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Dr Exiled wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 23, 2020 4:07 pm

I took the vaccine one year and had the worst flu symptoms I ever had for about 2 hours. I rarely get the flu and so stay away from the flu vaccine.

I've taken the vaccine for years. I have never had the flu since I started, and I have never heard of anybody having your experience, though I don't deny you did. I know about the science, so I don't expect the vaccine to reduce my chance of infection to zero, or even to be completely risk-free. But a story about "this one guy on the internet who says the vaccine made him feel bad for two hours"? Naaah. I'll keep getting vaccinated. It's the best bet overall, and costs me next to nothing.

Dr Exiled wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 23, 2020 4:07 pm

But I think there is a lot of skepticism regarding whether or not the shot will be worth it or not.

Oh sure, there is skepticism on the internet about a lot of things. The point is, is it well-informed science based skepticism?

Please excuse answering you so directly, but I would like anybody (particularly an older person) considering not getting a flu vaccine to hear my side of the story as well as yours. Vice versa, no doubt.

Chap:

Here are the effective rates of the flu vaccine from the cdc: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/e ... tudies.htm

I'd reconsider taking it if the effective rates were in the 90% range. Why bother when at best there is a 40% chance that one will get the flu for a few days and sometimes an 80% chance, even if vaccinated? Virtue signalling?

By the way, I rarely get the flu and am down a day or two if I do. Also, I have all of my shots and so do my kids.

If you are only down a day or two, it’s very unlikely you had the flu.

Dr Exiled wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 23, 2020 4:07 pm

I wonder if sars covid 2 has mutated and if whatever vaccine is brought to market will be comparable to the flu vaccine. Due to constant mutation of the various flu viruses, flu vaccines are always behind the curve and rarely, if ever, are more than 50% effective. Usually, the flu vaccine effective rate is much less than 50%. I took the vaccine one year and had the worst flu symptoms I ever had for about 2 hours. I rarely get the flu and so stay away from the flu vaccine. My parents take it yearly and so does my GF. But I think there is a lot of skepticism regarding whether or not the shot will be worth it or not. At present, there is less than a 1% chance of dying from sars covid 2 and steroid treatments are getting better at stopping the cytokine storm that is the real killer. Perhaps the vaccine will go the way of the bird flu scare back in 2009?

I know that in my case, I never got the flu in any year that I got my flu shot. The last time I caught the flu was in a year that I did not get a flu shot. That, believe it or not, was more than 60 years ago, when I was still in high school. It's certainly possible, of course, that was only because during those years I got my flu shot I merely lucked out by not being exposed to a strain of flu not protected against by the current cocktail of flu vaccines, or maybe even not exposed to any strain of flu at all.

Gunnar wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:39 pm

I know that in my case, I never got the flu in any year that I got my flu shot. The last time I caught the flu was in a year that I did not get a flu shot. That, believe it or not, was more than 60 years ago, when I was still in high school. It's certainly possible, of course, that was only because during those years I got my flu shot I merely lucked out by not being exposed to a strain of flu not protected against by the current cocktail of flu vaccines, or maybe even not exposed to any strain of flu at all.

Let us stroll down memory lane...

The year was 1999. In Fall I arrived on the Internet and became something I'd never even heard of before...a poster. And not only that, a "Regular". :-) In December we flew home to attend the wake and funeral of a beloved family member. I recall changing clothes in the restroom at Newark Airport (Newark International Airport) then going directly to the funeral home to speak at the wake where I was surrounded by Catholic folks who came to me afterwards to thank me. I was astounded!

Before Christmas I started to get sick. Went on base twice with symptoms. Told to treat the symptoms. It was nothing. Oh yeah? I remember sitting in a recliner watching the ball drop on NYE crying and believing I was going to die. Chest on fire. I knew I was done for. It was Y2K, I had gotten a promotion, and I was legit about to DIE. Dragged myself back to work a few days later. I was probably in 2 days when I had the paramedic come over from across the street. He checked my pulse ox and told me I needed to go to the ER--"NOW Miss Jersey." Had someone drive me over there. They thought I had pneumonia. Chest x rays proved otherwise---just bronchitis. I was finally diagnosed with the flu (!!!!!!!!) and bronchitis. Had a neb treatment, sent home with steroids, tessalon perles and by the very next day I started to get the idea that I would actually LIVE.

Why that year? That was the ONLY year I didn't get the flu shot.

