Your Opinion on Swine Flu and Shots

[Juliette]

I'm not only not going to take this shot, but also not the one for the seasonal flu. Every time I get one I get sick for a month. In 2007 I was so sick nose stopped working normally for a couple of days until I could start cortisone treatment (imagine just the fun; before anyone asks: no, I hadn't a cold or something the moment I had vaccination). Last time I got the flu on my own it lasted less than a week. Now, what would you do in my shoes? And with this usual scenario, the perspective of introducting that virus in my system isn't my favourite. So, uh, no.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Juliette

I'm not only not going to take this shot, but also not the one for the seasonal flu. Every time I get one I get sick for a month. In 2007 I was so sick nose stopped working normally for a couple of days until I could start cortisone treatment (imagine just the fun; before anyone asks: no, I hadn't a cold or something the moment I had vaccination). Last time I got the flu on my own it lasted less than a week. Now, what would you do in my shoes? And with this usual scenario, the perspective of introducting that virus in my system isn't my favourite. So, uh, no.

I never could understand the concept of being sicker from the cure than I get from the disease!

During the time I was in the Navy, we were required to get flu shots annually. I actually threatened to break the medics arm if he came near me with that hypo gun!

Sometimes I won and sometimes I got the shot anyway. Invariably on those times I got sicker than I EVER got on the out years.

[desertgrandma]

Well, on the other side of the coin...........my husband and I have gotten the flu shots for the last upteen years..........never, not once, any ill effects for either of us.

Its my understanding the flu shots given yearly are their 'best guess' as to which flu will be circulating........based on the previous years flu. No live viruses are used.

This year its we're looking at two shots........one for the regular flu, and one for the H1N1. Yes, its a crap shoot. But, I won't take a chance at this point. Maybe it will work, maybe not.

But I'll never have to wonder.........."what if"...........

Of course, personally, and this is just me, I don't see any conspiracy behind H1N1, or think people are trying to just make money.

I just see a lot of health care workers trying to keep us healthy.

[GeoffC]

The first year I had a flu jag, I seemed to have a cold every month. Since then future jags have provided protection ...

[Juliette]

Maybe it's a question of different reactions on different people, differences that aren't paid attention to by who "engeneers" the vaccine (and that would be difficult to spot too). Because I had no problem with, say, the tetanus shot, or the HepaB one (and the paperwork I had to sign to get the latter, oh, that paperwork!).

Then again, there should be a way to get the two birds (vaccine and not-disastrous follow-ups) with one stones even with people like us who have a bad reaction, we're more not few

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Of course, personally, and this is just me, I don't see any conspiracy behind H1N1, or think people are trying to just make money.

I just see a lot of health care workers trying to keep us healthy.

You have a very valid point, DG. My father is in the Housing office here, and he's quoted specifics and percentages and other such information that was learned in his update training.

So yeah, he, and all of the other workers, actually know in their heart that they are doing right. Their bosses are doing the same thing. Passing on information from upper mgmt, and they from the state level. It's when you get higher up as to where this information actually comes from, and it comes from people who have nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare. His eyes are finally being opened as he reads much of the information from the news, and how it counters with what he's been taught.

So yes, the VAST MAJOR majority of the doctors, healthcare system workers and nurses think they are doing right by administering this vaccine because they have been led to believe from their trusted superiors, who also in-turn believe.

Good luck with the shots, though. I wish you the best.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

So yes, the VAST MAJOR majority of the doctors, healthcare system workers and nurses think they are doing right by administering this vaccine because they have been led to believe from their trusted superiors, who also in-turn believe.

Good luck with the shots, though. I wish you the best.

My doctor askes me if I want a flu shot each year, each year I say no thank you. She doesn't press me or try to convince me, or explain that I'm in "that" demographic; she just does it as if she is required by my HMO to ask, and when I decline she is happy.

[desertgrandma]

I have an idea.

Lets all meet back here, same thread, in June. By then, the flu season will have run its course.

We can compare shots and reactions, and the true effect of H1N1.

How about June 1? Mark it on your calendar.

Thoughts?

[griffonwing]

If you don't see me, it'll be because I didn't take the vac and contracted the deadly virus.

