Flu shots

Every year we seem to have these same discussions about who gets them, who doesn't, who thinks they do any good. Well, I've got a new one to toss in for my own view of it.


My mother talks to her mother-in-law every day, and my grandma and her daughter get the flu shots EVERY year and always insist that we should too. Well, for some reason, the day grandma got hers, after she got done shopping that afternoon she collapsed in the parking lot and became unresponsive. Were it not for the fact that two paramedics just happened to be there to revive her, she would be dead, and this was about 2 months ago. Now, nobody ever found out what happened to her, but that's not my main point here. My aunt has already had the flu TWICE since getting her flu shot this past fall, and TODAY when grandma calls, she has the bad news that she's got the flu for a THIRD time now.

Now, we were told in the beginning that anybody who gets the shot will STILL get a flu anyway, ONE you can understand, but 3 in about as many months?

Also, not wanting to jinx the luck on our side, but nobody in our house got the flu shot this year, or any other year, and 3 out of the 4 people in this house haven't got any flu yet since the season started. Now maybe it's just me, but the whole thing strikes me as being a little backwards. So far everybody we know who got the flu shot and acted like we were nuts for not getting it, have all gotten the flu, but we're all doing fine, *knock wood*.

I have never had a flu shot and have never had the flu so I will never get a flu shot. My father's doctor used to recommend he get the flu shot every year so he did but I don't recall him getting the flu either. He also used to get the pneumonia shot every year and isn't it funny that is one of the things that killed him, pneumonia.

I've never had a flu shot but I probably should get the vaccine for shingles.

Flu shots CAN'T give you the flu. And since they CAN'T give you the flu, it is unreasonable to proceed under an assumption that someone getting sick after receiving a flu shot is a result of the flu shot that they got. That is essentially being superstitious! It would be like believing that the full moon causes misfortune in your life because every time you've gone out on the night of the full moon, something bad has happened.

captainbryce wrote:Flu shots CAN'T give you the flu. And since they CAN'T give you the flu, it is unreasonable to proceed under an assumption that someone getting sick after receiving a flu shot is a result of the flu shot that they got. That is essentially being superstitious! It would be like believing that the full moon causes misfortune in your life because every time you've gone out on the night of the full moon, something bad has happened.

Right, so how does a person get the flu 3 times in one season after getting the flu shot? I mean I get that there are many different strains, but I've never heard of anybody getting it 3 times back to back to back following a vaccine.

what people do not understand that the FLU is not one virus... it is many many viruses. The shot itself only protects against certain strains--- as is true with other shots such as HPV.

It is VERY likely that the flu shot given to protect one virus will not protect from another and therefore you can get sick. As far as having bad reactions... as with anything that you put in your body... EACH person is different. I have blood taken and have bad reactions! lol so i cant imagine having something injected lol

Supernova wrote:Right, so how does a person get the flu 3 times in one season after getting the flu shot? I mean I get that there are many different strains, but I've never heard of anybody getting it 3 times back to back to back following a vaccine.

I can't explain that. I agree that this is indeed very "odd". But when things seem odd or go unexplained, they often tend to lead people to imagine the worst. If you hear a bump in the night, and you know you're the only one in the room, you may believe that there is a ghost in the room with you, when there may in fact be a perfectly plausible explanation for the bump. I don't know why your grandma got the flu 3 times back to back. And to be honest, I don't even know if that actually happened. I don't have enough information to draw a conclusion. Did she in fact have "the flu" all three times, or did she just get sick? There is a difference. Was she officially diagnosed with the flu on all three occasions, or was that just the assumption you made because she got sick after getting a flu shot?

Wants2laugh is correct in that the flu is not just one virus. There are many different kinds of "flu" out there and the flu shot does not protect you from all of them. Your grandmother could indeed have gotten a flu after getting a flu shot all three times (although this is highly unlikely), but that doesn't mean that the shot gave her the flu. It's just a bizarre coincidence. Depending on her age and condition, she may simply have had a bad reaction to the vaccine. Any immunization can make you sick (especially if you already have a weak immune system) for a few days while your body adapts to it. It could also be that she is allergic to the vaccine itself. There are any number of plausible conditions for why she may have gotten sick after getting the shots, but the idea that the shot gave her the flu is the least realistic. If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains (however improbable) must be the truth!

my nephew is allergic to the DPT shot and it almost killed him at 2yrs old. he's never gotten another one... he was literally dead and the paramedics revived him.

I have gotten flu shots every single year without fail since 1987. The employer administered them every year, as did the next one I went to work for. In the 80's I had a LOT of respiratory problems, and often caught bugs, and it all stopped with the first year of the flu shots. So I've been a devotee ever since.

But I and my family did come down with the Taiwan flu a year or two later.