Flu Shots

[Guest GITRDONE]

I am wondering if I should get a flu shot. I live in Northern California and it seems that the flu season has had a jump start. I have had flu shots in the past. but they seem to make me feel like I'm always on the verge of getting ill, but never the full blown flu. One other thing, everybody elses 24 flu is more like my 72 hour flu.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks, Susan

[Guest Viola]

I've been getting the flu shot every year for many years, as has my hubby. We have only had one flu since we've been getting the shots and that was last year when a new strain slipped through that wasn't included in the shot.

I wouldn't go without it. I used to be so sick every year during flu season. That little shot has done wonders for us anyway.

We've also never had a reaction to it.

My brother did the first time though, I'm sure it was because someone told him it was live flu virus ... he's very supseptable to the power of suggestion. After he found out it was a synthetic version of the virus to trick your immune system he got better right away and never had a problem again.

[luvs2eat]

Wow... really glad to see this topic cause I have questions!

I was allergic to eggs when I was a baby, as were my sibs. We all outgrew it and had all the childhood vaccines, which would have been incubated in eggs, right??

So, I always shied away from the flu vaccine cause I knew it was incubated in eggs.

But then I found out my sister (the most allergic to many, many things) has one every year and my brother also has one.

Now I'm the only one of us sibs who's been positively diagnosed with celiac disease, altho I am certain my sister suffers the DH form and my brother has mild DH symptoms. They won't get tested... yet.

So, when I mentioned to my fam doctor that I was allergic to eggs as a baby (long outgrown) and now I have this automimmune thing going on... should I get or avoid the flu shot.

She said, "Don't get one."

Has anyone else wrestled with this?? I get scared every year when they start talking about the seriousness of the flu. You only have to have the REAL flu once in your life (I've had it twice) to know you NEVER want it again!!

[lovegrov]

Let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a doctor and would not presume to tell you to ignore your doctor.

If there's no question you ougrew the egg allergy, then I don't see that poart of it would be a problem. I had an egg allergy for a few years when I was little and have had no problems for many, many years.

The vaccine also shouldn't be a problem from the celiac disease standpoint. At least that's my understanding. Once again, I am NOT a medical person. I know that the experts recommend that people with celiac disease get the pneumonia vaccine.

There's no question you definitely don't want to get the REAL flu. I'm not talking about the 24-48 stomach bug. That's not actually the flu. I'm talking about fevers and aches and coughs and the inability to function for at least a week. My wife and I had it at the same time 20 years ago and it was awful.

richard

[luvs2eat]

Thanks so much for your response, lovegrov! I'm gonna get back to my doctor and get more answers!!

Yea... I'm talking the REAL flu, not to be remotely compared to any 24-48 hour thing. The real flu knocks you flat for 7-10 days and take another 7-10 to fully recover from!! Ugh!!

[tarnalberry]

It depends on you and your body. If I get sick (any viral infection, really), I tend to get a bacterial respiratory infection quickly. I did get the flu last year (with the shot, likely due to the strain difference), and it was quite awful. (I've never had a fever over 101 for four days before!) I only missed a week of work, but I felt really crappy for three or four, and the lungs took about two months to get back to normal. So I get the flu shot, but I do that because while I know I can live through the flu, the risk of the associated infections I get is not worth it.

[Carriefaith]

I get the flu shot. I think it's important because if I ever happened to have a gluten contamination and get the flu at the same, it would be quite bad.

[julie5914]

I will probably get the FluMist. I haven't had the flu since '98, but if I go to the doctor at all during flu season, they basically make me take it. I don't think I would die without it, but I don't think it would hurt either.

[Kasey'sMom]

My family gets the flu shot as well and we have for several years but this is the first year my dd and I are taking it with celiac disease. My dd has a slight egg allergy and she is 3. She has put her in the catagory of high risk. He is recommeding that she have the shot because he feels the benefits outweigh the risks.

I'm sure it's a personal decsion that depends on the individual cirumstances involved. For some us it is definately benefical. I get weekly allergy injections at a GP office's and I'm exsposed to so much junk!!

[LUAP]

at first, vaccin have been invented to save lives...that was a great idea.

Unfortunately, big corporation always trying to make more profit, have introduce the idea of getting shots for prevention...

Unfortunately, yes because, you must know that all vaccin contain mercury or aluminium:

Further, there are potential dangers to the flu vaccine, particularly to the already vulnerable elderly population. Dr. Hugh Fudenberg, one of the world's leading immunogeneticists, states the chances of getting Alzheimer's disease is 10 times higher if an individual has five consecutive shots than if they have one, two or no shots. This is likely due to the thimerosol (a mercury-derived preservative) and aluminum content of the vaccine.

