and figured if I got sick I'd be fine.
Now that I and my parents are that much older and I live with them and have seen what being sick can do to them I choose to get one to protect myself and especially them. When sick with anything my dad gets so dehydrated he needs to go to the hospital. Once they said that had we waited a couple more hours he would have been dead. That makes me want to help keep him healthy.
I will say that I had a bad experience this time with the flu shot though.
It gave me bad neck and upper back pain and felt weak and tired for about 10 days.
Still sore if you press on certain areas but feel much better overall.

 

[Feralpeg]

We always get the flu shot. We got them about two weeks ago. We get them at Publix. Our insurance covers them 100 percent. As a person who experienced the swine flu and the Hong Kong while growing up, I don't ever want to experience that sort of thing again. I actually thought I was going to die from the Hong Kong flu. My entire family had it. Horrible experience!

 

[smiths02]

I started getting them the year perfectly healthy people with strong immune systems started dropping dead of the flu.

That has been happening since 1918

 

[arminnie]

I got my first flu shot sometime in the early '90s when I started working for a company that provided them at work. I got the flu that year for the first and only time of my life.

But I did not think there was any correlation between the shot and the flu that year so I've kept on getting them. Last year for some reason (lazy) I didn't get mine until February! So this year I got it in September. Since I've been retired I've usually gotten at my doctor's. But one year I got it at an end cap in Walmart. Took about 2 minutes.

 

[MIGrandma]

Getting mine today. Get one every year. If I can do something to help protect myself I see no reason not to, especially with it being free.

 

[runskyhy]

Interesting thread. Appreciate everyone sharing their experiences with the shot. Been getting flu vaccine for a half dozen or so years now. The last two years, I've had general muscle soreness/fatigue for about 24 hours afterwards and then back to normal. This year, it included sharp pains in the muscles of one leg for that period of time. I'd have written it off as a workout issue if I had worked out anytime in the week prior but the only difference that week was the vaccine. That said, I much prefer that over the flu and its potential secondary complications.

 

[BLAZEY]

Question (and I haven't thought about this for years): Are routine childhood immunizations still offered at schools? I know that's where I got most of mine (in the 70's-80's in a remote, rural location). I honestly don't remember if DS had shots in school (he's 22).

They did a few years ago when a coworkers kid needed the booster going into grade 9. DD9 was 2 and up to date on hers but she attended the daycare at the secondary school. (It's a program to keep teen parents in school but when the spots aren't used by students they offer them to community parents). We got notice that if we needed to get shots for the kids we could get them done there. It was a requirement to attend the daycare as it was infant care and some were too young to get shots so if you were old enough you had to have them or a MEDICAL exemption. I always keep them up to date. We haven't got the flu shots yet but will probably just go to the Rexall and get them done. Flu shots are NOT required by the school, but all the other ones are. I did have to show here immunization records as there was a immunocompromised student and her family at the school.

 

[Lynne M]

Absolutely, yes. People panic about rare diseases like ebola, but the flu killed 80,000 people in the US last winter. That's more than 10 times the number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, I'm a little biased because I had the flu last week. I usually get my shot around mid-October, but the flu's out early this year.

 

[CarolAnn856]

Absolutely, both for my benefit and the students I work with who can't get immunized.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Do you have access to free flu shots? Do you take it? Why or why not?

I do have access to free shots (lots of flu shot clinics), but my health plan includes them for no extra cost, so I just go to my personal clinic to get it.

Yes, I get the flu shot. Yes, I've only had the flu once that I can recall as an adult, but since we started cruising, and we're basically "locked in" with some 2000+ of our new best friends for the duration (not to mention the flight to get there), it just seems like a good idea to get a shot.

 

[mnrose]

We get them. Covered by insurance. Got mine for this year about two weeks ago.

 

[katie01]

Here's the thing, I love the idea of the vaccine, I *want* to get it and hope that it will prevent the flu. But I got the flu twice in the 2 years in a row I was required to get the vaccine (a month or two after the vaccine), and both of those times that flu progressed to pneumonia and I was so very sick. I decided to see what would happen if I did NOT get the vaccine the last two years, and those two years I was the healthiest I've ever been, and no influenza this time. There's probably nothing scientific about that, just weird backwards luck? Also, my dad got parsonage-turner (sp) syndrome after a vaccine so while I get all the other required vaccines, I do hesitate when it comes to something optional like flu vaccine. I'm really not sure what to do this year. I have also heard the argument that I should get the flu vaccine to protect all those who can't get it, but if the only years I've caught the flu (and therefore can spread it) is in years I've had the vaccine, by that logic, I should protect others by NOT getting the vaccine. I may just get it the vaccine this year and see what happens. I have to say though that if I get influenza again in a vaccine year, I think I may be done with it

 

[DLgal]

Yes, we all get a free flu shot through our insurance and after last year's flu, I will NEVER forget the flu shot again. I did get the flu shot last year, but still ended up in the ER in the middle of the night with breathing complications from a sudden onset of Flu 2 days after my son came down with it. I recovered very quickly, though and was better in 3 days.

Stupidly, I forgot to get the kids their shots (they have their annual physicals in the summer, before the shots are available, so I have to remember to take them in in the fall, and I forgot). My younger son was SO SO SO sick with the flu for 2 weeks, he ended up with pneumonia and for 2 days, I didn't sleep because I was so worried that he would stop breathing in his sleep. My older son miraculously didn't get sick, probably because we quarantined younger DS in his room.

I don't ever want to go through that again, so the kids already had their shots last month, I am scheduled for mine next Friday during my annual physical, and my husband will get his through work.

After seeing how many otherwise healthy people died last year from the flu, I won't forgo the flu shot ever again. It's just not worth the risk.