In 3 decades working in classrooms I managed to keep myself well all but THAT year. Never felt so sick in my life. I get my flu shot like it's my job now.

When I was younger, I got a flu shot if I thought about it. Since I turned 60, I get a flu shot every year. I've never had a bad reaction to a flu shot and never had the flu in a year I had a shot. The times I've had the flu it has been the 2-3 days in bed variety" Not fun, but feeling myself again within a week or so.

I know occasionally people do have bad reactions. Your mileage may vary.

MeDot I had to get a flu shot every year I was in the classroom on account of the population I worked with. It wasn't required, I just got it to protect myself except for that one year I got so sick. I even got a pneumonia shot long before I would have normally gotten one age-wise. Same reason.

As I mentioned before, the last time I caught the flu was more than 60 years ago in a year that I did not get a flu shot, but to be honest there have been years since then that I neither got the flu shot nor the flu (as far as I know or can recall), so luck is certainly a factor in never having caught the flu since then, and that may well be true to some extent even in the years I did get a flu shot. Nevertheless, I now religiously get a flu shot every year, and so far, like MeDotOrg, have never had a bad reaction to the flu shot (other than the usual sore shoulder, of course). During the years I was in the Airforce, getting a flu shot every year was mandatory, of course, so I didn't have to think about it.

On the other hand, though, it is also true that I do catch the common cold almost every year, with varying degrees of severity and duration. It is certainly not impossible that at least some some of those colds, particularly the more severe ones, were relatively mild, but undiagnosed cases of the flu.

My experience seems very similar to what Gunnar is saying:

1. Flu vaccination very rarely leads to any unpleasant consequences.

2. Flu vaccination does not guarantee that you will not get flu, but it can give you degrees of risk reduction that vary from moderate to quite large, depending on the success level of the vaccine designers in targeting the dominant flu strain for that year.

So what's not to like?

Gunnar wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 6:56 am

I do catch the common cold almost every year, with varying degrees of severity and duration. It is certainly not impossible that at least some some of those colds, particularly the more severe ones, were relatively mild, but undiagnosed cases of the flu.

I think that the pharmaceutical industry does its best to persuade us that we have a 'touch of flu' when all we have is a heavy cold. They do that because thinking that way makes us more likely to treat ourselves as 'sick' and thus to purchase 'remedies' (which in fact have only a palliative action) than we would have been if we had only thought of ourselves as having a cold.

But from my own experience and from what I have read, the symptoms of the two diseases are markedly different, as is their duration and seriousness. Colds in themselves never give me a fever, headaches, cold shivers and joint pains, and they don't keep me in bed for a week or more. That's what my two or three flu infections in a lifetime definitely did do. There is no 'grey area' of confusion between my colds and my flu.

By the way - I have not had a cold since I began to live under the impact of anti-COVID personal hygiene and social distancing. A community nurse recently confirmed that this was a general observation amongst her patients, and what is more there had been a marked reduction in the incidence of other contagious diseases, such as gastro-enteric virus infections.

Chap wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 9:07 am

But from my own experience and from what I have read, the symptoms of the two diseases are markedly different, as is their duration and seriousness. Colds in themselves never give me a fever, headaches, cold shivers and joint pains, and they don't keep me in bed for a week or more. That's what my two or three flu infections in a lifetime definitely did do. There is no 'grey area' of confusion between my colds and my flu.

By the way - I have not had a cold since I began to live under the impact of anti-COVID personal hygiene and social distancing. A community nurse recently confirmed that this was a general observation amongst her patients, and what is more there had been a marked reduction in the incidence of other contagious diseases, such as gastro-enteric virus infections.

In my experience the colds themselves vary in their duration and seriousness. It may not be very likely that I have had mild cases of the flu that I mistook for more severe than average colds, but I can't say I know enough about it to absolutely out the possibility that I may occasionally have had mild cases of the flu without realizing it. Nevertheless, I am resolved to continue following the advice of competent medical authorities to get my annual flu shots.

Like you, I have not even had a common cold since the start of anti-COVID personal hygiene and social distancing protocols, but it has not yet been a year since I had my last mild cold, and we are just now beginning to enter into the season when I am most likely to catch a cold. I have little doubt, though, that following the anti-COVID protocols helps us to avoid getting the common cold, as well as COVID. This may turn out to one of the rare years I don't catch a cold at all. I won't mind that!