Open Original Shared Link

In my area, in winter, the temperature goes down to minus 22 farenheit (minus 30 in celsius). People i know who are taking the shots get the flu anyway...

i have heard someone speaking this morning at radio about the avian flu. He was telling that birds, generally carry flu virus in their gut, like if it was normal....but for an unknown reason, sometimes, the virus cross the GI tract and goes all over the body...and kill.

Personnaly, it makes me think of the leaky gut syndrome...something that is normaly in the gut gain acces to blood. And since i have started the protocol against the leaky gut, i have experience no flu or cold symptoms at all, even in january or february.

also, sound pretty amazing that your governement is going to give 2 billion dollar to donald rumsfeld company, for an exclusive contract for flu shots...you can read that in one of the two mercola's newsletter of this week.

Make me think also about the west nile virus. since 5 years, we can't stop to hear about west nile virus that is going to kill everybody(just like avian flu) In 5 year, only one person has died in my province. west nile virus is an encephalitis (a fungal disease). What does like fungi. Yes, heavy metals such as mercury an aluminium. How does it work?

Your body runs on 2 systems: 1) electric (central nervous system, neuron) 2) homonal (endocrine, glands). heavy metals really strike in the first one. if you read a little on dentistry, you will hear about stories of mercury filling that were constantly inducing electric signals some organs(think it's bladder). organ could not rest, leading to organ depression, thus leading to gastrointestinal disorders.

yeast and fungi have the ability to grab and keep heavy metal in your body, leading to cell death, cell death leading to more yeast overgrowth. Alzheimer disease is a yeast overgrowth in the brain...just think of the white protein coat that cover the brain in alzheimer disease...

thank you industry to give me the opportunity to get or worsen a fungal disease each time i am getting a shot!!!

[Ursa Major]

LUAP, you're so right. This far a nurse in my doctor's office, and a lab technician in the lab have told me that they were never as sick as the year they got the flu shot. Neither one ever really got the flu before, but that fall and winter they had one cold and flu after another and really were ill most of the winter months after getting the shot.

If you'd do some research you'd find out that in nursing homes when the flu strikes, EVERYBODY who's had the flu shots will catch it, and the only ones who don't are the ones who didn't get it.

Also, it wasn't just last year that the shot didn't include the right strain. The people who decide which strains to include might as well be flipping coins, since it is impossible to know which strains will strike in any year at all. They just guess. The flu shots are only 30% effective at best. And most of these 30% would likely not have caught the flu anyway, vaccine or not.

Your best bet is to build up your immune system to ward off illness, including the flu. Eat right, stay off gluten (and other grains), get enough vitamins, and if you start feeling ill, drink echinacea tea, take lots of vitamin C, zinc, vitamin A and garlic, and you should be fine. It works for me (just hasn't when I was getting sicker, but that was because of celiac).

My advice is: STAY AWAY FROM ALL VACCINES! My youngest daughter hasn't had any vaccines (after I started doing research on vaccines, which I have kept up for 12 years now), and she is the tallest and healthiest of my children.

[gabby]

I've also been thinking about getting a flu shot for the first time this year, mainly because of the avian flu scare going on. I know the flu shot can't prevent the avian flu, but I'm concerned about getting avian flu while I have the regular flu. I might sound paranoid, but I live in Toronto. A couple years ago when SARS was raging in our city, I paid no attention....until I got a phone call from the public health department. Turns out that during my two hour appointment at the orthodontist's office, the woman sitting in the chair next to me (getting her braces off) was an emergency room nurse who fell ill with SARS. I got put under quarantine and it got scarey. I did not get SARS, but it was luck.

My concern is this: I am allergic to thimerosal and now have to figure out what to do. Arghhhhhhhh!

[lovegrov]

First, I am NOT telling anybody to get a flu shot. It's your decision alone.

"If you'd do some research you'd find out that in nursing homes when the flu strikes, EVERYBODY who's had the flu shots will catch it, and the only ones who don't are the ones who didn't get it."

If you're going to make an assertion like this you really need to provide the research. Provide us with the links showing this, please.

"My advice is: STAY AWAY FROM ALL VACCINES! My youngest daughter hasn't had any vaccines (after I started doing research on vaccines, which I have kept up for 12 years now), and she is the tallest and healthiest of my children."

