<p>Also i wonder about touch screen ATM’s. My hospital has one right outside the cafeteria!</p>
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<p>I confess that our family was all well until the holidays. Every time I go to the mall I end up sick…:(<br>
Surfcity I never thought about those pens…gross. I do hate when I have to give my credit card to people. I think the airport is the worst too!! Oh the gas stations…touching the keypad and the nozzle.</p>
<p>^^I’d heard some of the most germ laden items are at the gas station, door knobs (of course), and hotel remotes (eww). I wash my hands every time I use a remote in a hotel. I should just bring a sanitizing wipe with me and help everyone,</p>
<p>I do try to wash my hands frequently (I’m bad about touching my face), but I don’t see any point in being a total germaphobe. I mean, if we are reasonably healthy, we do have immune systems which protect us when encountering microorganisms. Even germaphobes are being exposed to germs in countless places they don’t even realize, and they stay generally healthy. Obviously this is not the case for the immunocompromised.</p>
<p>I get my vaccines, wash my hands as much as reasonably possible, and then don’t worry about it. I do admit to carrying sanitizing wipes in my car, though the last time I wanted to use them, I found they had dried out because I neglected to close the cap tightly. :mad:</p>
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<p>The hospital I work for starting requiring all 10,000 employees to get flu shots last year. Very few exceptions - mostly those who are allergic (and they have to wear masks). I support this requirement even though I don’t even work on a campus where patients are seen. I do, however, meet with employees who have direct patient contact but even if I didn’t, I still think it’s a good idea to vaccinate anyone who works for the organization even though our documented hang hygiene compliance is nearly 100%.</p>
<p>The reason I support this is that non-vaccinated employees are potentially putting patients at risk. What if a non-vaccinated employee unknowingly comes into work with the beginnings of the flu and then takes care of an elderly patient (or other immune-suppressed patient) who is very susceptible to succumbing to the flu? I know how I would feel if that patient was one of my loved ones. </p>
<p>So, our hospital is overflowing with flu patients (we are on diversion) and have been since November. Yes, some of the 10,000 employees who got the vaccine have come down with the flu but not many and it has usually been very mild.</p>
<p>I’ve never gotten a flu shot in my life. I have a job for which I have to go to people’s houses and interview them. Yesterday, I visited two households in which people had apparently had the flu and/or pneumonia and were still not fully well, although they did not cough or sneeze in the room with me.</p>
<p>I’ve actually been thinking about getting a flu shot for the first time, if I can get one at a pharmacy, but according to my understanding it takes 2 weeks to be effective? Now I’m in a mode of waiting to see if I get it. I gather that the incubation period is 1 to 4 days. And I’m supposed to go out and visit more people today. :(</p>
<p>Fosterte, just read your post. That’s horrendous!! I devoutly hope that you are making a good recovery. I think you have motivated me to search out a flu shot…</p>
<p>What’s important to remember about vaccines is that you’re not just getting them to protect yourself, you’re getting them to protect the community. You’re putting those at risk who can’t get the shot as well as yourself.</p>
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<p>It takes up to 2 weeks to be *fully protected<a href=“or%20stated%20another%20way,%20to%20be%20as%20protected%20as%20you’re%20ever%20going%20to%20be”>/I</a>. From the day you get the shot, your immune system starts going to work, so even if you are exposed a week afterwards, you may have some protection which either enables you to fight it off or at least have a milder version of it.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4 wrote: “What happens with inappropriate antibiotic use is that the organisms grow resistant to the antibiotic, not that your own immune system becomes weakened by it.”</p>
<p>That’s actually what I meant, I just didn’t express it correctly. </p>
<p>What I have been concerned about is my immune system becoming “resistant” to the flu shot(s) if I were to have one each year. </p>
<p>I don’t think that what I had 3 weeks ago would be classified as “flu”- no aches and pains, no fever, no chills. A bad cold would be more like it (extremely sore throat, tons of mucous, coughing, and eventually laryngitis. I slept for 60 out of 72 hours. Out of work for 3 full days.) I did have the flu, once, 17 years ago. That was definitely the flu! </p>
<p>I’m still reading the thread and waffling.</p>
<p>So if having the vaccine may mitigate the severe symptoms, can those people go to work thinking they have a cold, and then transmit the flu to someone else? Put another way, if you get the vaccine, and it is less than 100% effective, can you still transmit the virus?</p>
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But you just made that idea up. You’re “waffling” about getting flu shot because of some idea about immunity that has no basis in fact. I don’t get it.</p>
<p>I read a fascinating article recently about flu epidemics. It said that there appears to be a finite number of strains that cycle around, and it is actually young people who are most at risk of contracting the disease since the elderly who have survived to become elderly will likely have been exposed to most strains, whereas younger people may not have been.</p>
<p>"just"aMom–not possible–the flu bug mutates every year, which is why it is difficult to develop a vaccine that hits all the strains going around each year. It’s never the same bug year to year unlike a bacteria which remains the same. Influenza is a virus, not bacteria. The bacteria that causes, say, strep throat is the same bacteria, which, can develop immunity to antibiotics. Viruses, however, mutate and change. The vaccine you got last year will have no effect on most of the bugs going around this year and certainly no effect the year after to there just isn’t a way for them to become resistant to the vaccine.</p>
<p>zoosermom–what source says that? Explain H1N1 then.</p>
<p>Though flu virus does mutate, it has 9 (i think) major antigenic coat proteins (the H and the N are 2 of them) that shuffle sequences as well. So you can develop antibodies to them, and still have the antibodies to them even when they are expressed on a different strain. </p>
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<p>Flu viruses do mutate, but there are similarities. My understanding is Zoosermom is right that younger people are often more likely to get various flu strains because they haven’t been exposed. That said, older people are more likely to get seriously ill for obvious reasons. SteveMA, that’s exactly what happened with H1N1 - it bore similarities to the Spanish Flu which older people had been exposed to, not just from the original 1918 epidemic but from variations in the 30s and 40s. It’s sort of explained here: [H1N1:</a> Most Dangerous To Young People - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-5390519.html?pageNum=3]H1N1:”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-5390519.html?pageNum=3)</p>
<p>I think I’m going to just hole up in my house and not come out until June, even though I had the flu shot. And if I have to, I’ll be in full body protective gear, kind of like the bubble boy.</p>
<p>While I’m kidding, of course, after hearing about how bad the flu is this year, it’s making me consider it…</p>
<p>Right, the absolute best and longest lived protection from any given strain is having had that strain before.</p>
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<p>Yes, you can still transmit the virus even if you are not suffering from a severe case.</p>
<p>Harper’s had an essay about fear of vaccines:</p>
<p>[Sentimental</a> Medicine, by Eula Biss | Harper’s Magazine](<a href=“http://harpers.org/archive/2013/01/sentimental-medicine/]Sentimental”>Sentimental Medicine, by Eula Biss)
[[From</a> the Magazine] | The Class Politics of Vaccination, by Eula Biss | Harper’s Magazine](<a href=“http://harpers.org/blog/2013/01/the-class-politics-of-vaccination/][From”>Page not found | Harper's Magazine)</p>
<p>An addition to my above comment: if you have a mild case of the flu, the person to whom you transmit it will not necessarily also have a mild case.</p>