The Flu Shot: Should I or Shouldn't I?

Thanks for covering this 'base', Faith -- I know you are primarily working to educate students in schools so this might not be something that comes up for you teaching your students TODAY, but it's something they have to start really thinking about.  I mean, the subject of HPV vaccines just reared it's head as hugely debate-able in the political debates last week and one candidate's talking from something she subjectively learned from a member of the public without learning more about it might just have been a 'career move' for her.  

Last  year with the immunization 'debate' that crops up every fall, or in the year before related to health care reform, I kept saying over and over "get educated and know the facts THEN decide your opinion and then MOST OF ALL, when you talk or write, but sure to tell people what is factual to the best of your knowledge, and what is YOUR opinion.  And you did a great job of that here!  So thank you!  

I find it VERY interesting what you said about your body having a different response.  I test positive to TB, which health care workers need to be tested for regularly, requiring a chest xray instead.  I have zero risk factors for having TB too, so I've always suspected it is something going awry in my body's reaction to it.  And eight years ago I was going to work for three weeks here in Junction and was living in Colorado Springs where the influenza had a big outbreak and many older people were dying and I didn't want to be 'influenza Mardy' so I got one of the last vaccines available in the Springs since I was a health care worker traveling out of our area for work, they gave it to me.  Within days my joints were red and hot -- shoulders, hips, and then the skin from there and in between got red and swollen and even cracked and oozed, turning into this rough, thick skin that I finally found a very expensive lotion would treat/antidote.  It took about a year for the skin to completely look normal again.  

SO I told my new doctor about that the next year when he was with me for a long visit about the usual fibromyalgia stuff (sleep, pain, fatigue) and as he ran from the room, having spent too much time with me he said 'get your flu shot'.  So I'd faxed him and said 'about that flu shot'.  So he called me, I was home on a Saturday and he went round and round about if I didn't get a shot and had symptoms then I'd need to report to wherever they are going to have people report which takes a few days to get set up here, he said.  Then I could be determined to have flu and get intiviral medications.  I said 'wouldn't I maybe be dead by then'?  He didn't have an answer.  Working with the elderly as an OT, you really get handled differently than the average person when it comes to this and it wasn't 'easy' for them that I had health issues that kept me from getting a flu shot.   (Actually, after a while with that doctor it was more like )

SO .... I went to my other MD, who was the local version of a fibromyalgia specialist, this was back in 2004ish, who was one of those who had seen the benefits of being liberated from taking insurance, so I paid him his usual fee and he prescribed an antiviral to have on hand if I needed them.  

I've had the flu at least once since then and didn't actually use the Rx because I used the things I learned about in the piece on here about CAM things for influenza and had such a great outcome with that I actually didn't know it was the flu until later when I found out someone I'd just seen a few days before the symptoms came on had been sick the exact same time I was but was home on the couch totally miserable with a very very high fever (104 or so).  There were H1N1 cases at that time around here confirmed, for those who went through the process of going to the doctor and etc, but the person I knew didn't do that so who knows for sure.  I so think that was  H1N1 I had, because at 5 pm my head would spin sitting at the computer working like I've never had happen, and I'd take a second dose of the stuff I got at Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers and the way I addressed it worked for me.  (A link for them is on the "Products tab" currently, as we selected products that supported the concepts in the videos to make it easier for people who learned at Lumigrate to refer to what products rather than re-watching a whole hour long video if they didn't have their notes/handout printed out or handy to refer to on the computer.  The videos come with a whole file /link you can download to your hard drive, for readers who have not explored or used our video information yet.) 

Robin Thomas has written here recently as well about Vitamin D and Japanese children and the flu -- you might want to check that out, Faith.  I found it really interesting research and naturally, Robin's background in science and medical research is really helpful.  We are just PLAIN LUCKY to have so many quality, sharp people writing on Lumigrate, so thank you!  And naturally, we like to make it FUN too, here and there.  I'll come back and leave that link for the CAM info about colds and flu but it's best to remind people how to find it on the Search bar at Lumigrate -- "5 things for colds and flu" should get you to it ASAP.

Here's the link AND this is where Robin posted the piece about the study in Japan with children.

www.lumigrate.com/forum/flu-prevention-lifestyle-basics-plus-vitamin-d-japanese-study-kids-20089-flu-season  

I just hope people can find their way to their healthiest, happiest 'seasons' ever, one way or another. I know I was the healthiest last year of any I can recall, maybe my whole life, and I believe it had something to do with adding Vitamin D drops to all the other supplements, including D in bone building supplements.  I had my levels tested in the spring and had still not been up to the ideal levels, so in the years past when I was sick all the time with colds and flu I must have been way, way deficient.  And I used to be in the sun a LOT, it's just part of the package of the complex condition you and I share, called fibromyalgia.  

