'Flu jabs!

Because you don't want flu? It's nasty and trashes 2-3 weeks.
It infects the healthy just as often as the unhealthy. The only difference is that the previously unhealthy are more likely to end up in hospital on oxygen. Hence the government funding their jabs. When you are older your immune system is better in some ways - it recognises a longer list of bugs because you have encountered them before. However it becomes less good at defending your lungs against pneumonia. This is irrespective of any other aspect of your medical history.

No way. If you're healthy, why would you?

Thank you NanKate for the information, I shall follow it up starting with the chemists.

JessM don't get me started on the anti vaccination lot in America! Some of the comments you read online make you want to eat your own head. A lot of bad science mixed with "I feel it must be true therefore it is" And they let these people have guns!

We start flu jabs next month and will be having one. Never had any reaction except a slightly stiff arm and I haven't had flu either.

I am having mine on the 26th, it always seems to be on a Friday and I am always poorly by Sunday. Every year they ask if I have had a reaction, every year I tell them I was ill enough to have to go to bed and every year I am told that it is not possible and I must have been sickening for something

You may find that your GP will be willing to do the injection for you, but charge. I also think that the vaccine will be free, it will be supplied on prescription and it is only the inoculation process you pay for, so I should start be inquiring at your surgery.

Sara4 I asked my doctor to recommend a private clinic and they gave me the name of a surgery in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire called Doctor Now. It was expensive but the peace of mind is worth it as my Mum too was very ill.

Most towns have private surgeries that you will find on the Internet. You could always ask your local chemist to put you in touch with a private doctor.

NanKat, Where did you get the shingles vaccine privately from? I would be willing to pay having seen my mother in terrible pain in her head. My elderly neighbour was poorly for weeks as was a friend. I'm won't be 79 for two years. My surgery said you only have to wait 2 years.

WHO thinks a trace of thiomersal is fine for infants, no risks been demonstrated, so I don't think us GNs need to fret as we are somewhat larger. And most of us have been living happily with mercury based dental fillings for decades.

www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/thiomersal/statement_jul2006/en/

The anti-vac lobby in the states is constantly searching for new justifications as to why immunisation is dangerous. In some parts of the world the anti vaccers seem to be slightly "alternative" types. You can get an exemption from "you must have your child vaccinated before it goes to school" rule, on the basis of "personal belief"
In LA there is a worrying rise recently in whooping cough etc. amongst wealthy (its fashionable?)
www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-vaccination-crisis-20140903-column.html
In the states there is also an anti-government-telling-us-what-to do brigade who believe in their right to stash armouries in the woods and not have their kids vaccinated.

DH and I have had flu jabs long before our 65th years - him because of his reduced immune system (and he seems to get a "special" jab) and me as a teacher in case I went down with it and brought the virus home. I was very glad we had been vaccinated some years ago when SIL went down with swine flu just before DGS's first Christmas and we would not have been able to spend Christmas Day with them (selfish of me or what?) DD had been vaccinated during pregnancy and DGS still had immunity from her.
Neither of us has ever had any unpleasant side effects so if in doubt - I go for it!

I've suffered with man Flu! Believe me it' s debilitating, we need constant care from you Ladies ,,,Ha ha,
All jokes aside, I have the Flu Jab booked for the 1st Oct, 2014. I've had the Jab for a few years: and find the benefits outweigh any side effects. I totally agree with the statement below.

"If you give a jab to hundreds of thousands of people every year a few of them are going to have heart attacks, a few are going to have strokes and quite a lot are going to get ill from mild colds and other flu-like viruses in the days following. These events were going to happen with or without the flu jab . But the flu jab can get blamed because most people look for reasons for things happening.
There are hundreds of viruses that can give you feverish cold symptoms. The flu jab will not protect you from these - but it will protect you from the 3 most prevalent influenza viruses that are circulating in the world at the moment."

DH is recovering from manful but I've got a headache reading this lot.

I do not have the flu vaccine, not because of any scare stories about side effects or death but because nobody in my family has ever had flu. My parents never had it either.

Since I do have erratic reactions to medications, whether swallowed, injected or placed on my skin and neither my family nor have I had flu, even during epidemics when we were in crowd situations; boarding school, live in barracks, it just seems to me that currently, in the absence of me having health problems of any kind, there is no pressing need for me to have the inoculation.

