Get Your Frakking Flu Shot

They traced the outbreak of Whooping Cough in California to children not being immunized. Thanks a lot.

Is there room for one more on the soapbox? We are seeing the return of all sorts of illnesses - in particular traditional childhood illnesses - since there are now so many who refuse to have their children vaccinated.

Same with the wife and myself.

Interesting, I wonder if it is the one listed at that website? I'm not sure what I will do, after my reaction etc. But I guess I may get the booster when I'm 65. I have never had pnemonia but I have had bad bronchitis where I had to take steroids once because I have asthma.

I got my flu shot yesterday, because I had some sort of sickness last year, no idea what it was to be honest. Probably the flu or a cold but possibly even whooping cough (I was coughing so much I'd exhaust myself so) but I got my flu shot that narrows the risk of getting that again.

Ugh sounds awful. Hope you're all better now. I never get my flu shot and never get the flu. Last year I got some awful bug it wasn't like the flu I got many years ago where I felt like I was dying. For me the flu is aches to the point you don't want to move with fever and cough. It does seem like whenever someone gets some bad bug they tend to call it the flu. I hear people say I just had the flu and it's not even flu season. Maybe it's like calling all soft drinks coke lol Either way I don't want what you got.

I got my flu shot yesterday. I didn't get it because I fear a regular flu. I can deal with that. I actually like having a "sick day." I have two primary reasons for getting the flu shot. First, I got it because I have diabetes and if there is a pandemic like the 1918 flu that would probably be the end of me. And second, I have a duty to society. I get my flu shot to help build herd immunity and protect others from infection.

MONTHS? Crap.

Thanks for the reminder to get the shot, Timbeak48. I was going to consider not getting it, since I haven't had the flu in years, I guess I forgot how miserable it is.

Finally got mine!!!

It's getting crowded all standing on the top of this little crate :-)

What mystifies me is the self-blindness to all the healthy, happy, seasoned citizens all around that have been immunized. Ignore that, and obsess over the latest trend-scare in Natural Healing magazine or something.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm down with natural stuff. I just don't see it as necessarily a priori superior, and artificial, human-discovered as a priori bad.

Because their friends Moonbeam and Starcaster got them up to speed on those poisons, have gone all-natural with their kids and not given them any of that evil stuff, and look at them, they're fine!

I actually like having a "sick day."
I hear they're looking for personnel to help manage Ebola patients... Just sayin'... :-)

lol

Good apocalyptic thinking. I never thought of that one! Why was pandemic flu worse than todays flu? I always thought it was just because it was a bad strain that spread like crazy (bad hygiene) and they didn't have many treatments for anything. I read an old army medical book Dx of 'diabetes' and it was pretty funny...and bizarre-o (c. early 1900's). Ahhh, herd immunity. Thats a noble reason. Your a nice guy.

Oh jeez, that's the worst! I get mine every year too, but I usually like to get it in September, and didn't get it until early October this year. It doesn't prevent every type of flu, just the dominant one that year, but it's been great. I've only gotten flu one year out of the last 12. The throwing up is the scary part. That time I had it I thought I was getting better and ate some cereal, just sounded appetizing at the time. So of course I bolused and lo and behold, threw up again a little while later. Never went that low before...my poor hubby was terrified! So I'm with you - flu shot every year, and get it early!

You were right, harsh flu this year 'round town.

Actually, the reason why the 1918 flu pandemic was so bad was because of the strain, not because of the pandemic.

Usually the flu affects the young and the old the worst. During the 1918 flu, the young adult and middle-aged were affected worse because they had stronger immune systems. In this case, their immune systems actually created such severe attacks against the flu virus that it killed them--very much the opposite of the usual young/old being affected because they have weaker immune systems and are susceptible to other things after they've had the flu.

Interesting. I had always heard that young adults were affected more because older people had likely been previously exposed to a similar strain of the virus, where as younger people had not. Example:

Epidemiologic data on rates of clinical influenza by age, collected between 1900 and 1918, provide good evidence for the emergence of an antigenically novel influenza virus in 1918 (21). Jordan showed that from 1900 to 1917, the 5- to 15-year age group accounted for 11% of total influenza cases, while the >65-year age group accounted for 6% of influenza cases. But in 1918, cases in the 5- to 15-year-old group jumped to 25% of influenza cases (compatible with exposure to an antigenically novel virus strain), while the >65 age group only accounted for 0.6% of the influenza cases, findings consistent with previously acquired protective immunity caused by an identical or closely related viral protein to which older persons had once been exposed. Mortality data are in accord. In 1918, persons >75 years had lower influenza and pneumonia case-fatality rates than they had during the prepandemic period of 1911–1917. At the other end of the age spectrum (Figure 2), a high proportion of deaths in infancy and early childhood in 1918 mimics the age pattern, if not the mortality rate, of other influenza pandemics.

(Emphasis added.)
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article

does that make it an autoimmune disease flu? I always look for the grave markers, in old cemeteries, and count the ones likely to be flu.

I was too late to get mine this year. :(

Got the flu and had symptoms for over a month - the worst flu in years. A fever of 39.4 C (102.9 F). I guess since I've had the flu already, I don't really need the shot, until next year.