i'm almost phobic of getting a flu shot. I've read many horror stories about post vaccine worsening of PN but then there are the public service ads extolling the benefits & warning of the dire consequences of going without the vaccine.

Has anyone had one yet? If so, any negative s/e? Anyone have one with zero impact on PN?

thanks for your thoughts!

Neither one of us gets flu vaccines. That is our choice.

But there are many posters over the years coming here with
reactions. Just use our search function: vaccine

If you see something on TV....beware. From cars, to vaccines, various drugs, it is only to make money.

This is my opinion. I am not convinced they are even safe.
Recently I posted the Glaxo contaminated problem...for several years they were warned and never fixed it:

This is only one example:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0EZ1NB20140624

We'll I have had it with the only effect being I don't get flu yippee. As a specialist public health nurse I actively promote vaccinations as they save many lives

glaxo had almost 21% contamination rate! pretty darn high. i'd like it to be zero, thank you very much.

as a 2 time cancer survivor, i think i fall into the immune-compromised, elderly population category. hmmm.

--given the strong likelihood that my acute onset body wide burning neuropathy involved an autoimmune molecular mimicry cascade, I don't get the flue shot, either; in cases like mine the possibility of having such a reaction again contraindicates it.

This is not to say I am anti-vaccine overall, and I have gotten things like tetanus boosters in the past. But I have a benign history with those, and the flu vaccines change each year depending on the strains expected, making the flu vaccine a more risky proposition for me.

It helps, though, that I have been exposed to numerous flu-ridden people (especially my students) and have never apparently gotten it; my overactive immune system seems to be able to prevent that for me, at least so far. I do get the occasional cold, but that's a comparatively minor annoyance.

So what are the implications if someone gets a contaminated dose. The reason I ask is that my father got the vaccine and in about week, ended up with a bad bladder infection followed by pneumonia. He wondered if the vaccine had anything to do with it or if it was just coincidental.

Well, injecting bacteria and/or viruses into the muscle of the arm sounds pretty invasive and nasty.

There are a couple of issues, that concern me.

1) injecting organisms into the body is a dicey thing. That is why there are sterility requirements. In fact disturbed parents with Munchhausen's by Proxy disorder inject things into their kids creating infections. If injecting bacteria and/or viruses were a harmless thing, there would not be the strict rules for cleanliness and sterility for injectables!

2) The elderly typically have a slower immune response anyway, so giving vaccines, takes up the immune factors, leaving the body open to other infectious situations. Some may get Shingles, or a viral pneumonia. When I had my Shingles, which causes a cellulitis for me, I ended up with pneumonia 5 days later! This is because my system was fighting the Zoster virus and the pneumonia took an opportunity.

So when people say they got sick right after a vaccine, I do believe that this is what is happening. We have all sorts of organisms on us and in our bodies waiting for a chance to become virulent. Giving a vaccine, which uses up immune factors for a short time, opens that door.

If you look up the explanation for the complements (immune factors), you'll see low complement levels for 3 and 4 occur when there is an infection. I would think a vaccine would do the same thing.

Just a year ago or 2 after that flu season, it was published that the elderly did not even benefit from those vaccines. It was less that 10% developed antibodies. So now they have really made them STRONGER and I would think that would deplete people even worse! Everyone today either has had a reaction or knows someone who has developed serious illness after the flu shots.

One really has to apply a form of logic to understand these complex situations. Something that doctors do not do. They just look at numbers, and don't really study the vaccines in depth, or over time.

So one has to do this themselves. At least if you make your own informed decisions, you have only yourself to blame in the end if you get some unwanted result.

I had the same concerns as you. However I had been taking flu shots for a long time. I got the plain jane 20.00 shot and worried for a couple or three days. I guess it comes down to balancing worries,haha. I hope you the best outcome of your decision. Ken in Texas.

I found this last night:

ADEM on a comment section of Yahoo...discussing this year's failure of flu vaccine.

So I found a discussion of vaccine injury symptoms here:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread213075.html

And this is the CDC article on flu vaccine:
http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-says-flu-s...001054530.html

After reading the list of what is in the flu vaccine, and becoming more conscious of what I am putting into my body, I decided to stop getting the vaccine. My wife is following my lead and none of us, including our children, got one this year. The list of ingredients if frightening to me.
Ron