To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? That is the question.

PGLGreg

lisa42 said:

neighbor's friend just died from swine flu last week
Today I called a neighbor to check on how she came through her cyberknife. She had a benign brain tumor years ago (in addition to stage I colon cancer after that)- they did gamma knife on it and was told it should never bother her again. Well, it grew back and this time she had cyberknife on it a couple of weeks ago. She did fine except for some unexpected brain swelling.

Anyhow... the real reason I'm writing... she said her cyberknife wasn't what made her week bad- it was the fact that her best friend died from swine flu. Her friend lives in our same town, is in her early 60's, had absolutely no symptoms of illness at all, when she woke up the next day with severe flu symptoms that came on strong and quickly. She went to the Dr., who sent her to E.R. & she ended up dying that same day. What's weird is that I never saw or read anything about this in our local news. I did read of someone else in another city dying from it, but this particular woman's case did not make the papers. Makes you wonder how many more are out there.

Very scary! This makes me more nervous now because my oncologist told me they would not be having their chemo patients get the swine flu virus due to the live virus issue. I just read someone else's post here that says the nasal spray version has some weakened live virus but the injected type is not live virus. I will talk to my onc about it again. I will definitely be getting the regular flu shot by the end of the month. Oh- that's one more thing- you don't want to get the flu vaccine too early in the season, because it might lose its effectiveness in early spring, when the flu could still possibly be going around. It's a fine line I guess of when to have it done.

Lisa

LAIV
Lisa wrote: "I just read someone else's post here that says the nasal spray version has some weakened live virus but the injected type is not live virus."

That was me. I think that is partially mistaken, now that I've looked at some other references, since I see only references to the nasal spray vaccine which does have live virus. There's no injected version, it seems. The nasal spray is called "FluMist", which is a LAIV, for Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine. CDC info page

Note that the vaccine is not recommended for people 50 and over (which lets me out) or "people with illnesses that weaken the immune system, or who take medications that can weaken the immune system".

Edit: Maybe there will be a non-live virus, after all. I found this on a CDC page: "Inactivated licensed novel H1N1 vaccine will be available in single-dose syringes, or in multi-dose vials."

--Greg

mommyof2kds

My oncologist stated that I
My oncologist stated that I should get the flu shots, but there is no way to know how effective they will be...