Hey
Looking for some advice or opinions on this.
I've had a letter inviting me to get the swine flu vaccination because I have asthma that causes me to be on steroids at times and keep getting continual chest infections. I've booked the appointment for this Saturday, but I'm a little worried as I was talking to my friend who got it and she said she had really bad side effects, such as her arm being dead for 4 days and the actual jag being very sore, but she has a tendacy to exaggerate. So question is, do I get it or not? And has anyone else had it and what were the side effects?
Thanks PSL

If I was offered it I'd get it. I have a normal flu jab each year (offered by my employers) and I've never had any side effects and only felt a slight scratch from the injection itself. Nor have I ever had flu in any year I've had the jab which is something I'm very keen to avoid, not only is it truly miserable but it also always seems to hit at the worst possible time.

So from my perspective and personal experience of vaccinations it wouldn't be a very difficult decision to make.

My daughter's just like you. She had both jabs yesterday, and was told there's no side effect from the swine flu one, but she usually gets flu like symptoms with the man flu one. Sure enough, today she's got the flu-y symptoms, but she's said nothing particular about the swine flu one.

I'd have it if I were you.

I'd have it. Better to have a few fluey symptoms than be laid up for a week.

Yeah I do want to get it, I just got a little put off by what my friend said but as I said before she has a tendancy of exaggerating slightly.
I'd rather not get Swine Flu as I find it difficult fighting of a normal chest infection and don't really want to end up in hospital again with asthma, so I will get it, just got a little freaked out incase it had bad side effects as I've heard a lot of bad things abotu Tamiflu.
Thanks for the replies though! =)

I'm a doctor, and am very glad I managed to get the vaccination before the bug could clobber me. I'd been going to put off having it for a couple of weeks because there was some recordering I wanted to do on two consecutive weekends, but after hearing just how sick one of our patients (with whom I'd had contact) had got, I decided that a possible bit of a sore arm wasn't really a good reason for deferring it.

People with asthma and other chest conditions are amongst those at greatest risk from the bug, as are pregnant women - and if I were in either of these categories Id not hesitate to get it either. As far as side effects go - one of our colleagues was a bit shivery for an evening, a lot of us had a sore (like muscle ache, not "dead") muscle where it had gone in for a few days but no shiveriness, and some of us were neither up nor down with it. We'd all already had our seasonal ("normal") flu vaccines a couple of weeks earlier, so can tell the difference between the two, and I can't see any problem with having both together either. As usual, a somewhat neurotic and very very misguided antivaccine lobby has jumped on the bandwagon with hysterical scare stories, just as they do with any vaccine coming out: we see thousands of people coming through our doors who get vaccines for all sorts of conditions, and therefore have rather better insight into side effect profiles, so choose information sources wisely .

Thankyou for this. I have been offered the swineflu jab as I am on immuno-suppressants and steroids, but as you say, there is so much scaremongering about that I had become unsure.
Am a bit worried about a dead arm or aches though as it's the week before my diploma! Do you think that should be ok?

it's a difficult one to judge because different musicians will use their arms in different ways, and also practise differently: the advice is to avoid heavy muscular activity for forty eight hours after vaccination, as is the case for the seasonal flu vaccine too. The heaviest job I have is playing contrabass recorder, because that involves holding arms up and away from the body for prolonged periods of time - I hadn't then got my beautiful bass recorder, but would have found that a challenge to hold for a long time too, though the sling makes it easier. I succeeded in forgetting to take the contrabass to orchestra , and had no problems with any of the smaller instrumemts.

When practising, I only play in relatively short bursts, no more than an hour or so, so would have been fine even to do my diploma with the vaccine on board....but I know I would also have deferred it so close to the exam, had the whole situation arisen last year. That means I can't advise properly one way or the other - you really have to be guided by "how much of it there is around" where you live, and whether you know people who have had it...and even really if you use lots of public transport and might be exposed to it that way. The trouble is, you'd find it difficult to do a diploma if suffering from swine flu too...

