Can you / sgould get a flu shot while youre sick?

[diveRN]

If you don't mind my asking, what kind of nurse are you? Just curious.

Critical care/Intensive care is where my experience lies. I've had specific training related to caring for neuro trauma and cardio/thoracic surgical patients. I used to recover CABG/valve pts. My last job was as a Trauma Case Manager in a Level II Trauma Center. I have an ASN degree with a post-nursing-school bachelor's in Microbiology. To be clear, not epidemiology.

I'm an IM resident (to be clear). I've seen quite a bit of influenza this year. A few cases of H1N1 to boot. The ER's here are in full panic mode right now. With everyone with respiratory symptom getting Tamiflu despite normal screens.

We went through this in 2009. The ER I worked in back then actually had to set up special triage areas for respiratory cases. Was crazy... we're not at epidemic levels like that here (yet) so far as I know, but I've also been off work since before Thanksgiving and haven't been following the current state of things outside of what's printed in our local rag.

I find most of the reasons for NOT getting the Flu shot are cultural, anecdotal, and/or generally silly. It can commonly cause a mild reaction, which is common and can generally be avoided by taking some Tylenol with it.

Isn't your description of why those who don't get flu shots anecdotal as well? ("I find..." as bolded above) You find reasons for not getting one "silly" because your experience and training leads you to conclude that they're silly. I doubt the patients who refuse it find it so.

Anecdotal evidence shouldn't be discounted because what works with one person may differ from what empiric data suggests vis-a-vis the stated efficacy of the flu shot, the CDC's track record for getting the strain right, and the well-documented cases of reactions to it. Do most people get sick or have reactions to the flu shot? Probably not, but my 10 years+ of experience tells me that many do, and that some reactions are pretty severe.

Again, I'm not against vaccinations. Everyone in my immediate family has had their share of various vaccines and boosters since childhood. IMO, the CDC misses more often than not when determining prevalent strains for vaccine production. Further, efficacy is BEST CASE 50% and in some years it's less than 5%. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-capitalist in any sense, but much of the push to vaccinate is driven by money, BIG money, and I simply choose not to participate for a variety of reasons.

I agree that most people would be most helped by a healthy diet, quitting smoking, and regular exercise. I'm quite sure those surgical masks won't help much, and avoiding crowds is somewhat unrealistic for most.

It won't keep you from getting the flu. It does reduce the number of people who die from influenza.

The surgical mask requirements on employees are indeed a joke, mainly because facilities let family and friends come and go as they please when visiting patients and my experience tells me that most visitors are not flu-vaccinated. Overall, family and friends spend far more time with patients than any one, particular staff member does. Visitors are exempted because the hospitals don't want any more negative reflecting on their Press-Ganey scores. The mask mandate was actually handed down by the county's Public Health Chief on the recommendation of the CDC. Interestingly, the PH Chief in our county is an IM doc with little experience in epidemiology or infectious disease.

I wore a mask on the plane ride last year because I invariably get sick after I fly... I've had people sneeze and cough directly at me with no attempt to cover it and when you sit in such close proximity to so many as you do on a plane (with poor air circulation on top of it), my belief is that masks help some. Considering that the airborne and droplet producing vectors are the most common for transmitting flu pathogens, masks certainly won't hurt when combined with meticulous hand-washing.

Many may not be able to avoid crowds, but many can. When I have to be around a lot of people during flu season, such as the trip to Costco I'm making later, I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket, I wash my hands regularly, and I don't spend any more time in such places than I have to.

I won't argue that the flu vaccine reduces the number of people who die from the disease. All vaccines have that benefit. I'm not a researcher or statistician, but it'd be interesting to see what comorbidities those who died from the flu had when they contracted the disease.

 

[Southpaw]

Why is it that getting the flu shot is so important today as opposed to when I grew up in the 70's and 80's and the flu was just something you got and dealt with for a few days with bed rest and plenty of fluids?

Growing up in my family, we would get it every year, usually at the same time, and then it was gone. No one ever got so bad that they needed a doctor or hospital.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Why is it that getting the flu shot is so important today as opposed to when I grew up in the 70's and 80's and the flu was just something you got and dealt with for a few days with bed rest and plenty of fluids?

Growing up in my family, we would get it every year, usually at the same time, and then it was gone. No one ever got so bad that they needed a doctor or hospital.

