I tend to react really badly to all vaccinations, usually needing 1-2 days in bed. Apart from the general jab side effects, they also cause my asthma to flare up.
I've just had my letter asking me to go for my covid and flu jabs and when I rang to make an appointment, I was told that I had to have both on the same day, one in each arm. And I either have to have both or neither.
I'm feeling a bit anxious about this - apart from anything else, the last couple of times, my arm has been so painful I could barely move it for the next 24 hours - and now I'll be getting a needle in both arms!
Is this '2 or none' thing standard practice for vaccinations this year, or is my GP surgery just being awkward? Anyone else been confronted with this 'ruling'? Don't fancy facing the winter with neither jab, but I am really worried about how my immune system is going to react.
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Mandevilla
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I can't pick - I could just walk out after the first vaccine, but I won't know which one I've had! Probably can't get flu one anywhere else anyway - our local pharmacy doesn't do them, and when my husband tried to get one last year, the nearest pharmacy that was doing them (an hour's drive) was fully booked.
I couldn't even get a Covid last year, despite endless letters, emails telling me to get them. Then told endlessly by doc 'I was on the list' then finally that they had run out and weren't getting any more, I only got flu shot coz a reluctant nurse from the surgery deigned to do it. I do need a home visit though as housebound. Used to be able to get flu shot from pharmacy. After your shot rub arms a lot, put ice pak on, ibuleve to reduce pain, better to have them than the alternative viruses! 🤞
It's weird because last year I was told I wasn't eligible for a Covid jab, so no idea what's changed! Also seems weird because how do they know which jab causes any non-localised side effects if you are having both at once?!
I'll have to go for both at once since that's my only option - my last Covid jab made me ill for a week, but my last bout of actual Covid made me ill for months - but I'm not looking forward to a double whammy of side effects!
I have researched. I also make decisions based on personal experience. Post-vaccination Covid was unpleasant, but a total walk in the park compared to pre-vaccination Covid.
Nor will I, lots of information has now been revealed from the Pizer papers that have been released due to a court order. As suggested you need to do your due diligence before deciding whether you should have these vaccinations.
It could be a different vaccine this time Mandeville 🤞.
Regarding the change, this year the spring booster was for over 75s and immunocompromised. The age criteria for autumn booster has dropped to over 65s! Hallelujah I'd quite like to know that because of being forced to miss the spring booster does it mean my covid cover is blown. If I were a dog and missed a booster I'd have to go back to the beginning with vaccinations 🤔
I'm going to check with my asthma nurse when I have my review - having double-checked the criteria, I don't seem to qualify either on age or severity, so I'm wondering if there has been a mistake and I shouldn't have been offered the Covid one in the first place. It wouldn't surprise me. Last year, they had a problem with their database and ended up issuing loads of people with the wrong meds for repeat prescriptions...
I'm well below 65, not been hospitalised this year and only take inhaled steroids, so I'm pretty sure I don't qualify according to this. Maybe they've just had low turnout for the people who are on the list, so they're offering it more widely - I know a lot of older folk locally who are saying they can't be bothered to have a Covid jab this year.
I just booked mine 2 weeks apart at a pharmacy. I agree with you, I do not want 2 at the same time. The pharmacist was great when I asked about doing them separately.
If you go on the NHS website, you can go through the process twice. If you put in your postcode, it will offer you places to book.
Oh, that's a shame. Maybe they will listen to your concerns and offer you another appointment for the second one. Especially with both arms in pain, let alone our poor immune systems. Good luck!
That sounds unfair, given your experiences post-vaccinations. What happened to “Patient-centred care?”
I have had both jabs together previously with no memorable problems. Although I usually have days of pain at the site of injection.
I have to sleep on my left side so I asked for both in my right arm, they were reluctant but did it.
Since the flu jab is easy to access at pharmacies, I would see if they will do the covid jab first, then make an excuse to leave and sort out the flu jab at a later date.
The Covid jab is available at some pharmacies but costs almost £100!