That's how I felt really, if I turned it down, sods law I'd get the full blown version for my diploma instead as I spend my days teaching in schools!
I got much worse aches from my yearly flu jab this year, just one of those things, didn't last long but holding my violin to teach, and especially being in a cold practice room at school all day didn't help!

Practising for an hour at all would be luxury at the moment, sooo busy!

I'd advise you to get the jab. I've had swine flu for the past week and am still recovering, and that's without any underlying chest conditions. Although swine flu hasn't turned out to be as big a disaster as it could have been, it still needs to be treated with respect, not least because younger folk such as yourself make up the majority of fatalities outwith pregnant women and those with existing medical conditions.

You poor thing! Hope you're on the mend. It sounds really horrible.

If you are offered it, get it p*s*l...two of my students have had the jab and have had some symptoms on swine flu, but the result for both has been that they are relieved they won't get the illness.

A day or so of feeling a bit off is definitely better than being laid low for at least a week! (Probably longer if you have asthma)

My husband's just told me that the BBC website is stating that all under 5s should now have the vaccine and to contact your GP.... can you do that or do you have to wait for the invitation?? Also what about my 6 year old? She's the same weight, there abouts, as my 4 year old. No underlying conditions for either. I feel a bit funny protecting one and not the other.... Any advice?

I am getting the swine flu vaccine. I normally get a bit of a funny arm with the normal flu vaccine anyway but not anything really annoying - just a bit like someone has punched your arm and bruised it for a week.

I had the normal flu jab 4 weeks ago, and had no ill effects whatsoever.
Hope to have the swine flu one this week at work.

I've had the seasonal 'flu vaccine - have done so every year since our first year in France when we both suffered very bad 'flu and said "Never again." And it works - it has been never again.

I will have the swine 'flu vaccination if I can get it but at the moment here you have to wait until people on the priority lists are done. There's a lot of confusion. There are vaccination centres half empty and vaccine being thrown away because the French Government didn't order individual doses and once a container for 10 people is open it will only keep 24 hours. This wouldn't matter except that the French are not exactly rushing to get vaccinated as they are very sceptical about it - and about vaccinations in general. Even some of the hospital workers have shown reluctance.

The general practitioners are now complaining that they are not allowed to vaccinate their patients. They are very much for the vaccine and think that if they had been involved from the start instead of sending people to special centres the campaign for vaccination would have been more easily accepted by the population.

My personnal opinion is that unless one's doctor for any special reason says it is not suitable then it is very important to have the vaccination. Iwas, actually, much encouraged by the positive reactions on the thread after all the negative reactions here.

The vaccine has been packaged as sets of ten doses to save on storage space in fridges, beccause surgeries and pharmacies are already overloaded with seasonal vaccines as well as standard other stocks at this time of year - so it's actually not an administrative error at all, but rather a sensible bit of planning.

But yes, there is confusion. To be fair, it's the first time that there has been this sort of problem to administer - thank goodness it isn't the horror bug it could have been for us to cut our teeth on, and at least we can learn from the experience.

So if you are right, which, as a doctor I am sure you are, the hype on television about wasted vaccine is
just a dig in the direction of the politicians.

I think what you say about being able to learn from the experience is very true - this could turn out to be a practice run for something nastier. As such it could be very valuable. There have certainly been errors of communication here which would probably not happen again. The thing is, if the government does nothing it is criticised for inaction in the face of danger. If it does something it is accused of going over the top.

Just to add to this - daughter now recovered and on even keel. She's worrying about the next essay not the jabs, so I think she had no problems with the swine flu one at all.

I got the vaccine!
It wasn't even sore or anything, it was absolutely fine!
Apart from a sore muscle the now nothing major, don't know what all the fuss was about LOL.
Thanks for the replies guys! =)
PSL

My appointment is for next Saturday.
I'm going in spite of my daughters advising against it (one is a nurse who is against vaccination) .

So what are the arguments for and against? We were talking about this today at school. I don't know if we're likely to be offered it but if we are I will need to do some research!