Or it'll be because the Feds found me and decided to shut me up before I gave away all their secrets!

[Juliette]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

I have an idea.

Lets all meet back here, same thread, in June. By then, the flu season will have run its course.

We can compare shots and reactions, and the true effect of H1N1.

How about June 1? Mark it on your calendar.

Thoughts?

Great idea- anyway the historical little finger would like me to take notes on whatever will happen with this virus. (Aye, I'd share in any format too- collective ebook anyone? )

[roger the rabbit]

I get the seasonal shot every year, don't know if it helps or not, but I have not had the flu since I started getting them! so go figure!

[FizzyWater]

Two years ago, it seemed I spent the entire winter season fighting off one bug after another. (Before that, I seldom got anything but occasional colds).

For the first time last winter, I submitted to have my first ever flu shot at 47! I'll admit, the warning that you could get Guillain-Barré syndrome gave me pause (just checked the CDC page - last time that was officially associated with a vaccination was the 1976 swine flu vaccination!), but I did it anyway.

I read the paperwork. I understood it was a "best guess" kind of thing - that it was based on expected flu viruses and I could still be exposed to other flu viruses and get sick. Luckily, I didn't get sick last year (or get GBS, for that matter!) But I knew it could have gone the other way, too.

When I first started hearing about the swine flu - that it was making lots of people really sick, my had a low mortality rate - I thought the same thing that's been said above: it'd be better to get exposed and develop the immunity!

I recently picked up an ebook I bought last winter: "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History" by John Barry. It's been interesting reading (although I do think the author took way too long to get to the point!)

But one of the things the book discusses is that there is some conjecture that the 1917-1918 flu began in a particularly virulent strain in the midwest, where it killed young and old in high percentages. It was carried into military camps (I picture "boot camp" 1917 style), but had mutated to a milder version. It made a high number of people sick (again, young and old), but most survived it.

Then, as it continued to go out into the human population, it mutated back into the more virulent strain by 1918...where it was killing off people in high percentages. And the settings this author uses is these 1917-8 "boot camps" (not his description, just how I think of them) - the people dying were 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds! Not just the very young and very old.

One thing he did mention was exposure to the earlier, milder version did give better immunity to the nasty strain.

It all gives me a greater appreciation with the health care people who worry that seemingly innocuous outbreaks could turn into something bigger, something worse.

That said, I'm not sure whether I'll get the H1N1 virus shot. I'm not in the CDC recommended groups at this time. But I do work in a big office building - one with a built-in day care center and lots and lots of parents (and kids really are little germ incubators!). As they talk about cutting our cubicles down to a yet smaller size to cram more and more people into the building, I do worry about my increased chances of being exposed to something nasty.

Oh, and I for one worry that the current stress on "hand sanitizers" is actually hurting us more than helping. Hand sanitizers only work on bacteria, not viruses.

[pshrynk]

I have decided against the vaccine because the influenza caused by the H1N1 seems to be a mild variant of an old strain that is linked to teh Spanish Influenza. It has mutated in the off season to this milder form. If I get the H1N1 flu, then I'll stay home for a few days and go back to work with a stronger immune system than if I got the shot.

Don't do this at home if you are 1) elderly 2) have other serious health issues 3) have young children, in whom it is much more virulaent and more rigorous or 4) don't like following what middle aged pshrynks say they are going to do on the intarwebs...

[ahi]

Originally Posted by krisk

when the Avian Flu looked like a real threat I did a LOT of reading about the 1917 flu pandemic and it is some scary sh*t maynard!

Indeed.

There was a 66% chance that you wouldn't catch the flu to begin with, and if you did, there was an 80% - 90% or higher chance that you would recover to full health and experience no lasting health impact.

In fact, the wikipedia article suggests that there were places where the mortality rate was as small as 2%. If you were living in those areas, your chances of survival--even if you fell into the unlucky 33% that caught the flu--was 98%.

There are lottery games with better odds that smart people still refuse to play.

The above, of course, doesn't change the reality of the 1918 flu outbreak... but it might help give some people a slightly saner perspective than is normally touted.

- Ahi

[kaan]

I seems I wont need to have to take the shots when they come.
Sadly it is because I have the flu right now :/