I used to be phobic about needles, but when the opportunity to get a flu shot from the new high pressure squirt gun came along I went for it (you just feel a sharp tap as the vaccine is shot through your skin into your arm under high pressure). Later that season I went down with influenza. That was in 1971. Never since have I accepted a flu shot, and never since have I got the flu.
But my advice to everyone is definitely get the flu shot when it is available; even if you live in a country where you have to pay for it out of your own pocket, and even if you have to endure injection by the hypodermic syringe method. You can't be too careful, and each year people all over the world die from the flu.
Did you get a flu shot this season, and if you did, have you so far got the flu? If so, was it one of the 80%+ strains for which your shot is now known to have been ineffective, or was your flu shot appropriate for stopping the strain you actually ended up getting?
This is a great question you posed back in 2018, and looking at it on retrospect during the time of COVID19 reinforces its relevance. Reviving it now may bring up some interesting perspectives from the membership here.
When I was active duty military, vaccinations were a part of the overall healthcare regimen. I cannot specifically remember whether or not flu shots were part of it, but if they were, I certainly received them. I served for more than a decade, so the amount of flu vaccine that got pumped into me was most likely a significant level.
I have now been out of the military for as many years as I served, and since that time, I have never been vaccinated as a civilian, so I can’t evaluate the effectiveness or lack thereof. I do not know if the consecutive years of getting vaccinated built up a resistance or immunity for me, but I do know that I have not suffered the flu at any time in the past couple of decades. I’m well aware that the flu mutates over time and that medical science does its best to have vaccines available that address the current strain at the time the shot is administered.
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