There are so many variations of flu and really bad flu-like colds (yes, I've had both and don't call the occasional bad cold I get, 'flu') that it's often possible to be inoculated and then catch something else. They decide which kind(s) of flu are likely to be rampant but they can't inoculate everyone against every strain. And there are 'vulnerable people' out there who won't have been inoculated - small babies, for example.

That's the second FFS I've seen on GN today - both from respected posters.

That's terrible that some organisation is lobbying to get rid of Thiomersal. What's a little mercury between friends? Bring it on!

Depends on the pharmacy jing ASDA pharmacy I just rolled up.Boots you usually have an appointment. Depends on staffing and whether they have vaccine in stock all the time.
Oh FFS bloody DM has run another scare story about autism and vaccines again. Really, really irresponsible of them.
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-153722/Mercury-flu-vaccine-linked-autism.html
Thiomersal is only being phased out because anti-vaccinators keep worrying at it and using it as an excuse. Despite huge amounts of research vaccines do not cause autism. Not a shred of evidence.

Jingle all the big supermarkets and Chemists offer appointments any day of the week. My DS decided he would have the flu injection last year (any age can apply) and he walked into Lloyds Pharmacy with no appointment and they did it there and then.

kittylester Can you just walk into Sainsburys and ask to have it (paying, of course) or do you need to make an appointment? Our surgery only does flu jabs on Saturday mornings and DH has very important things to do on Saturdays. ()

Herd immunity is much spoken of but often misunderstood. It can only work if vaccines are highly effective (which the flu jab is not) and provide long term immunity and / or are given regularly. The problem with this has been illustrated by the fact there have been outbreaks of measles and mumps amongst university students (my own son being one) and pertussis in adults (the subject if at least one long thread on gransnet a while ago) because people mistakenly believed that being vaccinated in childhood had conferred lifelong immunity.

I do not accept that I should have a flu jab to protect others. Those who are vulnerable will have had the jab anyway. When I caught swine flu my husband did not catch it, so his flu jab presumably worked. We each must take responsibility for our own health.

I will be having the flu jab, and indeed paid for it before I reached the magic 65. One year I did have an inflamed and itchy arm for a week afterwards, but the other times I had no reaction. I am influenced (sorry about the pun) by the memory of Asian Flu in the 50s and the death of one of my neighbour's children at just 13. Surely all medical treatment is a risk, but I happily admit to being swayed by emotional factors as well as the science.

It's a dilemma isn't it? I'm not going to have one, as I'm a coward. I know two people who developed Guillome barre ( spelling???)" syndrome after the flu jab....possibly a coincidence of course. I agree with the herd immunity aspect for childhood vaccinations , but not sure it's the same for flu. having said that I'm not a very scientific soul.

Here is another study - jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=383571 which comes to a different conclusion.

"Design. —Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

Setting. —Fifteen family practices in the Netherlands during influenza season 1991-1992.

Participants. —A total of 1838 subjects aged 60 years or older, not known as belonging to those high-risk groups in which vaccination was previously given.

Intervention. —Purified split-virion vaccine containing A/Singapore/6/86(H1N1), A/Beijing/353/89(H3N2), B/Beijing/1/87, and B/Panama/45/90 (n=927) or intramuscular placebo containing physiological saline solution (n=911).

Main Outcome Measures. —Patients presenting with influenzalike illness up to 5 months after vaccination; self-reported influenza in postal questionnaires 10 weeks and 5 months after vaccination; serological influenza (fourfold increase of antibody titer between 3 weeks and 5 months after vaccination).

Results. —The incidence of serological influenza was 4% in the vaccine group and 9% in the placebo group (relative risk [RR], 0.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.35 to 0.61). The incidences of clinical influenza were 2% and 3%, respectively (RR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.73). The effect was strongest for the combination of serological and clinical influenza (RR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.74). The effect was less pronounced for self-reported influenza.

Conclusion. —In the elderly, influenza vaccination may halve the incidence of serological and clinical influenza (in periods of antigenic drift).(JAMA. 1994;272:1661-1665) "

As a practising nurse I also know the science.

After my one and only flu vaccine 10 years ago I became so ill, within hours, with flu-like symptoms and was practically bed-ridden for two weeks.

I lost a lot of weight and was so dehydrated that even my gums shrank!

Never again.

I'm not saying the flu vaccine gives you flu Elegran I'm saying it's not very effective in preventing it in 'the elderly'
Here is one study that gives some stats on this.

When I was ill after my jab it wasn't flu....I had that in the 60s epidemic so know what it's like. Whatever I had it was very debilitating, lasted ages and is not an experience I wish to repeat.