I simply can't imagine going back to the days of polio, smallpox, whooping cough, German measles (danger to pregnant women), etc. But that seems to be what you're advising.

"Neither one ever really got the flu before, but that fall and winter they had one cold and flu after another and really were ill most of the winter months after getting the shot."

I didn't get the flu shot before 20 years ago and I had the flu several times. Since I started getting it 19 years ago, I haven't had the flu. Does that qualify as solid proof that the vaccine works or that it's safe? No it doesn't, but somebody saying they've been sicker for years since they got a vaccine isn't proof, either.

I'm not claiming all vaccines are safe. I can't claim that. I do know doctors, nurses, and other health care workers (my wife included) who get flu and other vaccinations every year (hepatitis, for instance), and they don't do it to keep the vaccine companies in business. They do it because they feel it works.

The flu epidemic in 1918 that killed tens of millions in the U.S. alone happened before flu vaccines existed.

richard

[Guest GITRDONE]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I know that this is a very controvirserial topic. Hopefully I will have more time to think about it.

Thank you , Susan

[Ursa Major]

This is a really, really great idea. I'm so sorry we devloped vaccines for polio and smallpox and whooping cough. I'm particularly sad that we wiped out smallpox, since it never really hurt anybody. And I'm also sorry that my children never had the chance to experience death or deformities from polio. Why, the woman across the street from me actually gets to ride in a wheelchair because of polio.

Actually, if you'd do your research, you'd find out that the smallpox vaccine was a terrible hoax, which killed tens of thousands of people in the Philippines after the US made people there get the vaccine after the second world war. It was developed from pus of cows infected with cow pox (which humans don't get), by a man who was NOT a medical doctor.

The whooping cough vaccine is one of the most toxic vaccines, and is known to cause crib death. And polio was declining at a steady rate from the 1920s on (which is never shown in statistics). When the vaccine was introduced, the cases of polio went UP, and only after several years started declining again. And in the last 30 years the only people who died of polio contracted it from the vaccine (or from somebody who was contagious after being vaccinated), other than the few cases where people brought it with them when coming to North America, and they were already sick.

None of those diseases got wiped out by vaccinations, but were getting less and less of a threat when hygiene, sanitation and diet improved. The government and the pharmaceutical companies have done a fabulous job of brainwashing the public into thinking that vaccines have wiped out these diseases, and that they're safe. NO long term studies on the effectiveness and safety of these vaccines have ever been conducted. That makes everybody who submits to them a guinea pig.

Whenever there is a measles outbreak in schools, it always starts with a vaccinated child, and at least 80% of the kids that catch it have been fully vaccinated. So, where is the protection there?

I had all the childhood illnesses, and I am actually immune to these diseases now. Can you say for certain that the immunity from vaccines will last a lifetime? The fact that they want you to keep getting booster shots every ten years or so proves that it does not.

They claim that kids die from measles and chicken pox. I know ONE case where a girl died after the measles. And that was only because she was vacationing with her family in Poland when she got the measles, and she developed meningitis, and in this still underdeveloped land they had no antibiotics to combat meningitis. If she'd been home in Germany when she got sick, she'd be alive now.

[tarnalberry]

Actually, if you'd do your research, you'd find out that the smallpox vaccine was a terrible hoax, which killed tens of thousands of people in the Philippines after the US made people there get the vaccine after the second world war. It was developed from pus of cows infected with cow pox (which humans don't get), by a man who was NOT a medical doctor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, humans DO get cow pow, which is why milk maids were generally safer than the general population during an outbreak of smallpox - the immunity was tranferrable.

[Ursa Major]

Here are some links, which make for very interesting and eye-opening reading.

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link These are not for the queasy!

An excerpt from the history of the smallpox vaccine:

Prussian Roulette

Hadwen provides a rare window into the medical research of a century ago, one that has not received the usual whitewash. He tells the amazing story about Prussia, the most vaccinated country in Europe during the 1800s - also the country that kept the best records. Hadwen had access to these medical records before the media had the sense to suppress them. Here's what they showed:

It happened that Prussia passed a mandatory vaccination law in 1834 for smallpox. The law provided that every infant be vaccinated, and then revaccinated when starting school. After graduation the child had to be vaccinated again, and then once more upon entering the Army!

