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Your Best Bet: Get a Flu Shot

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By: Melody Rabor-Dizon

 

Emergency rooms across the country are flooded with patients inflicted with the flu. Nurses and physicians can only sigh because flu is preventable. Per Dr. Ed Katz, a physician at Maricopa Integrated Health System’s Emergency Department, “ It stinks because there’s not much we can do once you are sick. And it stinks because for most people, the flu is avoidable and for many reasons the flu makes people miserable with fevers, runny noses, fatigue and all the usual symptoms. They may be the ones suffering, but I, too, feel some regret. I can’t cure them, and their best treatments are things you can get inexpensively at any drugstore.”

And as your health advocate, I agree with him 100%. Once people have the flu, there are only a few things patients can do. Though the traditional rest and hydration are old-fashioned recommendations that works, over-the-counter medications like Ibuprofen, Tylenol, decongestants and chicken noodle soup are helpful as well. Sources prove that chicken noodle soup show mild relief if any maybe the emotional comfort it brings.

You may have heard that the flu shot for this season is only 10% effective. No matter what you hear, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) still recommends having everyone who’s 6 months and older to have the flu shot unless contraindicated like getting an allergic reactions to shots from the past.

So looming question is why does the flu shot not effective? Per researchers, “Most influenza viruses mutate in the Far East each year, with a few strains trying to take hold and cause the year’s dominant strain. Vaccine manufacturers travel to Asia and sample thousands of people and animals to predict which viruses are the most likely to spread. Their vaccines target the best guesses. Each vaccine targets three or four types of the flu and this year, two of the three most common strains vaccinated against were accurate guesses. Patients who received the vaccine are around 70 percent immune to those strains. One strain missed, and only 10 percent of vaccinated patients are immune to that one. “

So given that knowledge, would you risk not having a shot? No. By skipping the vaccine, you risk a day of having a sore shoulder versus risking two weeks of feeling horrible, possibly infecting other people and losing days of work. Dr Katz adds that, of all the 20 patients he has treated with influenza none of them had been vaccinated. And to think none of the ER docs nor nurses have gotten sick, despite being in close proximity to these infected patients because all the workers got their flu shots. “It’s mandated in the workplace “

As we all know now the vaccine is far from perfect but it’s far better than the alternative and as for me, I’ll take that.

To reiterate the must do’s to prevent the spread of the flu:

1. Wash hands or use hand sanitizers after contact with people.

2. If you cough or sneeze, cover mouth with your elbow otherwise known as the Dracula cover.

3. Please, please, please get your flu shot. Get vaccinated this year and every year thereafter.

I, you health advocate can not keep you from getting sick. But you can.

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