Time for Your Flu Shot!
Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 09:14PM
It is that time of the year again. Flu season is just around the corner. It will be assaulting susceptible children and adults at a time when cough and cold season has already accounted for several casualties.
Flu season typically starts in December and lasts through March. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) recommends all children 6 months of age to 4 years get the flu vaccine. Any children or adults with high risk for complications should be vaccinated. High risk groups include: people with asthma, other chronic respiratory, kidney or heart disease. People with diabetes or other metabolic disorders are also considered high risk.
Some key points:
1) The flu shot is safe and worth getting for people of all ages above 6 months (if you are not allergic to egg).
2) Current injected flu vaccine contains only killed virus which means you will not get the flu from the shot.
3) A new strain of flu virus was isolated earlier this year which resulted in the production of a much different vaccine for this winter's flu season.
4) We are long overdue for a severe flu epidemic. We can all participate in keeping the flu from causing widespread illness by getting vaccinated as soon as possible.
5) It takes at least two weeks to mount a protective antibody response to the flu virus after your injection. Some people mistakenly think they got the flu from the vaccine because of contracting the flu shortly after getting vaccinated. Many times this is because they were exposed to the flu virus (from an infected person) before protective antibodies were formed (within 2 weeks of getting the flu shot). This is why getting the flu vaccine in October or as early as possible is important.
TO MY PATIENTS WHO ARE ON INHALERS (ALL ASTHMA PATIENTS)
Please arrange to get your flu shot in October. If you miss the opportunity to get vaccinated this month (October) get it as soon as possible before or early in the flu season (the sooner the better).
Here is a link to more detailed information:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/