Posted on 09/17/2017 3:36:49 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
You are better off to take natural preventatives and stay away from Walmart, Costco and the mall for a few months.
Nope. They always insist this winter’s flu will be the worst ever, and they haven’t been right since 1918.
I went to one of the health stores and got something very similar to this product:
From what I’ve read, the 1918 flu killed mostly young people who had the strongest immune systems.
Thanks for posting this. Looked it up and it sounds impressive enough for me to order a tube (skin rash). Might try a bottle for internal use.
A lot of people post misinformation about infectious diseases and vaccines here. This happens to be my area of expertise, so I try to tackle the misinformation when I encounter it. My feeling is that the misinformation can cause serious harm to people if they believe and act on it, and I have a chance to prevent harm by providing the accurate information.
Per my daughter, they have been seeing a number of folks getting shingles who are younger than the "normal" age range. They believe that it is because the vaccine isn't strong enough to make the body react with the same vigor as actual Chicken Pox does and some folks become more susceptible because the body's defenses haven't been fully triggered.
I seriously doubt that people who have received the varicella vaccine are going to get shingles later on from the vaccine. An apparent increase in shingles cases could be an indirect consequence of the vaccine. This is because, pre-vaccine, when someone would develop chicken pox, their natural immunity would be boosted any time they encountered someone who has an active case of chicken pox. But, with the chickenpox vaccine, there are fewer people who get chickenpox. Thus, there is little opportunity to get that natural immune booster. So, as their immunity to chickenpox wanes over time, there is a higher chance that the latent virus in their nerves will reactivate.
In my case, the vaccine did not prevent shingles, because the vaccine formulation to prevent shingles is different than the one to prevent chickenpox. The vaccine was simply not strong enough to boost my immune system to the point where it would prevent shingles. Plus, there was a gap of several years between receiving the varicella vaccine and getting shingles, so whatever immune boost I might have gotten from the vaccine had likely waned quite a bit. When I had shingles, my doctor recommended getting the shingles vaccine after the shingles had cleared up--although I have not done that yet.
Shingles is caused by a reactivation of chickenpox virus that is already in the body. It typically happens because the immune system is becoming weaker--usually age related, but can also be related to stress. I actually do not know why I got shingles, since I am younger than the average shingles patient, and I did not feel particularly stressed at the time.
Actually, you should get the shingles vaccine. If you had chickenpox as a kid, the chickenpox virus is still alive in your nerves and can still be activated. One reason the virus reactivates is age: your immune system function decreases as you age. The shingles vaccine is meant to give a strong boost to your immunity against chickenpox, which hopefully will overcome the natural age-related waning of your immune function. I say "hopefully" because your immune system may already have weakened to the point where no vaccine has much effect by the time you receive the shingles vaccine.
Trying to predict which strain of the flu will predominate in the upcoming flu season is something like predicting the weather. Scientists can look at past trends and come up with a most likely scenario, but they will never be able to predict exactly.
The match between the predictions used to formulate the vaccines and the actual flu strains that circulate is variable from year to year. It can be from 40% accurate to over 70% accurate.
Another confounder is that there are several strains that circulate every year, and the vaccine only contains three (or four, in newer vaccines).
That said, you are still better off getting the flu vaccine than not. It will protect you against the three (or four) strains it contains. It will provide partial protection against related strains, and that partial protection can save your life if you get sick.
I read recently that taking Vitamin D can do as much or more to battle Flu than a flu shot. My 90 year old Aunt takes 5000 units a day.
When your sister had chickenpox, you may have developed a sub-clinical case of it.
The shingles vaccine is not meant to prevent chickenpox, and so was not evaluated for that. It decreases the incidence of shingles by anywhere from 18 to 64%, depending on your age. People over 80 have the least protection against shingles. People in the 60-69 year old range have the most protection.
Been retired now for four years now, still seem to have a decent immune system
Did you review the current “flu” in Australia?
It seems to have a very high mutation rate.
That is true.
The flu usually kills the most people who are younger than age 2, and older than about age 65, because people in those age groups have the weakest immune systems. In children, the immune system has not fully formed yet. In people over 65, the immune system is waning. So they are particularly susceptible to flu.
What happened in 1918 is that the predominate circulating virus was a new type that no one had ever had before. So no one had any pre-existing immunity that people normally have from getting sick with similar strains of flu. For the very young and old, I do not think that the 1918 flu was much more deadly than the "normal" seasonal flus prior to 1918. But when the young adults, those with the strongest immune systems, came down with that completely new flu strain, their strong, healthy immune systems went into overdrive. They developed a condition called "cytokine storm." A cytokine storm can be fatal within hours.
Every time you got the flu or a cold during those first ten years of teaching your immune system learned a little bit about how to keep that one (and related strains) from running rampant through your body the next time you came in contact. You paid the price for that well-developed immune system of yours - enjoy it!
I remarked to my husband the other day that it seems kind of strange now that I am no longer working in a position where I am the resident influenza expert... and I am falling behind in keeping track of the latest flu developments as a result. I used to give briefings on it.
All influenzas have a high mutation rate, due to the fact that they are RNA viruses and have no ability to fix mistakes in their genome. It looks like there is a strain shift going on in Australia, which does happen every few years. Typically, one virus will circulate for a few years, but as more and more people develop immunity to it, the incidence of that specific strain drops and it can even disappear completely. But if it mutates, it can infect people who were immune to the previous form of the virus. This seems to be what is going on in Australia this season.
“You should worry about your sanity if you’re thinking about letting them stick that needle in your arm LOL”
Vaccines are hardly an unproven science!
I always find it baffling that some think they are some conspiracy to somehow control people.
Vaccines are basic proven science. They may have negative side effects on few people; I know one in fact.
But they work very well on most of the population.
Keep in mind they are picking the strains to make the vaccine from months ahead of time.
Sometimes a different flu strain comes at us than what was in the vaccine.
All my friends got the shot and all have had shingles.
Or people who got chixpox when young were re immunized when their offspring got it, leaving shings at bay among larger part of the general population.
Have not had it and I am the only one of all my friends who had the shot who had children who all had chixpox 15 to 20 years ago.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.