I got MG after taking a thyroid-suppressant drug for Graves' disease. There are a few of us on this list who have that story. We got Graves' disease after giving birth.

But I got my first noticeable symptoms of MG after five of my kids had H1N1 (this was before the immunization was available). I took care of them for a few weeks and never caught it myself. At one point I felt like I was starting to get it--I had deep body aches for a few days, and then they went away. It was then that the symptoms started (I collapsed, and afterwards started losing my balance occasionally while walking).

My doctor thinks it's most likely that I had mild symptoms for months before that, without noticing them, which makes sense to me (looking back, I remember I was suddenly needing much more sleep). I've since noticed that whenever I am fighting an illness, like a cold or sore throat, my MG gets much worse. I think that these illnesses must increase the activity of the immune system in general--which increases the MG antibodies, too. I'm just guessing.

So I'm saying that while it's possible the flu shot gave you MG, you should also consider the possibility that you had it already, and the flu shot acted as a symptom-trigger.

Abby