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[Krystal]

Hello everyone, just a reminder to you all to consider having the Flu Jab this winter 2018/19. We tend to think of the "flu" as a nasty cold and cough. In reality the flu virus can be very debilitating and even the cause of complications to the vulnerable. Locally people who are considered to be at risk are offered the flu vaccination. However individuals such as myself are able to have this privately at pharmacies and in some areas the GP surgery will do this at a charge. From personal experience I had the flu, it made me very poorly and my GP wanted me to go to hospital on New Years Eve. In my circumstances I preferred a family member to look after me me and I was lucky.
 I am aware that it is 100 years since the last flu pandemic in 1918 and many people lost their lives. My husband has personal knowledge of this through his late grandmother who lost family members. I have had the inoculation two weeks ago because I had the flu and this helps prevent serious complications if you do get it. BE BRAVE MAKE THAT FIRST STEP and find out more about the vaccine programme in your local area. Thank you for reading this   

[CLKD]

Don't believe in it.  The jab is always at least 18 months behind.  Also, our immune systems should be allowed to build up. 

I had 'flu twice.  In the mid-1980s, I was attacked 12 months apart in the March ....... went to bed OK woke with a raging temperature, aches all over, unable to get to the bathroom without assistance.  The 1st year DH had recently painted the bathroom and wanted me to take a look  ..... it faces East  .  I knew it was 'flu and not another virus because it was so sudden and I felt ill.

[Taz2]

Thanks for the reminder Krystal. I need to find an egg-free one as I have a slight allergy and they don't always produce one. I've been reading up on this year's vaccine which has something added this year to help effectiveness in older people.

Taz x

[jillydoll]

Thanx Krystal.
I'm actually having mine on Thursday, at my doctors clinic.
I have it only because I have an auto-immune disease of the liver,
and am always invited by my GP to have it.
Didn't have it last year though, but didn't catch the flu either. Lol

[Annie0710]

I get called for mine annually - I had the flu so bad in 2008, out of work 3 months as I got double pneumonia and pleurisy on top of it.   This new surgery want me to have the pneumonia jab at the same time as the flu jab, I'm more than happy to have it x

[Taz2]

65. If you will be 65 by the end of the flu season which is March I believe you can have one but you possibly won't get contacted and need to make the appointment yourself.

Taz x

[jillydoll]

I've had the pneumonia jab, a couple years back now
They said it lasts for 10 years...?

Didn't half sting......

[jillydoll]

Yeah,
My OH has had pneumonia twice at different times in his life.
My mom died of that too.
Nasty horrible illness.
So that's why I had it, didn't even know there was a vaccine for it.
And given I've got a liver condition, I thought I'd better have it.
I haven't got a problem with needles or anything...

[jillydoll]

Yeah, she had a brain injury due to fits, and being in like a coma for a week, which they said she'd never wake up from, and it was just a matter of time, that she'd just die in her sleep.
But she did wake up, I remember the nurse saying to me, ‘ see, miracles do happen.'
But obviously it had left her with a dementia/brain malfunction thing, and she had to go into a nursing home when she was able to be moved.
She moved into there in the July, but died from pneumonia the following February.
What she didn't know was my Dad had died in the December.
So lost them both in a matter of two months..
The most horrific, terrible time of my life. I was always very close to my mom n dad.
That was 13 years ago, When I'd just turned 40.
So yeah, having seen my mom go through pneumonia, it's worth having....xx

[jillydoll]

But to answer your question,
Yes the GP does it...lol

[Annie0710]

So sorry Jillydoll

By 45 i'd Lost both my parents to sudden death, mum a brain haemorrhage and dad a cardiac arrest

During my double pneumonia there were a few occasions where I'd almost given up fighting it and for the first time understood how old people often give up.  It's exhausting fighting for breath when you're at your weakest.  I have problems with antibiotics and remember forever having to try new ones.  Plus my illness was in the middle of a flu epidemic so couldn't even be in hospital, very dark times that I'd never want to go through again x

[jillydoll]

Oh Annie0710
I'm so sorry to hear that, it's awful isn't it?
I wonder sometimes how the hell I got through that period of my life,
how we do I'll never know.
It must have been so traumatic for you having double pneumonia.
God, I can still see my mom, fighting for breath, with an oxygen mask on.
For months after, I'd have dreams about her, not being dead, it was terrible, then waking up
and reliving it all again...

Make sure you have your jabs, Annie, stay well.

Is it true that once you've had pneumonia, your always susceptible to it again?
I don't know for sure, just something someone said to me years back.

[jillydoll]

Thank you Robin. 

We all go through horrid times in our lives, whatever they are,
It's how we handle them , that's the key....
I did think I'd never recover from that traumatic time, but somehow you do,
you have to..
I think it shapes the person you become. In one way or another too.

We live our lives now like ‘we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, ‘
Because we've seen that things can change so much so, so, quickly...
Life is fragile, and we try and live it the best way we can...

Like they say, you never know what you've got until it's gone.
So very true.....

Xx

[Robin]

Very very true jillydoll 

[Annie0710]

I don't know if having pneumonia once makes you more likely to suffer again but from that day on I've had flu jabs.  My lungs have never been the same since that's for sure but this recent anaphylaxis I had seems to have weakened them even more x