Do any of yall take the flu shot? I have never taken one, but my wife keeps gettin after me to go get one.My brother got one last year and he said it made him sick for about a week.Was wondering if any of yall had any side effects from it?

If u have went this long there is no way I would get one, I haven't ever got one myself. I don't agree with some of the chemicals that are in those things

I was thinking the same thang.

The first time that I ever got a flu shot I felt like I immediately got sick. 4 hours after it, I had all the symptoms of the flu.

So I blamed it and hated flu shots for a while.

But then I realized: the flu shot could not have given me the flu, unless it was magic.

Think about it: There's at least 24 hours of incubation for the flu, usually 48 or more, for any kind of viral infection...*nothing* injected into you can cause symptoms that fast. It isn't possible.
(Even if someone injected you with smallpox, you wouldn't get the symptoms of smallpox for 2-4 days after.)

So I asked a friend of mine, who is an Infectious Diseases Specialist at OHSU..he said,

-It takes an entire week for the flu shot to really protect you.
-It does so by introducing your immune system to dead flu virus cells.
-Your immune system encounters them, identifies them, and then starts to produce antibodies. (It's fooled into thinking it's a real infection.)
-It takes days for those antibodies to protect you...enough of them have to accumulate in your bloodstream for defense to work. (Good guys have to outnumber bad guys.)

So, what is happening when you get sick *right after* a flu shot?

-You already had contact with the flu, days earlier, and it was in its incubation period already inside you.
-The introduced *dead* flu virus that came with your flu shot activated your immune system.
-Your immune system thought you were infected earlier than it normally would have realized it due to the dead cells sounding a sort of "alarm" in your body.
-You get the symptoms of your infection right away, rather than later, because your body has now raised the alarm and gone into full-fledged war with the infection.
-A certain percentage of the population always has these "reactions" to a flu shot every now and then, because a certain percentage of the population has always been exposed to the flu before they get it.

The doc told me to get another flu shot, this time *before* the flu season really began, and he assured me I wouldn't have the same reaction. The odds would be really small.

He was right. And now I get them every year. I see poor saps around me in college coming down with it, and my family members...and I stay upright and fine.

I personally like getting the flu shot now and I don't care about the "brain damage" fear-mongering. Most doctors get the flu shot and you don't see legions of docs running around like Mad Hatters.

The flu shot can't give you the flu, there are no live viruses in the vaccine. Great debate over the dangers of the ingredients.........but how many of us glove up when shooting or reloading to protect us from the lead? Or wear a respirator because we drive a diesel and may inhale some fumes?

Man I never get that shot.But last year I got so sick I couldnt believe it.I can handle pain great.But give me a fever of 1 degree and I am the biggest puss around.I am getting older now.So I figure its time I start getting the shot.

My daughter-in-law was required to get a flu shot about this time last year because she works at Wayne Memorial Hospital. Before Thanksgiving she came down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which is a side effect of the flu shot. After one year, she still hasn't fully recovered. I avoid the flu shot like the plague after seeing what she went through, from being in ICU to not fully recovering.

I'm a nurse. I take care of sick people all the time. Never gotten a flu shot, never got the flu.

No vaccines here.

Had the flu shot one time and got so sick ,it was unreal.Never have gotten the shot since.

Vitamin D3 is 8 times better than a flue shot. If you take a good amount of it.

X2 What strength do you take?

I didn't know that, but I do take some D3.
I've never had a flu shot, that I can remember.

Flu sure seems bad this year for people.

I was at the Dr today. He tried talking me into the flu shot. I don't think I've ever had that shot. He said even though it's not 100% effective, people who do get the flu often don't get it as bad if they've had the flu shot. Plus he said getting the flu shot annually helps the body progressively build up a sort of increased resistance to the flu.

I’m a 23 year old woman, and got this shot once as a preteen.
Growing up I was raised in a family where we didn’t take part in a lot of these vaccines and shots, and I don’t now.
My doctor always raises a fuss at me but I stand firm - I just don’t get one.
The one time I did, 2-3 days after I got all the symptoms and got really sick. Not worth it to me.

I've heard the ingredients in the annual flu shot are a guess each year as to what will work best

The ONLY time I got talked into the flu shot I got sick. I was out of work for three weeks. According to this thread I already had it and it was just coincidence. Haven’t gotten it since and no more coincidence flu.

3 weeks, wow.

I talked to a nurse about flu shots this fall and told her every time I got a flu shot it works as I got the flu. The way she explained it was that this is over 400 variants of flu but once you get a shot you become resilient to that strain. Each year the "experts" decide which variant they are targeting. So technically after 400 years of flu shots theoretically you'll no longer need them as you should be completely immune to all the variants of the flu.

The rate of flu vaccination shots is down this year