<p>Wish it had been available in Nov before D got H1N1 and spent almost 2 weeks sick as a dog. She has asthma and would have been at the front of the line had the vaccine been in her town then. Seasonal flu I hope my kids have learned to take care of early… you can do serious damage to your grades when on the quarter system and you get really sick after Thanksgiving vacation!</p>
<p>Someone I have to spend time near refuses to get the shot and gets the flu every year. Her excuse: “I took it once and then I got really sick with pneumonia - those shots just don’t work for me…” Yeah, and I got rear-ended after I bought shoes at Nordstroms, so I’ll never buy shoes there again.</p>
<p>The local grocery store/supermarket (Ralphs) has H1N1 for $10.</p>
<p>Recently, we heard on the news that the CDC is recommending that adults over age 60 SHOULD get the shot, as the next round of H1N1 is going to be worse, and that the immunity that group of seniors had, isn’t as protected as they originally thought.</p>
<p>I have had the shot. If you’ve not yet been vaccinated a dose has already been purchased for you so you just need to show up to a local clinic and you can get it for free. The vaccine is now widely available. </p>
<p>It’s ultimately a public health issue. In order for a vaccine to be truly effective as many people as possible who can be vaccinated need to be vaccinated. There is a small percentage of the population who, for various reasons, can’t get vaccines and their health relies on others around them being responsible and getting themselves vaccinated. </p>
<p>Also, the fact that rate of H1N1 have gone down in the last few weeks is absolutely NOT a valid reason for not getting vaccinated. This mentality has happened with previous outbreaks and, like many health officials predict now, there was a second outbreak that hit the non-vaccinated population really hard. The vaccine takes a few weeks until you have full immunity against the strain so if another outbreak fires up quickly, as they usually do, then by that point it will be too late to get the shot.</p>
<p>Yeah, Dragonmom, I know the type. I have a few of those in my life, as well! They are also the same ones that think the “stomach flu” or the common cold is the flu, too.</p>
<p>I was reluctant because I usually get mildly ill after a flu shot. Friday I was at the pharmacy and they were offering the H1N1 vaccine. I got the shot a 1pm and later that night I got horrible stomach cramps (which I still have Sunday morning). I called the flu hot line and they said this was a “rare” reaction which can last several days to several weeks. </p>
<p>The good news is this is the first time that my insurance company has every paid for something at 100%</p>
<p>I got the seasonal flu shot in September. I then got the H1N1 shot in December. I had like spasms in my stomach for the first day after both. Kind of like hot flashes and really mild nausea. The pamphlet they gave me said the shots could cause nausea and I am fine now but I think I will mention it to my doctor.</p>
<p>H1N1 flu shot just became available around my area for my age group. I am scheduled to get the shot next week. Both kids already got the shot, no side effect at all. D1 had mono a few year back, so she was considered high risk. I get a flu shot every year, knock on wood, I haven’t had a flu in a while. I am traveling overseas now and I wasn’t able to get H1N1 before I left, so I am traveling with Tamiflu. We’ve been told that there will be another wave come spring. In HK people are wearing masks. I just had a spa treatment, the masseuse was wearing a mask, and I was grateful for that.</p>
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<li><p>If you don’t want to get a shot you can get the nasal spray… totally painless and takes just a second.</p></li>
<li><p>The ‘flu’ in the shots is totally dead. It can not under any circumstance give you the flu. The ‘flu’ in the nasay spray is alive, but it is tactically disabled (ie it can be grown under certain laboratory conditions, but can not survive in your body. Because the nasal spray has a live virus it can illicit minor symptoms in a small percentage of those who receive it (eg a sore throat for a day) but these symptoms are a result of your immune system reacting to the presence of the virus, but not because these people have ‘caught’ the flu from the vaccine.</p></li>
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<p>For those who can take the live virus nasal spray (healthy individuals) this is typically recommended since studies to date have suggested this is providing a more robust immunity than the killed virus version, but both give those vaccinated a strong resistance against H1N1.</p>
<ol>
<li>The mercury hype around vaccines is part of the fear mongering of false or misleading information put out there by the anti-vaccine lobby. Despite numerous major studies there has never been any scientifically valid evidence that shows that thiomersal (the mercury based preservative) has any negative health effects… but there are countless valid studies showing that you can become seriously ill or die from the wide variety of diseases that vaccines protect one against. When there was a lot of fear mongering (particularly in the UK) suggesting that the MMR vaccine caused autism a lot of parents stopped giving their kids the MMR vaccine… the rates of autism didn’t go down but some of those kids started getting the measles–a totally preventable disease. Go figure.<br></li>