And all healthy males had to go into the Army. Anyone who refused the vaccination was to be "held down and vaccinated by force; and so thoroughly was it done that he was vaccinated in ten places on each arm." [14]

OK, so we get the idea that almost 100% of Prussians got Jenner's smallpox vaccine. So what happened in Prussia 35 years after this vaccination law? A smallpox epidemic which killed "124,978 of her vaccinated and re-vaccinated citizens after thirty-five years of compulsory vaccination!" [14] Open Original Shared Link

Another excerpt:

How about England?

A compulsory "immunization" program was set up in England in 1853 using Jenner's methods. (McBean p.13) [8] Before that time, the highest number of deaths in a 2 year period in England from smallpox was about 2000. Results of this "immunization":

Year ........ Deaths

1857-9........ 14,244

1863-5........ 20,059

In response, in 1867 Parliament enacted a stricter vaccination law, and 97% of the people were inoculated. Result:

Year ........ Deaths

1868........ 44,840

Null, Part III, p23 [22]

Great vaccine, huh?

Anyway, if that's not enough evidence of this hoax, I give up.

[MySuicidalTurtle]

PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC AND KEEP THE CONTROVERSIAL TALK IN E-MAILS OR PMS, THANK YOU!

[Ursa Major]

Well, turtle, the topic is controversial. I just hate for people to be injured by vaccines because of misinformation. And our immune systems as celiacs are already compromised, so lets not make it worse.

But I admit that I get carried away at times (it comes with having Asperger Syndrome). But you don't need to yell! Sorry I offended you.

[mommida]

Read the vaccine package insert. Know the laws regarding vaccines. Do the research and make an informed choice.

Laura

[Rusla]

Read the vaccine package insert.  Know the laws regarding vaccines.  Do the research and make an informed choice.

Laura

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In Canada, you do not get to read flu serum packages you have to haave doctor or nurse at a health clinic administer them to you. I had the flu shot once because I am severe asthmatic. The next time the serum changed and it was a wheat/egg base and I was sick for months and my arm swelled up, was red and itched the whole time. I would ask your doctor or pharmacist what is in the vaccine. Needless to say I take my chances on getting the flu now because the cure was worse than the ailment and if I have another allergic reaction who said it won't be bad enough to kill me.

[tarnalberry]

In Canada, you do not get to read flu serum packages you have to haave  doctor or nurse at a health clinic administer them to you. I had the flu shot once because I am severe asthmatic. The next time the serum changed and it was a wheat/egg base and I was sick for months and my arm swelled up, was red and itched the whole time. I would ask your doctor or pharmacist what is in the vaccine. Needless to say I take my chances on getting the flu now because the cure was worse than the ailment and if I have another allergic reaction who said it won't be bad enough to kill me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They may not hand you the PI (either Patient Information or Package Insert) for virtually any pharmaceutical, but you can read it. If you don't feel comfortable asking for it before being administered the drug, then you can look it up on the pharmaceutical company's website (though you will have to find out what manufactuer is being used). This holds true in almost EVERY instance of drug I've tried to look up.

[Guest Viola]

Rusla, I get the flu shot in Canada every year and I do ask, and have never come across one that has Wheat in it. I wonder where that one came from. Perhaps the normal ones ran out and they brought in a batch from somewhere.

We are in Western Canada.

[Rusla]

Rusla, I get the flu shot in Canada every year and I do ask, and have never come across one that has Wheat in it. I wonder where that one came from. Perhaps the normal ones ran out and they brought in a batch from somewhere.

We are in Western Canada.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I am in western Canda too. I don't know but I know some have dairy in them which is equally as as bad. I ask every year what the fillers and base are, I won't take them again. That year there were other people who had reactions to that vaccine and they also had wheat and gluten sensitivities. I don't know maybe it was a bad batch but I made sure I ask from now on. Just like my dentist was going to try a new sedative on me. I was sick for three days, hives, migraine headaches they told me that the fillers were egg, dairy and gluten. I told them never to do that again without clearing it with me first.

[lovegrov]

Joseph Mercola undoubtedly provides some good information but it's very hard to separate it from his bad info or the stuff that he alone believes based on essentially nothing other than his own views. If you go to his products page you'll also see he's selling some pretty dubious things and making some pretty amazing claims about some of them.

Did you know you know you can protect your brain from deadly cell phone radiation (soemthing that Mercola amits on his own site hasn't actually been proven) just by using a ferrite bead? Or that he has the ONLY salmon that's free from toxins -- and at a bargain

price of just $32.00 per pound? Or how about Himalayan Crystal Salt (you do know that salt on your table is absolute poison) for just $25 for two pounds?

My point? Virtually everybody's trying to sell you something, including Mercola.

richard