Ahhh but did she make sure you did it at the right angle?
Of course, sheās given me a little angle measuring device.
Well by the time we get round to the next set of jabs you could be perfect. 
Funny you should say that Pats, when I worked in a boarding school the house staff were encouraged to have the flu vaccination which was administered by the team of āSan Sistersā .
When I was vaccinated by āSister Kateā I never had a sore arm but I did with the other sisters :-).
I thought it was coincidence .
Incidently I worked there for almost 15 years and always had the vaccination which was free to staff and on offer to all the girls but many did not take up the offer.
One year in our house of 68 girls and 4 house staff only the vaccinated house staff and a hand full of girls were left standing. It was a nightmare, with the Sanitarium full UK girls were sent home but we had to nurse the large number of overseas girls āin houseā. It was very hard on staff who had little sleep for a number of weeks.
It certainly convinced me of the value of the flu vaccination.
Sounds great, I hope you like jabbinā as much as I do.
Meg thatās the sort of post makes me believe Iām doing the right thing having it. No amount of studies and experts who are usually not very unbiased will convince me over a situation like you describe.
Itās anecdotal and therefore of no value in impartially and scientifically assessing whether the flu jab is effective or not.
The whole purpose of the Cochrane Collaboration coming together was to tackle the previous unsatisfactory situation that existed where studies were heavily biased in favour of the company of group sponsoring and funding the studies.
Cochrane established the protocols and methods by which ANY medical study should be done in order to ensure that those studies were thorough, impartial, not influenced by money and funding and were wholly reliable.
They established themselves at the international reference source for all such studies.
Choosing to base your health on anecdotal evidence rather than peer reviewed scientific fact is somewhat foolish but nevertheless your free choice. I will defend to the hilt your right to be wholly unscientific, irrational and emotional.
Unfortunately, the flu injection does not protect you from all flu strains.
I donāt think anyone claims it does, I believe they swap around the ones most likely to attack us each year so itās better than no protection at all.
You mean, a bit like Russian Roulette?
Better that than a bullet in every chamber 
but it has had other benefits for my husband and I too as I explained earlier in the thread which makes it well worth having for us.
The study from 2009/2010 would disagree.
It concluded that:
āschool aged children and healthy young adults, who had gotten a flu shot the previous season, were at twice the risk of coming down with pandemic A swine flu in 2009 that was severe enough to require a trip to the doctorās office.ā
These were some of the findings:
-
repeated annual flu shots may hamper certain kinds of immune responses, making young vaccinated children, who have never been naturally infected with influenza virus, āmore susceptible to infection with a pandemic influenza virus of a novel subtype.ā
-
many unvaccinated persons, who did not get sick during the pandemic flu season, were āsilentlyā infected with pandemic influenza anyway and mounted a strong T-cell immune response to the new influenza strain.
-
compared with people who remained unvaccinated, those who got a pandemic flu shot were more likely to get sick with an āinfluenza like illnessā (ILI) caused by a rhinovirus.
(Rhinoviruses cause the common cold and other upper and lower respiratory infections that give you a fever, headache, body aches and a terrible cough that hangs on for weeks")
http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-newā¦-the-time.aspx
But again you are using healthy people as the study, many of us arenāt we have problems that could make flu more serious even kill us.
Sigh . . . . .!
So if we are going to specifically look at the efficacy of the flu jab in specific non-healthy adults then we have to look for proper, impartial, clinical studies that have been done in relation to specific health conditions. We find that there are not that many meaning that again, there is little to no real evidence to support the efficacy of the vaccine.
However there are a few and these are some of them:
(All proper studies done by Cochrane)
Vaccines for preventing influenza in people with asthma
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000364.pub4/full
Result:
āCurrent guidelines in the UK recommend that high-risk groups such as people with severe asthma should have a flu jab each winter (NHS Choices); however, there is limited evidence for this approach.ā
Influenza vaccination in children being treated with chemotherapy for cancer
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006484.pub3/full
Result:
Inconclusive. āit is not possible to recommend or discourage influenza vaccination in children with cancer who are treated with chemotherapyā
Influenza vaccination for healthcare workers who care for people aged 60 or older living in long-term care institutions
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD005187.pub5/full
Result:
āOur review findings have not identified conclusive evidence of benefit of HCW vaccination programmes on specific outcomes of laboratory-proven influenza, its complications (lower respiratory tract infection, hospitalisation or death due to lower respiratory tract illness), or all cause mortality in people over the age of 60 who live in care institutionsā
Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004876.pub3/full
Results:
āThe available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older. To resolve the uncertainty, an adequately powered publicly-funded randomised, placebo-controlled trial run over several seasons should be undertaken.ā
Vaccines for preventing influenza in people with cystic fibrosis
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001753.pub3/full
Result:
āThere is currently no evidence from randomised studies that influenza vaccine given to people with cystic fibrosis is of benefit to themā
But wait . . . .
Hereās a good one !! Praise the Lord!. . . .
Influenza vaccine for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002733.pub2/full
Result:
"there is now some evidence from randomised trials that inactivated influenza vaccine indeed decreases āflare upsā of COPD, especially those that are related to the influenza virus itself. "
Thanks realist, thatās very interesting.
I had my first ever 'flu jab the winter after a very serious operation and that winter I had a filthy fluey cold/ cough virus which hit me three times. Wham.
I thought it was a coincidence so had the jab the following year too.
Same result, several dreadful colds and felt unwell for weeks.
The following year I thought sod this for a game of soldiers and didnāt have the jabā¦fit as a flea all winter. Same every year since.
I am classed as high risk because I have Asthma but l still wonāt have the flu injection. I rarely get a cold.
Interesting account Ruthio, but obviously, as per many other similar accounts, it is anecdotal evidence.
Your experience does however gel with the studies from 2009/10 that concluded that the jab makes people more susceptible to Rhinovirus (cold/flu) symptoms and makes bouts of them last weeks.
In the absence of any impartial and controlled evidence to suggest that the flu jab is in any way effective, I can understand why you would avoid it.
Perhaps in years to come that situation will change but at this time the entire flu jab campaign appears to be an aggressive marketing scam predicated on a fear of campaign which is obviously making $billions for some groups.
They monitor the predicted strain for the season Julieā¦seasonal flu vaccines have been updated to better match circulating virusesā¦and even if you should happen to succumb to another strain, you will have some antibody protection.
A cold is no comparison to fluā¦ as an Asthmatic you are at a higher risk of complications such as pneumonia if you should get flu.
For the last week or so Iāve been a bit achy in my bones - mostly top of my legs and back.
Iām wondering if itās a side effect of the flu jab. I was ok before I had it!