I have been vaccinated against flue several times and always responded to it with flu or cold like symptoms. My husband, who has no Asthma felt very unwell for about 14 days after his vaccination. I now have not been vaccinated for a few years.
I have read everything on this site about Asthma and vaccination
My question: Are there perhaps different types of vaccines (the way they are produced) to which I might not react. Thank you.
In the UK, the flu vaccines (the injected adult ones) are not live vaccines so they can't actually cause a cold or flu. The nasal vaccine given to children can I think as that one is a live vaccine. However, it's highly possible to have been exposed to one of many viruses in constant existence not long before you have your vaccination and so the symptoms are coincidental - just really unlucky to have this happen every year! Although still preferable to getting actual flu.
I know they manufacture a special flu vaccine for those people who have an egg allergy, but that's it. Some folk do have a reaction to the vaccine as their immune system reacts or "gears up", which is a good response. Your symptoms are your immune system working. I did feel a bit rough this year, after my flu shot, but I had mine on a Thursday so I had the weekend to recover. Took about a week to feel back to normal.
Apparently the vaccine is statistically 50% to 60% effective. But even knowing that, I still have one annually.
I guess that this year is unusual as we have a covid virus that's eating up NHS resources, so getting ill with anything else is best to be avoided, hence the big drive to get more people vaccinated against flu. Up to 16,000 died of flu complications last season, so the NHS is usually at full capacity over the winter just with the additional flu cases. Add in covid numbers and you can see why PHE are pushing the flu vaccine heavily this season.
But at the end of the day, it's a personal decision whether or not to have any vaccine. And you may wish to consider alternative ways to improve your immune system.
As twinkly said, the flu vaccines given to adults don’t contain live viruses and so can’t actually cause the flu - but they take about 2 weeks for full protection so picking up something either shortly before getting the vaccine or during that 2 weeks where protection is building up is unfortunately fairly likely given the time of year it’s normally given!
It’s not uncommon for people to experience mild cold/flu-like symptoms for a day or two after the jab (fatigue, mild fever, aches etc). This isn’t an illness or anything but is actually normally due to the immune system activating in response to the vaccine! So while it isn’t the most pleasant thing it’s generally a sign that the vaccine is doing its job (and WAY better than full on flu!) 😊
Just to throw a fly into the ointment
I was reading yesterday about getting ready for the coronavirus vaccine and in it some nhs chief or other was recommending staff get their flu vac in preparation for the roll out to nhs staff of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Not sure if this is going to be a prerequisite for everyone.🥴
Might be worth checking with your surgery.
The combination of viruses that the vaccine tackles is most likely a bit different from one year to the next as the strain of viruses causing flu varies, so it has to change to vaccinate against the most relevant one. Thus I sometimes react more and sometimes less, though so far not really badly. This year I felt affected for a few hours after, uncomfortably, but it went.
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