Do You Get a Flu Shot? Why or why not?
I am always eligible for a flu shot, and my endocrinologist offers every year. When there are flu shot shortages, I am offered along with the elderly. I have an autoimmune disease which let’s me be among the first in line.
I have always declined. I get the flu once every few years, not enough for me to take the chance of getting the flu from the shot. Yeah, yeah, that can’t happen… but why take the chance!? In my experience if something looney that can’t happen to anyone happens, it happens to me. Especially when it has negative health repercussions.
So, do you get a flu shot? ‘Tis the season … or so says the signs outside CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Target, WalMart, my local grocery store… I’m waiting for the signs to appear at my hairdresser’s!
Skirnir Hamilton says
Once I realized that those of us with asthma are supposed to get a yearly flu shot, I have been getting mine as has my husband and son. I don’t particularly like doing it, but I do. I tend to have a sore arm for about two days and that gets a bit in the way of life. Rather that I guess than the flu though.
Stephanie K says
I have gotten the flu shot three times, once while I was pregnant and my doctor really shamed me into it, once to be part of a drug trial (so, really, I may not have gotten a real vaccine), and once because my eight year old wanted to get one, but she wanted to see me get it first. I really don’t care one way or the other, but my husband is very opposed. I find that annoying because he got the flu really bad last year and ruined Thanksgiving at my sister-in-law’s house because he was so sick. I had to drive home. I HATE to drive, and it was dark, and she lives in the middle of nowhere, and she lives on a dirt road, but I digress. My cousin is a nurse and always gets vaccinated, but she opts for the live virus nose spray thing. My neighbor is so paranoid and rants about the uneducated people risking their lives…. I say, do what you gotta do.
Stephanie B says
About 4 months before I got pregnant with my son I got a flu shot. I’d gotten them the 2 previous years too, and I brought up to my doctor that those years I also got the flu. He reassured me that it was a good thing I had gotten the shot or the flu wouldn’t have worse than it was. I’m not a doctor, so I took his word for it. Well, after I got that flu shot in fall 2009, I had a horrible few months of illness. I had not only the regular flu, but swine flu TWICE! The second round of swine flu lead to nasty pneumonia. (and then very shortly after recovering I found out I was pregnant and spent the next 9 months being sick LOL) After that year I have never gotten a flu shot again, neither has my husband, and my son has never gotten one. None of us has had the flu since even though we have been exposed to other people who have had it. Come to think of it, my son is the only kid I know who was on a delayed vaccination schedule and doesn’t get the flu shot, and he is almost never sick.
Amy says
I get the flu shot every year. I work for a health insurance company that is tied to a hospital system and the shot is required for employment. Any employee that has not been vaccinated on or before October 31st was terminated on November 1. This is the way almost all of the health systems are in my neck of the woods (North Eastern Ohio). I would get a shot anyways because I have never had the flu (knock on wood) and don’t ever want to have it.