What are the odds of a senior getting the flu without a flu shot?

Despite the thread being old, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t valid. It still might help someone who has similar concerns.

I just want to say that people are unique and immunity varies and furthermore, the flu virus can mutate.

My mother who is just 68, but has diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease and lymphedema in both legs (that we can’t control, because Medicare, & insurance companies don’t cover the needed supplies for compression that she needs), got the flu in Feb. 2017, which lead to her first hospitalization in decades - because it triggered congestive heart failure. Then in September, 2017 she was hospitalized again for congestive heart failure, due to medication mismanagement and again not being able to manage that Lymphedema. This Jan. 2018, she was in the hospital for the third time in a year. Still not able to manage the severe swelling that leads to the build up of fluid in both legs.
So get the flu shot, because the complications of could be worse.

stcausey1, I just want to suggest that you tell your loved one that is in the military that gets sick after getting the flu shot, should report his side effects to the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) - all of the information can be found on their main site at vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html , you can make a report on this page vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index.jsp and you can call this number for more assistance 1-800-822-7967, and I would also suggest he look into the possibility of getting permission to receive the flu-mist, instead of the shot; It might not make him sick.

Take care.

The flu vaccine does not have mercury or any other harmful substances in it. The current flu outbreak (that is heavy with most hospitals packed full) is being caused by a screw up by manufacturers of the vaccine, they guessed WRONG as to what strains to include in the vaccine. So the vaccine isn’t working against the strain of flu that’s prevalent and making people sick.

So in 2017-2018, it’s pretty easy to catch the flu. I’ve had it, my daughter’s had it and apparently my dad caught it in the hospital ER while waiting for my mom to be admitted for CHF episode. It took them all night to get a room so I’d say this flu is about average for being contagious.

Very informative even if it is an old thread! 😉

I've been thinking about the flu epidemic lately. Although my mother and I have both had flu shots, I would dissuade her from going to the ER for one of her "panic"/dizziness/"vertigo" attacks. (She usually ends up in the ER about once a year.)

She doesn't allow them to do anything more than draw blood and take a basic CT scan. She will not allow them to do an MRI. So she always gets sent home with no reason for the latest "attack." After the most recent ER trip (which was more serious, although now she insists it was just vertigo), she has told me she won't be going back to the ER.

I do NOT want to sit with in the ER waiting room for hours, exposed to all the flu germs. I do not want to take her multiple times to the bathroom. I do NOT want to sit with her in the ER cubicle for hours. So I am thinking that the next time she thinks she needs to go to the ER, that I will tell her to call the ambulance and then have the ER call me to come get her when she is ready to be released. The staff can wheel her out to my car. And then I will bring her back to her condo.

Sounds awfully selfish, doesn't it? But she wants me to have nothing to do with her medical decision making, and looks upon me strictly as her dummy daughter driver. I refuse to sign even ER discharge instructions for her anymore.

I shouldn't be doing any kind of caregiving for her. I know that. But my brothers are states away. And my mother refuses to hire help of any kind (just this week she told me it takes her a full hour to get dressed in the morning...apparently a lot of balancing is involved and she moves so slowly).

I am thinking back about my parents, they received the flu shots since the first time flu shots were ever given, decades ago.... plus they worked 3 days a week doing volunteer work at a regional hospital. And here they were in their late 80's. Not once did they ever get sick, not even a sniffle.

I believe if a person get a flu shot every year for years on end, the body builds up a resistant to anything "flu".

Thus i had followed my parent's lead and had also been getting yearly shots for decades. This year I finally tried the "senior" flu shot, and had no side effects :)

If a senior doesn't have a flu shot and is out and about, or someone else in the household doesn't have the shot and works outside of the home, or there are school age children in the household.... there is a higher chance the elder will come down with the flu.

According to the CDC [Center on Disease Control] the product called FluMist, the nasal spray influenza vaccine, not be used during the 2017-18 season.

That's an interesting, theory, that the body can build up a resistant to multiple flu viruses if one is immunized for many years. Maybe the various strains (different ones contained in the vaccine in different years) confer differing kinds of immunity.

That FluMist was the be-all and end-all when it was introduced. And now it's pretty much worthless. I never had it.