I think it's partly due to our ever deteriorating nutrition in this country. Back in the 70s and 80s we still ate fairly balanced diets and still had a good amount of vitamins and nutrients in our food. Nowadays our soil is rather deficient in many things beyond the minimum NPK required to grow crops. As a result many people have sub-clinical deficiencies of most major vitamins including C and D which are incredibly vital to a healthy immune system. This leads to more people being so immuno-compromised that even basic flu strains stand a better chance of killing you, especially if you are young or elderly. Instead of advocating more proper nutrition the CDC (which is of course largely run by big pharma, same as the FDA) simply says be lazy and get your flu shot, helping to make millions for the pharmaceuticals every year.

It's sad that because the profit margin on vitamins is so low big pharma does everything to minimize the effects of proper nutrition (going as far as using their influence to lower the recommended daily allowance to low enough levels to just avoid full blown clinical deficiency diseases like scurvy, rickets and goiter). Then the vitamins the big companies do make are generally non-bioavailable forms of vitamins, based in many cases on petroleum products, that are barely absorbed (if at all). Combine that with processed foods and chemicals in our food that greatly hamper our digestive systems ability to even absorb the bio-available stuff readily and it's a disaster. It's no wonder that "study" recently showed that multi-vitamins don't help too many people.

 

[diveRN]

Why is it that getting the flu shot is so important today as opposed to when I grew up in the 70's and 80's and the flu was just something you got and dealt with for a few days with bed rest and plenty of fluids?

Growing up in my family, we would get it every year, usually at the same time, and then it was gone. No one ever got so bad that they needed a doctor or hospital.

A few reasons:

1. Money - The cost to prevent disease is cheaper than the cost to treat disease. There's a HUGE push from all levels of medicine and government for preventative care going on in the country today. Prevention is a good thing as it relates to the end-game of saving lives and improving health, but sometimes the means by which it's accomplished are questionable. This is my biggest issue with the whole vaccination push. People find it easier to go to the doctor and get a pill to fix what ails them vs taking steps themselves to improve health. The health care industry is simply responding.

2. Money - There is HUGE money in vaccines and the research associated with them. I'm not saying it should be done, but if you removed the profit motive from the companies doing the research and developing the vaccines, there wouldn't be as much clamor about them. There would also be a corresponding increase in deaths from the disease.

3. The Internet/Media - There were several pandemic outbreaks of the flu in the 1970's, which most likely resulting in hospitalizations. The reason they weren't as widely regarded was because the Internet and media outlets, as we know them today, weren't around back then. We have access to instant news today and news of epidemics travels globally within hours, not days or weeks.

 

[Sapper740]

I get the feeling from some of the posts that people are allowing their antipathy to large multi-national corporations to get in the way of properly evaluating the efficacy of inoculations. Smallpox used to kill 5,000,000 humans every year until a world-wide innoculation program eradicated it. Does the fact that some companies made money from vaccine taint this victory? Another 5,000,000 people have been saved from a life-time of paralysis by the Poliomyelitus vaccine,.... some of you might remember the Iron Lungs that sufferers were doomed to live out their lives in not too many years ago. Yeah, someone probably made money from those too. For shame!

 

[HillRider]

I am getting conflicting info on whether it s a good or bad idea to get a flu shot while you're sick?

What say TGT?

Yeah, bombard an already weakened immune system with thousands of viral strains that are potentially active (meaning not properly deactivated by the numerous chemical compounds included in the vaccine). I wouldn't either way. Everyone knows at least several people who immediately got sick as hell right after taking the shot. That's no coincidence.

 

[HillRider]

I get the feeling from some of the posts that people are allowing their antipathy to large multi-national corporations to get in the way of properly evaluating the efficacy of inoculations. Smallpox used to kill 5,000,000 humans every year until a world-wide innoculation program eradicated it. Does the fact that some companies made money from vaccine taint this victory? Another 5,000,000 people have been saved from a life-time of paralysis by the Poliomyelitus vaccine,.... some of you might remember the Iron Lungs that sufferers were doomed to live out their lives in not too many years ago. Yeah, someone probably made money from those too. For shame!

This post is inaccurate. There is more evidence suggesting that proper hygiene, sanitation, clean water and sewage systems, refrigeration, better nutrition, and modern medical care in the last 60 years played the biggest roles in eradicating most of the scourges of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Who has gotten Cholera recently? No vaccine for that.

 

[Sapper740]

This post is inaccurate. There is more evidence suggesting that proper hygiene, sanitation, clean water and sewage systems, refrigeration, better nutrition, and modern medical care in the last 60 years played the biggest roles in eradicating most of the scourges of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Who has gotten Cholera recently? No vaccine for that.

Really? What part of my post was inaccurate?

 

[HillRider]

Really? What part of my post was inaccurate?