I hope you find a favourable solution and keep safe from the winter season bugs xx
They do have to tell you which vaccination your having , and if you choose to only have one, that's your choice. The surgery cannot MAKE you have them both together, but logistically, coordinating flu and COVID clinics is a nightmare, they CAN safely be given together, and I think in the future they will be combined in one injection, so for the sake of a sore arm for a day or 2, just get them done! At the end of the day it's your choice, and you can go to a pharmacy for the flu... If you have to travel an hour it's your choice, the surgery have offered you both!
If it were just a sore arm, I wouldn't be worrying. I could even deal with the nausea, diarrhoea and joint pain, but it's the asthma flareup that's my biggest concern - if it's the same as when I just have one jab, I should be ok, but I'm concerned that double the number of jabs might equal double the amount of difficulty breathing!
I've just been called in for my asthma review the week before, so I'll discuss it with the asthma nurse and see what she says.
The NHS website still offer you to book COVID-19 seasonal vaccines through their website and they explicitly offer you the opportunity to book COVID individually or to choose to have both at the same time, I would give that a try it sounds like a much safer bet than going through your GP surgery. I think that’s very harsh especially given your history and it sounds as though it would be better for you to have them done at different times through pharmacies if your GP surgery cannot accommodate your reasonable request. You know yourself best, how you’ve reacted previously to vaccines and how much you feel your body will be able to tolerate at any given time - I would definitely think it’s better for anyone with a complex history to err on the side of caution but obviously that’s something you should discuss with a pharmacist, GP or other qualified medical professional for personal, more specialist advice. I know vaccines can only be kept for so long in the fridge before they need to be used or discarded and a very short time outside of the fridge before insertion, I’m not sure if that has anything to do with why they have said they need to give both at the same time. However, if they know in advance you only need one vaccine at that appointment then it would seem logical for them to make sure they took that into account when ordering how many are needed or preparing the vaccines, to not waste any vaccines if it’s 1 per person. My GP surgery told me they had a flu vaccine at the surgery for me but to let them know if I didn’t want to accept the offer so they could offer it to someone else and make sure they didn’t go to waste, so I should imagine it’s a similar scenario for most surgeries. Online for Pfizer BioNTech (as an example) that the vaccine can be stored for 12 weeks in a fridge or out of the fridge at a certain temperature for up to 12 hours before insertion - I can’t guarantee the accuracy of that information but it does sound about right (information obtained cdc.gov)
You are fortunate if your GP surgery is offering both Flu and Covid injections. Our surgery is no longer offering Covid injections: I suspect that this is for financial reasons as the NHS only pays them a much smaller amount for the second injection. My wife and I have previously had both injections on the same day: logistically it is a lot easier.
It's the first time they've done it - I'm not even sure why I've been told to have one, since previously, I've been told that my asthma isn't severe enough to qualify for an annual booster.
It's certainly not for financial reasons because the surgery gets paid by the drug companies for each COVID and flu shot they give. It's more likely that your surgery is awake to the dangers of them.
This isn’t a forum for anti vaccine posts. There is overwhelming evidence from across the World that seasonal vaccines saves lives. As far as GP funding for vaccinations is concerned:
‘Primary care networks (PCNs), acting on behalf of a group of GPs and community pharmacies, can claim payment for administering the COVID-19 vaccination. Payments are processed by NHSBSA, acting on behalf of NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI).’
I also can’t cope with both flu & Covid jabs simultaneously. However I have found by taking 2 paracetamol 30 minutes prior to having either, really seems to lessen the after effects of the vaccines for me. If you don’t have an alternative, As I understand you need a home visit, perhaps this solution might help a little. Then take paracetamol as stated in the box for 24-48 hours.
If you’re unsure which vaccine you’re having done at the GP surgery you are well within your rights to ask them before they administer it but you can probably tell by their pre-questionnaire and eligibility because they’re slightly different. If not you could always check your COVID-19 vaccine record on the NHS App or your online GP record because last time I had them done at the pharmacy the paperwork was all sent through to my GP digital record.
I am debating just walking out after the first one, but it's annoying because that probably means the second vaccine will be wasted. Only problem is that getting jabs anywhere other than at the surgery is pretty impossible around here, so I'd miss out completely on whichever one they don't give me.
I had the email yesterday about flu and COVID jabs. As you say it was flu or flu and COVID together. I booked the two together then I phoned the pharmacy and said I only wanted the COVID one that day and the flu jab later . They said that was fine.