BUT as I say, all fibromyalgia IS, is a really bad case of what most everyone else has a little bit of, they just haven't had enough of the taxing things for long enough to take them from chronic wellness to illness YET.  So I hope people really take some heed here and think preventively, act according to what you think/feel is right for you, and find the level of health that is commensurate with your efforts.  

Again, thanks for a GRATE piece, Faith!  Be well! 

Mardy

I am not in favor of my patients getting a flu vaccine. It messes with their TH1/TH2 immune system and makes them sick. I have them do the Flu Mist or keep a prescription of Tamiflu around in case they get the flu.  This is a very short video on YouTube that I suggest people watch for other information I find beneficial

Dr. Spurplock,

Thank you for that excellent source of information! My doctor's have not come up with those alternatives for me, but luckily (and knock on wood) I do not get the flu, I usually end up with a viral bronchitis...

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and advice you give your patients. This may be something I should ask my doctor about the next time I go!

 Dr Spurlock, thank you for providing your opinion here on this topic.  It's good to know that of the two previous MDs I was seeing when I moved to Junction many years ago, one of them came up with the same answer you have, as after much thinking and talking, he looked up Tamaflu and Relenza and thought Relenza was a more full spectrum I think it was.  (I wrote the details about that, above, along with what had happened the flu season before when I got a flu shot trying to protect my future patients since I was coming from where there was a big outbreak with fatalities.)  I want to encourage people to take the journey of clicking on the link in your signature to go to the topic about YOU in our About Our Writers forum so they can see your awesome history!  It's really interesting and tells a lot about what all you've done, including being a medical director in SNFs, which is part of my story in my comment.  I can only wish that I'd had moved to where YOU were the Med. Director, as the doctors here were all full and not taking new patients but since therapists are basically how SNFs go from being 'in the red to in the black', he took me.  Which I appreciate, it just was an ongoing battle and after a while he'd forgotten my name and I went in with strep (I thought) and wanted him to refill some things back when I was on a lot of Rxs, and it was VERY eye opening, as he didn't look at me and walked in presuming I was drug-seeking and then saw who it was and said 'oh, it's you'.  There are MANY reasons, like that story, that added up to me feeling I had to create what you now see as Lumigrate.  And I very much appreciate you and all the others taking the time to provide information here to help people get 'on the right track'.  Or closer to it!  

Mardy

To present another option this 'season' and year from the "outside the box MD court", I offer the 2013 Flu information at the website for Dietrich Klinghardt.  He's recently said (in one of their MP3 listenable files at the "Listen to Dr Klinghardt" tab at their website) that the progress they make in knowing how to treat complex conditions goes in phases where there will be big new developments and advancements and then plateau for a while. Recently there was a big new surge onward and upward.  

In the past he was doing things just as innovative and 'sticking his neck out' as today and perhaps ended up with some critics.  I therefore reviewed massive amounts of information about him and listened to everything listenable at his website and believe he, his website, his information is a GRATE 'fit' for our YOUsers at Lumigrate.  

Here's the flu treatment protocol / guidelines from 2013.  You'll see that the has the same opinion we do at Lumigrate related to the 'shot or not' (see another topic here in this forum).  Generally, each person has to decide for themselves what is best for them; on our vaccine topic (Search words would be vaccine plan, vaccine rights) but he does an innovative homeopathic-inspired approach which I'd not learned of previously. 

www.klinghardtacademy.com/Protocols/Flu-Treatment-Guidelines-2013.html

And this is the beginning portion at their About Dr Klinghardt link at the website: 

Dr Klinghardt - Dr Dietrich Klinghardt MD, PhD, is Founder of the Klinghardt Academy (USA), the American Academy of Neural Therapy, Medical Director of the Institute of Neurobiology, and lead clinician at the Sophia Health Institute, located in Woodinville, Washington. He is also Founder and Chairman of the Institute for Neurobiology (Germany) and (Switzerland). Klinghardt Academy (USA) provides teachings to the English speaking world on biological interventions and Autonomic Response Testing assessment techniques.

Klinghardt has lectured at the universities of Illinois, Utah, Freiburg, Adelaide, Capital University (Washington DC) and others, and the medical schools of Geneva and Zurich. Between 1996-2005 he was Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Neurobiology at Capital University. He is regularly invited to teach workshops at the prestigious Medicine Week in Baden-Baden, Germany and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases (ILADS) conferences. Among his books is the groundbreaking Psychokinesiology A new Approach in Psychosomatic Medicine, on muscle feedback-guided psychotherapy. Many of his teachings, manuals, seminar DVD’s and clinical tools are available through his website www.klinghardtacademy.com.