It always goes back to smallpox and polio. Neither were eradicated by inoculation.

 

[TX69]

Been a nurse a long time. Never had a flu shot, never will.

why?

 

[Brains]

He covered that already Post #11

 

[diveRN]

I get the feeling from some of the posts that people are allowing their antipathy to large multi-national corporations to get in the way of properly evaluating the efficacy of inoculations.

If you're referring to me, I have no animus towards large corporations. None what-so-ever. But I'll submit the opposite theory: that large profits are leading to overstated efficacy and understated alternatives.

Smallpox used to kill 5,000,000 humans every year until a world-wide innoculation program eradicated it.

From the CDC web site:

• It is estimated that washing hands with soap and water could reduce diarrheal disease-associated deaths by up to 50%.
• Researchers in London estimate that if everyone routinely washed their hands, a million deaths a year could be prevented.
• A large percentage of food borne disease outbreaks are spread by contaminated hands. Appropriate hand washing practices can reduce the risk of food borne illness and other infections.
• Handwashing can reduce the risk of respiratory infections by 16%.
• The use of an alcohol gel hand sanitizer in the classroom provided an overall reduction in absenteeism due to infection by 19.8% among 16 elementary schools and 6,000 students.

If the above is true, why do you think there haven't been (recent) similar programs/campaigns/events (a-la flu shots) promoting frequent and aggressive hand washing? I don't recall ever seeing signs in front of Walgreens or CVS saying, "Come in and Wash Your Hands Here!" ... could have missed them though. Recurring money each year is behind this huge push to vaccinate. Inf A and B, and now H1N1, are arguably the most common strains of the flu and vaccines for them are in EVERY flu shot each year. Do you really think you need an annual vaccination against these?

I submit that taking appropriate measures can and does lead to decreased incidences of the flu and that a flu-shot, in an otherwise healthy population, is neither the ONLY nor the best solution.

"School nurses collected nasal swabs from students with ILI (Influenza-Like Illness), which were tested by using a qualitative diagnostic test for influenza A and B. Compared with results for the control group, in the intervention group, overall absences caused by ILI, diarrhea, conjunctivitis, and laboratory-confirmed influenza were reduced by 40%, 30%, 67%, and 50%, respectively (p<0.0001 for each illness). An intensive hand hygiene campaign was effective in reducing absenteeism caused by these illnesses."

While handwashing is certainly promoted by the CDC, linked statistical data is buried on their web site. Source here.
​

Does the fact that some companies made money from vaccine taint this victory? Another 5,000,000 people have been saved from a life-time of paralysis by the Poliomyelitus vaccine,....

Absolutely not. My semi-analytical comments above were in no way meant to be a condemnation of the profit motive that drives R&D. I simply stated my opinion as to why there's been such a huge push to vaccinate against the flu.

...some of you might remember the Iron Lungs that sufferers were doomed to live out their lives in not too many years ago. Yeah, someone probably made money from those too. For shame!

Again, there is NO SHAME in making a profit. Not sure where I inferred that it was. However, there is a large and growing segment of the population that doesn't want to put such chemicals in their body each and every year, especially when no long term data exists showing what the effects are.

I'm of the opinion that when there are alternative solutions available to what "every one else is doing," I'm going to look at them hard and long and see if they hold any water. In this case, I think flu shots are being overblown and the alternatives are being downplayed.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

I want to state as well I have no problems with companies making profit. Where I think things go wrong is when a company uses lobbying and insider influence in government agencies to minimize the effects of something effective that is low profit margin while vigorously promoting something with lower efficacy and high profit margins and then push this info on the unassuming masses. Basically it all comes down to the fact that we need consumers ALLOT more educated about personal health than they are now, and no I don't want this done through government agencies (or the DOE). It should be done with grassroots efforts and getting people engaged enough to actually go do the research on peer reviewed studies on health, especially ones that aren't just performed, reviewed and or funded by the industries that stand to make a profit off misleading or false studies. Informed consumers are an absolutely vital backbone to the health of a free market and that is something we unfortunately lack right now thanks to the revolving doors between all powerful, all knowing government agencies and the industries they are related to/charged with regulating.

