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Over here in the UK the only people that tend to get flu shots are already vulnerable to disease in some way.


My GP sends me a letter every year urging me, for the love of [insert deity], to immediately get a flu shot. This on the basis of my technically having asthma, although in reality it was only ever an allergy-triggered thing and in the last few years has diminished to almost non-existence. I have never taken the offer up, both because it always seems to be available at a time I'm not, and because a doctor friend of mine has warned that the side effects are frequently worst than what it's supposed to prevent.

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I can't remember anyone I know actually having flu in recent years


The last time I had flu was about a year ago, and I've only really had it perhaps three times in my life. Once was at college, where I completely lost three days of memory due to delerium, once was about 10 years ago where I spent one night wrapped in two duvets huddled over a convection heater in a room which was at about 45 degrees C, shivering and feeling like I was freezing to death.

The recent one was classic symptoms: Woke up feeling a little under the weather, 6 hours later I couldn't get out of bed on a bet. Shivering, fever (both types, reminiscent of Homer Simpson - Hot! Cold! AHH! Hot!! etc), coughing at least one lung up, aches and pains to the point of agony, and so on. When you have flu for real you are left in no doubt that previous attempts were mere colds.

Mind you, when I gave it to my brother he really made a meal out of it. It nearly turned into pneumonia. Showoff

pca
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Experience is what you get just after it would have helped...