Flu vaccine: still probably for the best

[steuard]

Last weekend, I decided to go ahead and take advantage of the college's flu vaccination offerings. I had a choice between a shot and a nasal spray.

With the shot, you get jabbed with a needle that squirts dead flu viruses into your arm. This inspires your body to produce antibodies to them, so side effects may include a sore arm, fever, and aches.

With the nasal spray, you get live flu-like viruses squirted up your nose. They're designed to be inactive in internal body heat, so they can infect your nose and possibly throat but not your lungs. Not surprisingly, side effects may include runny nose, headache, sore throat, and a cough.

I opted for the nasal spray, but maybe I should have just opted for a different week: I've got to grade exams, but I've felt tired and sniffly for days. Annoying, that. (It may not be entirely the vaccine's fault, but I'd be surprised if there were no connection at all.)

Comments

[kirin]

Guh, that nose spray sounds distressingly close to giving yourself the flu to avoid the flu. I think I'd probably opt for the arm if I did it. I get enough runny nose and sore throat from seasonal allergies and passing colds.

I don't think I've ever gotten the regular seasonal flu vaccine, though I did opt for the H1N1 before we traveled to Europe last spring.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I'm not prepared to claim that the nasal vaccine would give everyone a sniffle every time, or even that it would give me a sniffle the majority of the time. I was already a little tired and stuffy when I got it, so I may have been particularly susceptible. And for what it's worth, my symptoms were still fairly mild: if I hadn't had an intense week of grading to deal with, I might not have been nearly as bothered by them. At worst it felt like a low-grade cold; it certainly wasn't remotely as bad as the flu usually is. (I think I've been achy after getting the shot in the past, too, even though that's supposed to be uncommon: I may just tend to react more to vaccinations than most people do.)

I decided that between 1) working at a school and 2) having a pregnant wife, I had plenty of reasons to get inoculated this year. :) I'm not terribly consistent about it.

[feuervogel]

Well, it's a live attenuated virus, so it *will* replicate and produce (generally) milder symptoms as your immune system kicks in and starts sending cytokines and pro-inflammatory agents to kill those bugs.

Most symptoms from (most common) viral infections are actually from your immune system, not from the virus itself. (Bacterial infections are a different story; some of them produce toxins that cause symptoms.)

http://merck.com/mmhe/sec17/ch198/ch198a.html
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec17/ch190/ch190a.html

[beth_leonard]

Interesting. I've always gone for the shot because I'm a cheapskate. Now I have two good reasons to take that option.

I got the flu the first winter after I graduated from Mudd, and I was so miserable that I've had the flu shot every year since. I don't normally get very sick when I get sick and usually just shurg off most colds, but that experience was enough for me to never want to get the flu again.

--Beth

[steuard.livejournal.com]

At least here, the two options were exactly the same price. I think there have been improvements in the nasal spray that make it more stable and thus cheaper to transport and store (refrigeration rather than freezing).

I haven't seen numbers on the relative likelihood of side effects for the two vaccines. My vague sense is that they're more common with the spray (since the CDC explicitly calls the side effects of the shot "rare" in some places, while the language I've seen for the spray has tended to be fuzzier), but I wouldn't swear to it. And of course, the shot obviously has the "side effect" of the needle jab and whatever mild-to-moderate irritation follows that, independent of the contents of the vaccine.