Flu Vaccine

I always get the flu jab but in 2017 after my flu jab I contracted flu....awful I felt.

Better book the jab!

..."they used". Not sure where "together" came from.

I have been having the 'flu jab for several years though I had never had the 'flu, and every year I get a pain in my arm that lasts quite a few days. Last year there was a lot of fuss about the shortage of vaccine, and when I turned up at Boots for my appointment they didn't have any. I managed to find a pharmacy with adequate supplies, and had it done there. My doctor offered it to me a few weeks later, and was very put out that I'd been e!sewhere. She said together the revenue to pay the ancillary staff. I somehow managed to bite my tongue for reasons of self-preservation, and have booked my appointment at Boots again - ever the optimist!

Hi, Blue Sky, I think you should seriously consider having the flu jag. I've never had flu, thankfully, listening to other Gnetters, but I developed serious pleurisy years ago after receiving radioactive iodine treatment for overactive thyroid. My thyroid became profoundly underactive and my immune system collapsed. It took me months and three antibiotics to recover, so if flu is anything like pleurisy I seriously want to avoid it.
I am still doing supply teaching since I retired so I can go to the school office and get a voucher to take to Lloyds Pharmacy for free flu injection. My grandchildren get the nasal flu vaccine at school also, peace of mind.
Best wishes.

I’ve asthma and will be first in line for it. Don’t want to tempt fate!

I've had it for a few years now as I was caring for my parents to begin with. Last year I wasn't going to bother but the surgery rang up twice insisting we both made appointments. I was also given the pneumonia jab - no ill effects from either apart from a sore arm.

You can’t get flu from the vaccine as it’s not live. Just because you’ve never had flu doesn’t mean you won’t get it ever, it can and does kill perfectly healthy people every year.
You can also carry the virus without showing symptoms and give it to small babies/ vulnerable immune suppressed people/pregnant women if you haven’t been vaccinated. Worth thinking about if you come into contact with this group of people.
You may be unlucky enough to get a different strain of flu to those included in the vaccine but that’s not a logical reason to not get vaccinated the next year. In fact there are very few logical reasons for not getting vaccinated.

Funny this thread should come up today. This morning my health centre rang to ask if I wanted a flu jab. I've not had one before, but I'm 68 this year, and thought it was a good idea. It's booked for the first week of October for both DH and I.

Don't know how. Its not a live vaccine.

Just as an add on from my previous post.

In spring of this year, my mother in law died from influenza. (Confirmed on death certificate) .

She was treated on a hospital isolation ward.
All visitors instructed to wear masks and gowns.

Ironically my MIL had always refused to be vaccinated against flu.
She always insisted that the one and only time she had the flu vaccination it had made her ill.

I pay for my flu jab but would happily pay double for it. Good luck to those of you willing to play Russian roulette with a serious, potentially fatal illness.

As I have COPD, I'm "supposed" to have it, so I probably will!

I don’t have flu jabs but am waiting for the drug companies to realise there’s money to be made out of vaccines against headaches, in-grown toe nails and swollen ankles.

Only had the flu jab once and it was the year that they didn't anticipate the strain of flu very accurately. I got flu, despite the jab and was really poorly for weeks. I haven't bothered since and I won't bother this winter either.

All positive experiences here, but I am the sort of person who reads the side effects leaflet before taking a paracetamol! Still some food for thought. Thank you.

I m in reasonably good health too and didn’t want the vaccine but a few years back two friends nearly died and were in intensive care so I started having it and since having it I ve not even barely had a cold (I know colds are different and are viruses but maybe it keeps my immune system healthier) I also had the shingles and the pneumonia jab
I ve never had any ill effects from any of them
I haven’t seen any adverts or invitations in my area yet

Excellent Greenfinch good health to you.

I am with you NanKate.

My husband had 'proper' flu and was flat out in bed so I had to look after him. As I have asthma, I had had a flu jab and I did not catch his bugs.

He is horrible when he is not well and I remember waking him up to drink a pint of water and take some paracetamol. I expected a torrent of abuse but he just meekly did as he was told and went back to sleep.

For a few years now, I have had the flu vaccine done at our local chemist.
I still pay for mine.
DH qualifies for at free one, he always takes up the offer.

After an OP I came down with shingles (winter 2014/15) possibly due to my immune system being a bit low, Just recovered when wham, I came down with my first Flu.
I says first, as everything else pales into insignificance.

For over a week I could hardly move from the couch, no way could I contemplate the stairs.
First high fever and then cold sweats.
Sipping only water, could not eat any form of food.
Every part of me ached and head had a constant drumming.

For months afterwards I felt weak and my bones physically hurt.

I am fit and reasonably healthy at the moment. But I do not want to go through that type of flu ever again,

I can't advise others, but for me it's the flu jag.
Fingers and toes crossed that the scientists have identified the correct strain for 2019/20.

My Dd has a yearly flu jab and my Grandsons have the flu nasel spray.

I have any jab going and feel psychologically better afterwards.

Alas MawB, at 63 and in fine fettle generally, I don’t get it for free although I did ask when DH was getting his due to heart/asthma. I trot along to Asda and pay £7/8 which is well worth it IMO.

The pharmacy adjoining our G.P’s surgery (Boots) started offering flu jabs last year, booking you in when you collected your prescriptions. Worked very well, no cattle market queue like it is at the surgery.
When I went for an annual asthma check a little while later, the nurse was very put out that I had been ‘done’ at the pharmacy. Gave me a lecture how they ordered in sufficient quantities to cover all eligible patients, and how I had inadvertently messed up the system! Not the only one obviously! She finished by instructing me to have it done at the surgery in future.
I pointed this out at the pharmacy later, said I understood perfectly how they all get paid to do the jabs so it’s a free for all, but also said what a pity they cannot all work together.
P.S. Have booked at the surgery for this year, what a coward I am!

Having had proper flu one Christmas when I was a lot younger, I always have the jab. That dose of flu knocked my stuffing right out for over 3 weeks.
(Gross alert!!). I coughed so much that for quite a while afterwards my over-strained muscles meant that every time I coughed I both leaked wee and farted at the same time.
And as I said, I was a lot younger then.
Having the jab is a no brainer IMO.

Had the flu jab for the past twenty years.
Never had a bad reaction.
Never had the flu since having the jab.