OT -- avoid the flu shot?

I never became sick in getting shot. It would have to be so many days after getting it, since it takes however long to start reacting to it. There are the various chicken precautions. Since the virus can't multiply, it's not suppose to make you sick.

Been getting shots for years. I still get sick. Can't tell if it's a cold or flu. Sore throat, sniffles, then lung congestion, fever. Often in september- October, or early in the year.

Greg

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:kadinl$j4s$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I was in medical research before I retired 2 years ago, but I am far from a qualified physician. Nevertheless, getting sick from a flu shot is something to talk to your doctor about, since it suggests you are allergic to something in those shots. Better to find out what it really is that makes you sick, since flu shots aren't supposed to make you sick at all, at least not the ones in the last 5-10 years.

Indeed, those parts of your body that come into contact with the outside world are heavily defended by the immune system - your skin, mouth, nose, gut etc. Therefore they have many blood vessels (transportation network), and immune cells.

Yea, the trick question, "What's the largest organ of the human body?" "The Skin." ^_^

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:kaea7l$bta$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

That's often debated. My answer (actually one of the coauthors on our paper) is the cells lining the blood vessels, endothelial cells. In capillary blood vessels, that's the only cell surrounding them, and there are a lot of capillaries, especially in skin and mucosa.

Flu mist, as an alternative to the shot, was developed for multiple reasons. One of which was to provide the protective benefit of vaccination in an easy to administer form, without needing to use a needle - which due to fear or pain causes lots of folks to forgo flu shots entirely. The effective agent in vaccinations is a protein, which will be digested and rendered useless if swallowed. So you are left with eye drops, nasal drops/spray, trans-dermal patches or rectal as potential administration routes. The combined cheapest, most effective, least problematic and most publicly accepted choice among those is the nasal. However, to be effective, researchers found that the nasal mist must use live, attenuated virus as opposed to killed virus in the shots. Again, for multiple reasons, flu mist has been shown to be safe and effective for a narrower spectrum of patients than the flu shot. Which is "better" for a particular person? Your physician, who should be familiar with your entire medical history, is in the best position to answer that question for a specific patient. See:

I'd have to defer to your expertise but as you point out the multilayer skin contains a lot of those blood vessels? I suppose an argument could be made that the interior walls of the blood vessels have more surface area that the skin. I have no idea how to calculate it but I'm sure some genius could do it. ^_^

TDD

Perhaps someone with respiratory problems would want to avoid the mist vaccine? O_o

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:kafog9$3qa$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

My colleague Eric Jaffe calculated it. This was in 1980. A relevant few sentences: The surface area of an endothelial cell is ~30 x 50 micrometer (1,500 micrometer^2) (10) and the area of the capillary vasculature in a 70-kg man is ~1,000 m2 (20). Thus the capillary vasculature of the average subject is lined by ~7 x 10^11 endothelial cells.

This was in the J. Clin. Invest. vol 66 p979-986. This discussion is on p985. The article is freely available at

Very cool! Thanks, that's going into my medical information collection. I really love learning new things. I suppose I'll stop learning and thirsting for information the day I die. ^_^

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:kagmtb$ohs$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

You're welcome!

I developed a love of reading and learning when I was a kid and it has never left me. I wish more people loved to learn but I suppose that's too much to ask, I know people who have never read a book! Those are the types who would come up to me as I was reading a newspaper and ask if they could have the sports page. I tell them there are plenty of newspapers in the machine over there and they answer that they're not interested in that other junk in the paper. For some reason they would get angry when I offered to sell them the sports section for what I paid for the newspaper. ^_^

TDD

Sorry to hear that you and your friends have had al that trouble. Guess I'm not qualified to apply for a job at your company. Which is a good thing. No chronic pain is good.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Physicians tend to take a cookie cutter approach with drug dosages when in reality everyone reacts differently with some of us being well outside the norm on either end of the spectrum. Some of us like me will have an opposite reaction to a drug. I've had stimulants make me drowsy and depressants keep me wide awake. Perhaps I'm an outer space alien. Everyone I work with is disabled in some way and living with chronic pain, none of us gets any help from the government so we work for what we get. My roommate has a congenital problem that looks like severe gout and lives on Lortabs and alcohol. The DEA contacted his doctor and told him his patient was getting too much of the drug based on pharmacy records. His physician went to bat for him and told the DEA to quit practicing medicine because they had no idea of the pain my roommate suffered. My doctor friend who helps me is terrified that the DEA will come in and shut him down and imprison him if he prescribes an amount of pain medication based on patient need rather than what some guideline calls for. One of the guys I work with owns a service business and lost a kidney to cancer, he recently had other surgery and the chronic pain was driving him into depression. I had a long talk with him about it on how I've dealt with the same problem and how to beat it. A week later he told me it was working. I've lost too many friends to pain and don't want to lose any more. O_o