drumroll please…
According to the CDC, the flu vaccine is on the way if not there already! Hoorah! Of course, I cringe every year thinking back to 2000-2001 when my husband had a serious reaction (brachial plexus neuritis/neuropathy) to his flu vaccine. Watching him reabilitate for a full year including but not limited to learning how to use his right arm again, learning how to golf again, and muscle atrophy/regrowth has really made me shy away from receiving the vaccine. I STILL every year get the same reaction from the medical community I interact with professionally or even as a patient.
Guess what? I’ve never had the flu to begin with.
The flu vaccine protects against the three main flu strains that research indicates will cause the most illness during the flu season. This year’s influenza vaccine contains three new influenza virus strains.
They are:
A/Brisbane/59/2007(H1N1)-like virus;
A/Brisbane/10/2007 (H3N2)-like virus;
B/Florida/4/2006-like virus.
The 2008-09 influenza vaccine can protect you from getting sick from these three viruses, or it can make your illness milder if you get a related but different strain of flu virus.
Remember last year when the wrong strains were chosen basically wasting everyone’s time.
I’ll pass.
Tags: Flu, flu vaccine, vaccinations
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September 24, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Did you look at the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for your husband? It normally applies to children but the precedent is that adults that receive vaccines that are indicated for children are also eligible for compensation.
September 25, 2008 at 4:01 am
It’s already been sitting in our fridge since at least sometime last week. I live in a state where pharmacists can administer flu shots and our first clinic is in about 2 weeks.
I have gotten a shot every year since I actually had the flu. I get exposed to the flu a zillion times during flu season since my store gets a ton of urgent care scripts for Tamiflu (and these sick people always come inside to hack their germs all over while the overweight guy picking up his Lipitor refill goes through the drive thru). I might have gotten it once since then, but I never got tested, so who knows.
We already filled our first prescription for Tamiflu this weekend. The guy said he made the doctor test even though he didn’t want to because the only time he felt like this before was when he had the flu, and the test came back positive. I hope this is an isolated incidence, because if not, we are screwed like we were a few years ago when it hit so early (we had a 30+ minute wait at midnight several nights that year).
September 25, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I’ll have to check into that compensation thing, but it was several years ago… statute of limitations?
Flu in September? NOT A GOOD SIGN…
I hope it’s not that bad. I hope I haven’t jinxed myself!
September 27, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Had the person with the flu in September been travelling or exposed to someone who had? I had the flu in July once – a friend from Australia was visiting, someone on her flight had it. Turns out, that person got off in L.A., and the hospitals were overwhelmed with flu cases. In this age of air travel, there is no real “flu season”…
October 12, 2008 at 5:50 am
I had one customer who had brachial neuritis from a vaccine she got. She recovered after about 6 months. will I get the shot? yes, for 3 reasons.1) I am a pharmacist and too many people cough/breathe on me. 2) I dont want to get the flu and 3) if I get it, I dont want to GIVE it to anybody else. BN is rather rare, but it may not seem that way when you have personally experienced it.