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<p>Furthermore, there are plenty of options available with the H1N1 vaccine, including many variations without any thiomersal… so if you’re even remotely concerned about the mercury issue then just request that your vaccine doesn’t contain it.</p>
<p>A lot of people really just don’t want to believe this. If you really think it through, it makes total sense, but even educated nurses I know and work with continue to spout the nonsense that they got the flu as a direct result of getting the flu vaccine with killed virus.</p>
<p>Well my flu has now turned into pneumona. Hoping the antibiotics kick in quick. Can’t remember the last time I was out of the house aside from the dr.</p>
<p>I am 73. I recommended to my daughter 53 and son 50 get the shot. I just got the H1N1flu shot. I worried this time that the H1N1 shot is dangerous, as I have read everything I can and have seen much that was scary about how fast it was made, and has caused some problems, some serious. BUT, my mother was born in 1918, the year that the strain of flu killed thousands. It could happen again. The young and the very healthy and seniors are at risk, as I understand it. To wait may be too late. I hope this helps you.</p>
<p>There is a lot of the fear mongering out there that this is a ‘new’ ‘untested’ and ‘rushed’ vaccine and that as such it’s unsafe–this is just utter nonsense. I’m glad you were able to see through the fog and got vaccinated.</p>
<p>The H1N1 vaccine is fundamentally no different than any other flu vaccine. It is manufactured using the exact same techniques and technologies as any other flu vaccine. The only difference between this shot and the normal flu shot (or the difference between normal flu shots year to year) is the strain(s) of virus in the shot. </p>
<p>If we knew about H1N1 earlier (it only appeared in the late spring) then it could have been included in the normal flu shot as just another strain and nobody would think twice about it… but because it burst onto the scene when it did, it had to be made up as a separate shot–and now some folks with questionable motives are using this as reason to scare people into not getting vaccinated.</p>
<p>At the end of the day it’s about managing risk. It’s a fact that tens of thousands of people are dying of H1N1 (or ‘normal’ flu) in this country. Countless others have gotten seriously ill and out of commission for 1-2 weeks or more. I have yet to see of a single properly documented case of anyone being killed or seriously injured by the vaccine. (Yes some people have an allergic reaction against vaccine components like chicken eggs, but this is because they have an allergy against chicken eggs not because the vaccine has caused them some harm). </p>
<p>For those truly worried about your health and the health of those around you, you’re putting yourself and others at far more risk by choosing not getting vaccinated than you are by getting vaccinated.</p>
<p>Soapbox:
In my opinion it is the *patriotic duty *of every American to get vaccinated, and to have their children vaccinated, for life-threatening diseases, including the flu. As others have noted, these vaccines work, in part, by creating herd immunity–the vaccine protects not only you, but also the people around you who can’t get vaccinated for health reasons, or for whom the vaccine didn’t work. If you refuse to get the vaccine without a definite health reason, you aren’t doing your duty as a member of civilized society. To be specific, other people could die if you get the flu and then infect them.</p>
<p>Please cite the source for such a “fact.” (Hint 1: I’ve added the official cite of CDC for you to count. Hint 2: thru mid-Nov, the estimated “midlevel” # is ~9,000 deaths)</p>
<p>The same page estimates somewhere around 200,000 hospitalizations. So, for a ten dollar flu shot, you can lower your risk of death or spending thousands of dollars for hospitalization significantly. (Just taking the middle number of 45 million cases, I come up with a .5% chance of death or hospitalization (roughly). That $10 shot looks pretty good.)</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily disagree, but when one makes a post about “fear mongering” (#52) and does just that with made up “facts”, it just has to be challenged. :)</p>
<p>I heartily agree with Hunt and Rocketman. In my small upstate NY county we have had 7 deaths from H1N1. 6 of those were young, healthy people (the 7th was a young women with underlying healthy problems). It is important that we all get both seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccinations. To protect ourselves, our families, the people who can’t get them and even the people who are too foolish to get them. The risk is minute, the benefits could be incredible.</p>
<p>I got the seasonal vaccine in October and the h1n1 last week at a local pharmacy. My insurance paid for both of them, and since I am a teacher I felt it was really important to protect myself from kids and so I wouldn’t get sick and pass it on to them. I really don’t understand why this debate has been so all-encompassing. To me it just seemed to make sense. I have always gotten the seasonal vaccine and I haven’t been sick a day in many, many years. Knock on wood…</p>