I’ve never had any ill effects from flu shots either, not even a slight fever or fatigue; the worst was a little soreness at the injection site and I didn’t even get that with this year’s shot.
Flu shots do not give people the flu. However the later in the flu season that someone gets a flu shot, the more likely they are to get the flu before the vaccine takes full effect.
People need to understand that the flu shot takes about two weeks to confer immunity so it is possible to catch the flu during that time and even then it only protects against the most prevalent strains of flu that season (that’s why there is a new flu shot formulation every year). And in some years the virus match is better than in others, but even with a less than perfect match to the prevalent strains, one is still better protected against a severe case of flu with a shot than without.
Also the flu shot does not protect against the common cold, which having many symptoms similar to and in common with the flu, is often mistaken for the flu. Generally the flu comes on very suddenly, tends to last longer, is often accompanied by very bad body aches and a high fever, sometimes nausea and vomiting, deep chest congestion, a “dry” cough and fatigue lasting for a week or more whereas the common cold often starts with nasal congestion and a sore throat, tends to come on a bit more gradually and tends not to last as long. The most important difference is that the flu is much more likely to result in pneumonia or secondary bacterial infections which can be life threatening, especially in the very young, the very old in people with underlying health problems.
I will also add that I suffer from allergies this time of year (late fall through winter). At least once a year I’ll get an allergy attack so severe that it very much feels like a cold or flu – the sudden onslaught of uncontrollable sneezing, runny nose accompanied by deep body aches, fever, chills and fatigue. I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train and probably look like it. The last time this happened my boss told me (pleaded with me) to go home. The only way I know that it’s not a cold or the flu is that the symptoms completely disappear the next day.
I get that, too. In fact, I can never tell if I have an allergy or a cold. Looking up the symptoms is no help, either, since they are identical.
Anyway, thanks for trying to help educate people. I see so much misinformation in these threads that sometimes, I just want to throw my hands up in despair. But then I think, if no one tries to whittle away at the mountains of misinformation, then the forces of quackery win. So I keep plugging away, trying to educate people.