No flu shot for me. Each year there is a variant of the flu virus like the covid virus and it's hit or miss if the flu shot will be effective I've read and my doctor agrees. Taking covid precautions will also distance yourself from any other transmissible diseases like the seasonal flu.
No but I will get it the last week or so of October. I have said this on here before but I will say it again. I have had flu twice and both times I seriously thought I was going to die. The flu shot is painless and free. I have never had any side effects from it. No way I would risk getting flu again by not taking it.
We will be getting the Senior Double-Dose Flu Shot sometime the first or second week of October. In December 2010, before wife and I started getting the Senior Double-Dose Flu shot, and on New Year's Eve weekend, I started to cough pretty bad. Not quite bad enough to go to the ER, but bad enough. Wife took 1/2 day off of work on Monday to take me to PCP. He prescribed a heavy-duty cough medicine and sent me to have an x-ray. Well, I had a spot of pneumonia in my one lung. I was also given an antibiotic. I seriously thought I was going to die and told my wife that. I had never/ever cough like that before. Thank God for the prescription cough med and antibiotic, I fully recovered.............BUT, wife and I totally agreed that after that happened, we'd get the Double-Dose each and every year. Now, my VA doctor did tell me that the Senior Double-Dose won't stop a Senior from getting the flu, but you won't wind up in the ER or hospital either. During our winter months, we always have Hall's Cough Drops and OTC Cold/Flu Medicine on hand (and both with current dates). There are those Seniors, like my SIL (wife's sister) that refuses to get the Senior Double-Dose, but that is completely up to her.
I have never had a flu shot, and have not had a serious cold since I was in my 20s. My doctors also recommend it, and I thank them for their concern. It's truly touching.
If I recall correctly, there is generally a 1-in-3 chance of them ancitipating the right virus and a 1-in-3 chance that the vaccine will do you any good if you ARE infected with a virus you've been vaccinated against, so that means there is a 1-in-9 chance (1/3 x 1/3 = 11%) that a given flu vaccine will do you any good at all.
I have had the flu vaccine once, and I was sick for days afterward. Considering that I have only had the actual flu twice in seventy years of life, and I didn't have to see a doctor about it either time, I think that passing on the yearly flu vaccine is a safe gamble.
This, like Covid, should be an individual decision for senor adults. Also, like Covid, children shouldn't be required to get it. I stopped getting the flu vaccine after a reaction that sent me to the ER. The only time I have gotten the flu since was when my wife, who was vaccinated, brought it home from work and infected our family. We received Tamiflu and recovered together binge-watching A Band of Brothers.
I had a fairly bad reaction to the one I was forced to take in 1967 as did several other soldiers in my company. Never again.
So, apparently, the Senior one is fine for some and definitely not for others. Then again, there are prescription meds that help some folks very much, but do very little-to-nothing for others and they stop using them. The Senior one isn't mandatory for Seniors, but, just like Lon, our PCP's highly, highly recommend it and, for us, it works. As far as making the Covid 19 vaccine mandatory or not, well that is very, very controversial.
Got a question for ya. How do you know it works? Since you have yet to catch the virus to know if it works it’s kinda hard to make that assessment. Jus’ sayin’.