I have bad side effects with the COVID jab every time I have had it. I have point blank refused to have them both together. Are you in the England? If so, go to well known high street pharmacy beginning with B and request your flu jab there. I have done that previously and told them I get it free because asthmatic and they just take your name and GP practice detail and you don't then have to pay for it. Maybe you can even get a print out to say you have had it there? Then when you go to the appointment set up by your surgery you can tell them you have already had the flu jab this year and therefore they won't be able to give it to you. They will just have to give you the COVID jab! Lots of people will be in the same position I imagine as some people who work for big companies get offered the flu jab by their company!
I'm in Wales - and a very rural part of it! I am trying to find an alternative way to get the flu jab, but it's difficult around here - last year, my husband tried to get one (he's not eligible for the free one) and couldn't. The nearest pharmacy that does them (an hour away) gets fully booked pretty much as soon as they open their appointment books.
exactly the same at my surgery. So I went to the Boots chemist and got my flu jab, but unfortunately missed my covid jab, and paid the price for that by getting an awful dose of covid the week before Christmas. I think both can be got in Boots, and are free if you can prove you have asthma. I just brought a reliever inhaler with my prescription sticker on it. That was enough.
I don’t think this is medically correct. I’ve recently had COVID and just received an invitation to have COVID and flu jabs. However, having done a little research, it seems that having a COVID jab within 3 months of a COVID infection is pointless as you still have immunity from the infection; after 3 months, immunity begins to wane and a COVID jab would then give you an extra 3-4 months. Having the jab too soon after the infection would tend to shorten the span of immunity. Hence, I will ask the surgery to confine my jabs to the flu one, and have the COVID one later to benefit from the infection-acquired immunity; I hope that argument works!
I was a part of an NHS test 2 years ago to see if having both jabs at the same time was a good idea.
I had no problems and I understand that was the findings of the trial overall. I had both last year without any problems. Obviously we're all different but if you think of the time saving to the NHS doing both at once, it's a huge saving of time and cost.
Do you normally react badly to vaccines when given individually? I've heard a few people say they were fine with both jabs at once, but they are all people who are also fine with individual jabs.
I was offered both together by my surgery, but I just requested them separately and they said that was fine but I would have to wait a few weeks for the Covid, which actually suited me. There was no problem. Today I saw a message from our pharmacy saying they are doing walk in flu and Covid jabs, so if you could find somewhere like that you could choose your time. An alternative would be to tell your surgery you only want the flu jab, and then “change your mind” later! It is probably more convenient for them but you don’t have to agree to it if you don’t want to. Good luck.
Do Covid vaccinations save lives? Have a read of this (Sep 24) paper published in The Lancet. Not surprisingly, the over 60s benefit most from booster vaccinations:
No it isn't, I felt really poorly having them both together last time, so I've opted to have my flu, then I hope to have my covid at a later date. I feel sure they can't make you have all or nothing that seems ridiculous to me. Good luck hope you sort it.
I've had one in each arm the last several times - I took two paracetamol afterwards the last couple of times. The nurse said something to me the last time about it to do with the thickness - but I wasn't sure if she meant the needle or what was in the vaccination..... so I was none the wiser.
I’ve reacted to the standalone Covid jabs - pain, swelling, nausea etc for several days. Last year I had both together - no reaction (same vaccine). Just goes to show we’re all different, I guess!
I'm not getting into a vaccination debate on here, but I'd just like to offer as a counterbalance that flu and COVID can also cause side effects like sudden death. Especially if you already have a chronic condition like asthma, or just unlucky genetics.
I have severe asthma now because of getting flu, not jabs. I'd really rather not do that again with my asthma already at that level, and when I caught it I had very mild asthma and didn't think it would cause any issues. (I also couldn't have had a jab as it was swine flu and no vaccine existed at the time). My asthma also got worse with RSV so if a jab were available to me for that I'd have it too.
It's an individual decision (though if you do get ill, please stay at home and don't spread them to others. They're not a picnic even with a vaccine, especially for the elderly and immunocompromised, or those who can't be vaccinated). I'd rather minimise the impact as much as I can. Neither vaccine was designed to completely prevent getting the infection but to reduce the impact.
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