Anyone ever seen that commercial, "I heard it on the internet, and they can't put anything on the internet if it isn't true." "Where did you hear that?" "On the internet."
I had flu/ pneumonia shots once, maybe 10 years ago, and got sick so I don't bother any more. If I feel a cold coming on, I run my BG down to about 40 and have a couple of strong cocktails to create an unfriendly ecosystem for germs, low food, high toxins. I've been sick like once since then.
I think flu vaccine is a must. When you go shopping in a grocery store, in a mall, in wherever you go, you come in contact with those who are coming down with flu. They don't know it yet so they're out and about and just beginning to have those gillions of organisms taking over. You're going to be exposed if you have any life at all.
Yes the flu vaccine heightens my BG for a week. But from what I've seen in everyone else who gets flu and has the big D T1, the heights from the vaccine are peanuts compared with the heights of the BG during flu. Just ask any T1 health care provider who takes phone calls during flu season.
i was considering the flu shot until i read what you do. much more fun!
Did someone mention cocktails !!!
I think that stay at home person should have some cocktails more often.
Ha! Good one, Zoe.
On the internet you can find any correlation with anything. The bottom line is that vaccines are INCREDIBLY safe, far safer than the illnesses they prevent. Our generation has forgotten this because we never lived through massive flu epidemics, most of us have never seen children disabled and killed by polio, and most of us have never experienced the terror of diseases like measles, mumps, and smallpox. We haven't experienced these things BECAUSE of the success of vaccines.
Vaccines are made from killed or weakened viruses that create an immune response. Vaccines have always been pretty safe, and they have become safer and safer over the years because we no longer have to rely on live-virus vaccines. All available evidence indicates that vaccines DO NOT cause autism, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer's, and whatever other disease is being tied to vaccines in any given week. The ONE study that linked autism to the MMR vaccine was retracted by the Lancet because it was found the information had been falsified. Jenny McCarthy is NOT a doctor.
What we do know is that vaccines prevent diseases, diseases that most definitely cause death and disability. Measles, meningitis, and many other diseases we receive vaccines for all can cause encephalitis. If a child or adult gets encephalitis, it's very likely that they will either die or have permanent cognitive disabilities (i.e., mental retardation). Influenza kills people every year, particularly those with chronic diseases. Polio, while eradicated in most of the world, is still endemic in several countries and is just one plane ride away from the U.S. Pregnant women and their future children benefit tremendously from vaccines; prior to the widespread use of the MMR vaccine, pregnant women often had miscarriages or gave birth to children with significant disabilities because they contracted rubella during their pregnancy.
Here's some other things we know - because people are declining vaccines for their children due to unfounded fears that the vaccines cause autism or other problems, we now have rates of pertusis (whooping cough) that haven't been seen since 1950. There were just 7,867 reported cases of whooping cough in 2000, and in 2011 there were 18,719 reported cases. When babies contract whooping cough, they get very sick very fast. They can necessitate a ventilator and can suffer brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. Measles is also making a comeback, and this is especially frightening because the risk when contracted by infants and toddlers is significant.
Vaccines work through herd immunity. They only work if a critical mass of people get the vaccine. That way, a disease has no more hosts and dies out. This is how we eradicated smallpox. You may not know this, but smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people in the 20th century. It was a disease that was feared beyond anything we can comprehend. We don't have to fear it anymore because the World Health Organization undertook an amazing effort to eradicate the disease through vaccination, often relying on old-fashioned detective work to identify cases and then vaccinate towns and cities.
I usually get a flu shot every year, although I've missed some years and haven't gotten sick, so it doesn't seem to make much of a difference for me. I get maybe one cold a year, if that. I work with children and elderly people who might have health problems that could make the flu very bad for them, though, so I'd get the flu shot even if I didn't have diabetes.
I also got the pneumonia shot a few years ago. That one I'm not sure I'd repeat as I had a reaction to it (arm swelled up and got itchy and sore for well over a week!).
after 1st yr of Bing dx,i learned from my experience. w/out the shot, i got so sick i needed to be hospitalized from the flu. now i get one every year as soon as they become available. (my endo doesnt believe in them but he wasnt the one sick in the hospital)
for a week to 2 weeks after the flu shot, i get mildly sick. my sugars go up, down and all over the place. but, i know that i can expect it to happen and i am prepared. and i would rather be mildly sick for a week in my own home in my own bed, than have to be hospitalized for any length of time.
sounds like i should consider getting a pneumonia shot as well. i see my PCP soon and my endo the week after that. so i'll c.
thx for the heads up guys!
Excellent post, MyBustedPancreas, I was thinking the same thing.
Every year. The one year I didn't get the flu shot I caught the flu that turned to pneumonia and ended up in the hospital for one week. Over all the illness took at least a month to feel any better.
Yesterday's flu shot seems to have my blood sugars in the 200s. I've never noticed that before.
Put on your flu voice and get the time off anyway. We have all decided that the best way forward is cocktails. Seriously though flu and bg no go area.
Thank you so much for posting this great information, MBP. The unfortunate fact is those scares about mercury and vaccines causing autism created so much (understandable) fear in parents, that though that research has been completely discredited, the fear and the rumors continue. Knowledge is power. Thank you for taking the time to research the facts and posts this. I didn't know that about "herd immunity". It makes it even sadder that the fear continues preventing parents from immunizing their children and endangering themselves and others as well.
I'm old enough to remember that there was a special class room in the basement of my school for the children with polio on crutches and in wheelchairs, and our parents lived in fear each summer when polio was believed to be spread in pools, so we couldn't go swimming (not sure if that was true or not). I remember getting the first polio shots to come out when I was in first grade. I might have cried at the shots, but my parents cried in relief.
My own father remembered the flu epidemic of 1918; he was sick and remembers he couldn't stand up, but he survived. Somewhere between 20 Million and 50 million people worldwide died from that flu. It was believed that 1/5 of the world's population were infected!
I definitely would not take the flu vaccine, especially if one has a compromised immune system. According to a study conducted by the B.C. Canada CDC, people who received the yearly vaccine were more likely to get H1N1 than unvaccinated people, and more severely. Also the Cochrane Collaborative which is an international organization that reviews scientific studies, concluded at best the seasonal flu shot would only protect against 10% of all circulating viruses. They also noted that most flu vaccine studies have been carried out by drug companies that have a profit motive in promoting these vaccines.
Also a small number of people contract Guillian-Barre syndrome in reaction to taking the vaccine. I'm not anti vaccine, but I think flu vaccines are junk and could be downright harmful.
I have wondered how effective it is against the circulating flus' in that given period. Also read about the GBsyndrome. Wouldn't put anything past the drug companies.
I have never ever had a flu shot.
Got mine last week
I quit getting them when they decided to put the Swine flu in with the regular one.
A few weeks ago, someone shared this article on FB. The video is long but worth watching. The woman is a nurse who got a flu shot and ended up with GBS. Her daughter now takes care of her. The daughter said that even though all the doctors said it was the flu shot that caused it, they never reported her mother's case. While her mother was in the hospital, there were 7 other people in the hospital with problems because of the flu shot - they were never reported either. The daughter ended up reporting her mother's case herself.