Let me also state I'm not against vaccines per say (personally I am, but it has more to do with my trypanophobia or extreme fear of needles). I am however against these companies that promote vaccines as if they are the only savior of the human race on this planet when they only play a part (and sometimes a rather small one) in the eradication of epidemics. Most of these pharmaceuticals are not what I consider a shining example of free market economics given their very incestuous relationships with agencies such as the FDA and HHS.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

Why in the world would anyone EVER get a flu shot? IMO this would be like getting shots/vaccine for a common cold. Hell, people have probably died from a cold, but they were probably special or rare cases possibly due to some unique genetic/physical conditions, and likely unhealthy people living unhealthy lifestyles with unhealthy diets. Although I'm not sure this is actually the case or not, I don't remember there even being vaccines or shots for the flu several years ago? Seems like a product of the last decade possibly, and yet another way to monetize something in the pharma world that is probably entirely unnecessary, with a lot of potential downsides. It's the freakin flu! Start with good nutrition, take some other steps to protect yourself in a natural manner with making good choices, and that's probably all you really need to do. If you get the flu, oh well, suffer through it for a few days, take it easy, keep having HEALTHY habits while you have it, and it'll pass on by.

I have had the flu like once, maybe twice in my life, and that was 15-20 years ago. Not one single time since then. I rarely drink but a few times a year, never smoked one single thing and never done one single drug. Also, I cut out as much sugar from my diet as possible, to the point of rarely even eating fruit (I usually get not much more than 20-30g/day). Excess sugar in the diet can reduce immune function substantially, and for hours/days on end. I personally think Dan is right. If you live a healthy life and have regular, healthy habits, the flu isn't something you should be worried about, let alone getting vaccines for. Don't have crappy nutritional habits. Don't have crappy life habits.

 

[Southpaw]

^^ Personally, I don't think you even need to take it as far Sig does (nothing wrong with it) and you will still be fine. I work in retail (surrounded by germs) and am not an excessive hand washer. I do a better job at eating these days and I don't drink anymore, but could have wrote a book on how to pollute one's body prior. I like my snacks and am not finishing any marathons. I have not had the flu in over 6 or 7 years and the last time I went to the doctors was for a sinus infection 2 or so years ago, the visit before that probably was 10 or so years before that, I can't remember what for, but I'm thinking it was for strep throat. My point is that I agree that the flu thing is hyped beyond belief. If there was a candidate to be sick all the time, that candidate would surely be or definitelyhave been me, but alas, I am quite the opposite.

 

[Acera]

Don't trust the big pharm companies, feel they are as bad if not worse than big farm.

Regarding the comments about Polio....................you will love this.
CDC and Friends Sprinting Towards the Polio ?Finish Line,? by Suzanne Humphries, MD | International Medical Council on Vaccination

(Don't like the results, call the disease you are attempting to cure something else and it is all good )

 

[Texas42]

You don't want to know the statistics on how often nurses, MD's, or other healthcare professional wash their hands in tha clinical setting. It didn't cure Polio.

The Polio vaccine was unusually efficacious, relatively non-toxic, and contagious. . . . There is a vaccine in the US that is not a live virus and will not give you polio. It is more expensive, and really not used in 3rd world countries, whom use the original vaccine live virus version.

Vitamins. . . . yeah, there isn't any money in vitamins and suppliments. That is why that isle at HEB if 50 feet long, and there are dozens of comercials on TV. Frankly. I have no idea how much money is made on vaccinations. They are like $35 at walgreens. I think the inhaled one is more right now. Almost all insurances will cover some or much of it. Wait till you try and get a course of linezolid . . . or better yet, see how much an ICU day costs on a patient whom is intubated, on 3 different IV antibiotics to start off with, has a central line, gastric tube, foley catheter, and three of four drips running costs.

I won't convince anyone here to get a flu shot. I'll continue to get mine. A flu shot won't help you if you are acutely ill, as it takes a couple weeks for your immunes system to provides defenses against the proteins in the flu shot.

And to the above, if your sugars are uncontrolled, no your immune system is not functioning at 100%. Only really important if you are a diabetic.

 

[diveRN]

You don't want to know the statistics on how often nurses, MD's, or other healthcare professional wash their hands in tha clinical setting. It didn't cure Polio.

True enough on the hand washing stats. As part of a JCAHO preparedness survey, charges sampled (on the sly) one night when I was still in the ICU: One nurse washed her hands 137 times in a 12 1/2 hour shift. About once every ten minutes.

However, handwashing wasn't really prevalent back when polio was "cured." Back then, MDs still smoked at the bedside when rounding on patients.



Yeah, those are cigarettes the nurse is selling to the patient.

 

[Renegade]

I am getting conflicting info on whether it s a good or bad idea to get a flu shot while you're sick?

What say TGT?

They have a questionaire you fill out when you want the shot.

 

[Renegade]

Why in the world would anyone EVER get a flu shot? .

Because the three doctors in my family told me to get one every year.