Flu Shot Plague?

About a week ago, my parents starting to bug me about getting a flu shot. I really didn’t want one, but since it was a requirement for my job (I work in a nursing home), I had to go and get “needled” anyways. I went to the nursing station and they did the job, then I went home.

About three hours after I had gotten the shot I started feeling sick. REALLY sick. I had a runny nose, a sore throat and my head was absolutely throbbing. I went to bed early, and when I got up the next morning I was feeling even worse. I was essentially debilitated for about 4 days with what could only be described as “the sickness from hell.”

I thought that flu shots were supposed to PREVENT sickness, but this one almost hospitalized me. Has anyone else had a similiar experience?

Perhaps they gave you too big of a dose? Maybe your immune system is too weak?

A friend of mine was immunized was given one of those shots that everybody in north america gets in gr 3/4 and he got a weak form of the disease. It was almost funny 'cause one little needle gave him a horrendously high temperature and laid him out for two weeks.

I find flu shots laughable and the obsession people have with taking useless flu shots even more so. Though since you’re in that line of work, you at least have a reason less superficial than paranoia and self-delusion.

Anyway, not all vaccines are “safe”. Vaccines are nothing more than “killed” pathogens that make your immune system respond. You either were unlucky with the particular batch you were given, your system and body didn’t handle the vaccine well or both. For example, the anthrax vaccine can be deadly.

Vacines are not 100% effective. I remember having read somewhere that the flu vacine works at best on 60% (or something close to that) of the people who take a shot. One of the reasons for it is that the flu virus (influenza) mutates very fast, creating new brands of itself in relatively short time. The shot only prevents flu that comes from one brand of influenza. You probably caught a brand of influenza different from the one they used to make that shot.

Edit: just saw that Sin beat me to saying that it ain’t that effective. If one really wishes to avoid a flu, it’s way more effective to do things we’ve learned back in the first years of school: always wash your hands after having contact with stuff other people touched, ingest a reasonable amount of vitamine C etc.

Yeah your immune response didn’t handle it too well because the dose was too large, too effective or you just came into contact with more people with the flu. Just unlucky I guess :stuck_out_tongue:

Originally posted by Zombie_Ori
A friend of mine was immunized was given one of those shots that everybody in north america gets in gr 3/4 and he got a weak form of the disease. It was almost funny 'cause one little needle gave him a horrendously high temperature and laid him out for two weeks.

HEPATITIS? Isnt that the shot they give you?

Heh, I think my imune system is relatively strong, though I did recently get sick from that flu thats all over the place (you know, the one that killed an 18-year old), but I otherwise don’t get sick often.

But I remember my dad taking some flu shots and getting sick from it. Methinks that whatever method is being used to weaken the virii is a little too weak.

It’s usually dilution. They must have some standard that they perceive to be weak enough for everyone receive with relative safety. The best method, however, is only using the protein shells of the virus to let the immune system identify it instead of fighting an actual virus.

I got sick just a day before I got a shot, but we didn’t realize it at the time. Lead to a wacky experience.

Sometimes vaccines will make a person ill after reception - I’ve heard of it a lot with flu shots. Does anyone know someone who tried the FluMist vaccine?

I don’t get flu shots (I haven’t had the flu in many years, but when I was younger I would be out for a solid week every year), but I think that people who are at risk for being sicker from the flu than from the vaccine and people who are a higher risk for greater spreading of germs (like having jobs requiring a high amount of personal interaction) should be vaccinated.

By the way… clicka.
I thought this was interesting.

Some said they were concerned the vaccine would not provide as much protection against the Fujian strain of flu that was thought most likely to dominate this year’s flu season, according to a transcript of the group’s deliberations.

The Fujian strain, which emerged in the Far East, is now responsible for 75 percent of U.S. flu cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
They vaccinated me against the wrong kind of flu, I suppose.

I don’t get flu shots because that’s when they get you.

I’d rather get the flu and be over with it than get a flu shot. Although a friend of a friend was sick with the flu, and then afterwards for the flu shot when she was better and got the flu again. Weird stuff. Although getting a flu shot after having the flu is kind of pointless. You’ve already defeated it.

I haven’t gotten hit by the fuji strain (I think that’s what they’re calling it?), although I did have a cold not long ago. Congested nose, stuffy head, cough, irritated throat - it wasn’t the flu though. I guess I got lucky.

I had a mild form of the flu just about a year ago, during winter vacation (meaning no eating for three days and body aches so bad that I couldn’t sit up, lay down, or stand. So, yeah, constant unrelenting discomfort). That was enough to get me to spend the $15 for the vaccine this year. Even if it isn’t a foolproof failsafe, as long as you don’t have a bad reaction to it (and I never have had a bad reaction to any vaccince, which is why I felt safe enough in getting this one), it can’t do any harm and has the potential to do more than a little good.

Given that I live in a college dorm during normal semesters and am working retail for the break, I figure I’m going to come into contact with something nasty sooner or later. The more I can do to reduce the chance of something bad getting a foothold in my system, the better.

Vicki mentioned why I had a field day when I heard the flu was reaching epidemic proportions. I loved hearing in the news that people were getting sicker and sicker and more and more people were getting flu shots for a strain of the flu we have no vaccine for. The US even called on international stocks! Ignorance… As Merlin said “I don’t get flu shots because that’s when they get you.”, companies prey off people to get flu shots like the dept of homeland security made hardware stores run out of duct tape. As Roger Moore said, this country is dominated by fear…