Flu shots. You getting one?

[Russian KGB]

btw it sounds like the medications you used were antibiotics which are useless against a viral infection. doctors will often prescribe them to appease a patient. it is easier to just prescribe something than explain why it is useless to do so.

sometimes antiobiotics will be prescribed to prevent a secondary infection from a bacterial infection after your immune system is weakened by a viral infection.

Well, I thought antibiotics are supposed to bust up your weakened immune system and help fighting the virus or bacteria. Isn't that so?
Back old days people would die from viral pneumonia until they came up with penecillin...

 

[XBiker]

For some reason, I don't really trust putting any kind of viral material in to my body.

Engineered or not, I'll take my chances.

 

[javaguru]

Well, I thought antibiotics are supposed to bust up your weakened immune system and help fighting the virus or bacteria. Isn't that so?
Back old days people would die from viral pneumonia until they came up with penecillin...

Antibiotics can prevent opportunistic bacterial infections, essentially taking advantage of your over taxed immune system. They do nothing against a virus.

 

[samoth]

For some reason, I don't really trust putting any kind of viral material in to my body.

Engineered or not, I'll take my chances.

Ditto.

 

[Island Son]

Had my shot months ago, I'm cool with it

 

[glennds]

russian bacterial pneumonia is treated with antibioitics, not viral. antivirals are used for viral infections. i don't think there are antivirals for the flu, although they have some new medication that can shorten its length if you get it within the first few days of getting sick. how many people would acutally know it is the flu in the first few days is beyond me.

 

[XBiker]

Raina, check out this link.

Hopefully, you will understand why I would rather let my immune system do its job.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/tuskegee/

 

[Boulder257]

The flu shot only protects you for a year. However, for a healthy person to catch a strain would protect them for life from that strain again. If you are healthy, it is better to let nature take its course. Not to mention the egg allergies that can be created from them.

 

[hellorhih2o]

Don't get the flun SHOT, ask your doc for the flu MIST. It just came out this year and it covers 80% than the shot (including the most common strain which the shot does NOT). It's $65 but it's worth every penny. And even though I don't think anyone on this board is afraid of needles (ha!), this stuff they just spray up your nose. Like blow. Sorta.

 

[Fonz]

1. A vaccine has to be developed for each strain of a virus. The basic premise is that you give a weakened strain so your own immune system develops the immunity.

2. The current flu vaccine doesn't protect from every flu virus currently circulating in the population. Therefore, you could get a flu shot and still be vulnerable to different strains of the influenza virus( you would still get the flu).

3. Those most seriously affected by influenza are those with compromised immune systems, the very old and the very young. However, the 1917 influenza pandemic killed more people than WWI and uncharacteristically struck down those in their prime.

A Flu Virus = a Rhinovirus

There are several strains and those strains undergo mutations, so developing a vaccine is almost near impossible for all.

No such thing as an Influenza virus. The pandemic in the 1910's was just called the Influenza pandemic, thats it.
The real culprit weas not a virus but a strain of air-surviving bacteria which normally cause pneumonia and then death in subsceptible individuals.

The influenza problem was treated with anti-biotics developed from penicillin. This obviously after the pandemic had killed 20 million people. Penicillin did not exist back then, when the pandemic broke out.

Fonz