Hit my family hard. Strange bout half had the flu shot half did not. The results were the same type b influenza hit everyone from age 12 to 46. Not scientific I know but interesting.
We got hit with the flu as well a few weeks ago. Everyone had flu shots too.
Living alone, I fear the flu. My dog is a lousy nurse.
Get well.
Took our daughter to the doctor with almost 106 fever this morning. Nephew had 104 this morning as well. Both type B flu. That definitely changes our Christmas plans…
Sorry to hear that about your daughter and nephew. Hope they feel much better soon.
High fever like that is scary. Hope things are better, Waldo.
That shit knocked me out for a week. Apparently not a strain that the vaccine covers. Fortunately my wife dodged it.
In college, when someone got too drunk and couldn’t make it to class, he was said to have the Heineken Flu. This sounds much worse.
everyone with flu well on way to recovery. hope all is the same with fellow posters
I wonder:
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There was also a really gnarly novovirus making it’s way around in November-December.
We had the flu in early December. It hit hard and fast, wiping us out in turn for three to five days, fever and extreme fatigue. We all had flu shots in October. This was a strain of flu that the vaccines weren’t designed to prevent. The then six year old is the only one who received any medical treatment and tested positive for flu antibodies, so I think we can rule out being early victims of covid 19. But the fact that there was a prevalent strain of flu going around in late 2019 that was not prevented by the year’s flu vaccine will probably have a lot of people wondering what they were really sick with.
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This happens to some degree every year. The sickest I’ve been in the last 10 years was in 2011 when I got the flu (after getting a flu shot) and then pneumonia and ran 102-104 for a week. A concerning number of my friends have been trending anti-vax (or at least anti-flu-vax) over the last few years for the same reason: “I got the flu shot, I still got the flu, I’m never getting the flu shot again”. Then again, many of those same people have stopped going to the doctor entirely and are now solely self-medicating with pseudo-scientific horseshit like herbal supplements and essential oils.
The effectiveness of the flu vaccine hovers around 40-60% each year. For outliers, the 2014-15 flu vaccine was only 19% effective, but 2010-11 was 60% effective. If 100% of the people who take it avoid 50% of the flus, then the vaccine effectively keeps the healthcare industry from being overrun during flu season.
But the covid vaccines are exceeding 90% efficacy, which is terrific.
Normal seasonal flu vaccines are only moderately effective because they are developed in advance to target predicted strains. It’s hit or miss as to what actually shows up en masse in a given year. The COVID-19 vaccine is much more targeted to a specific known and existing virus strain. If that virus mutates, however, the efficacy could be much different.
I had a somewhat similar experience back in 2013. A few days before Xmas, I got horribly sick and ran a 100 degree plus fever with all of the accompanying aches, chills, lack of appetite and energy… it really sucked. It was two weeks before my fever (finally) broke, and even with all of the blood tests he ran my doctor never figured out what I had. He said it was probably a strain of the flu, but because there are so many out there, blood testing won’t always diagnose it.
Something similar happened in 2014, although I was lucky enough to only be laid low that time for a week.
I do wonder if both instances were my body’s response to the four months of pure stress and physical fatigue of the Wine Grape Harvest. Ironically, even though I’m still in the industry and have the same job now as I did then, I haven’t gotten that sick after Harvest (touch wood). Maybe I’m just better at taking care of myself.
Try explaining that level of nuance to the type of person who thinks my cousin wouldn’t have died from glioblastoma a couple years ago if only she’d used a certain essential oil when she started getting headaches.
Ok, Waldo, that is just crazy.
That friend had the gall to say that to me within weeks of my cousin’s death. She also sold essential oils, and suggested I start buying that same inoperable-brain-tumor-curing oil from her for $5-10/mL. I no longer consider her a friend.
MLMs, especially the health-oriented MLMs, have brainwashed so many people into being dumb and sick.
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A law partner who also was a very good friend died of that same brain tumor/cancer a couple of years ago. He had a death sentence from the beginning. Essential oils my ass.