Nasal Vaccine

[Quetzalcoatl]

Hey guys.
Nasal vaccines become available on campus on Thursday. I plan to get one, but due to allergies I'm generally pretty liable to sneeze when someone jams anything up my nostrils. Can anybody who has been given one this season tell me what it feels like?

[General Zod]

Probably just like every other nasal spray? Also keep in mind that this vaccine uses a live virus, and not antibodies like the shot will. Which is why I'm holding off until the injection is more commonly available.

[Lagmonster]

With flu season upon us, this seems a reasonable thing to discuss. I've decided since it's quasi-medical that SLAM would be the most appropriate venue.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I am embarassed. I'd hoped to avoid people accusing me of vaccine-fear by asking in testing. Ah well.

I should add I DON'T use sprays precisely because I just tend to sneeze them out.

[General Zod]

I am embarassed. I'd hoped to avoid people accusing me of vaccine-fear by asking in testing. Ah well.

As long as you aren't going off about vaccines causing autism or something completely unproven I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Alferd Packer]

I'm personally holding off until the shot becomes more available, and I've never gotten a flu shot in my life. This year, though, I'm gonna get them both. No sense in effing around with something that I've had zero exposure and thus zero natural immunity to.

Though, TBH, since I do work in Manhattan, I'm sure I've been near someone who had H1N1. Regardless, the vaccine can't hurt.

[Lagmonster]

I am embarassed. I'd hoped to avoid people accusing me of vaccine-fear by asking in testing. Ah well.

Your OP was quite clear in that you were looking for information and advice, and with legitimate reason - i.e. a sneezing reaction - rather than fear of the vaccine. And even if you were actually worried about the vaccine itself, you might stand a chance of being educated, or at least pointed in the right direction with information.

[Serafina]

And testing is all the wrong place if you want to avoid mockery...

Anyway, on topic:
I tend to sneeze out nasal sprays, too.
But if i lay my head back, it normally helps a lot.

Regards
Fina

[Quetzalcoatl]

I tend to sneeze out nasal sprays, too.
But if i lay my head back, it normally helps a lot.

My mother's advice, word for word.

Since I posted I've been doing a little reading up on this vaccine. All this buisness with live flu and nanoparticles is a little beyond my ken, but I haven't heard much complaint about it as oppossed to the jab.

[General Zod]

I tend to sneeze out nasal sprays, too.
But if i lay my head back, it normally helps a lot.

My mother's advice, word for word.

Since I posted I've been doing a little reading up on this vaccine. All this buisness with live flu and nanoparticles is a little beyond my ken, but I haven't heard much complaint about it as oppossed to the jab.

Using a live (albeit weakened) virus as opposed to antibodies means that you could actually get sick if your immune system isn't up to snuff. So if you have any doubts about that it might not be a bad idea to wait until the injection becomes available.

[Razaekel]

Just make sure you breathe in good when they spray it, else it feels like cold snot is rolling around your nose, which is pretty unpleasant. Normally, I have to clear my throat a few times as well, since it drips down the back.

[Dave]

Since I have asthma, I'm unable to get the nasal spray and must wait for the shot.

[Master of Cards]

Dave if you're at M S&T, its the injection that we can get at Student Death.

I'm not getting the flu shot because I'm not entirely convinced of the real need to get one for a virus that isn't as bad as the normal flu. I'm sure it works but its not something I really need to get. Is there really any reaso nto get it other then peace of mind?

[General Zod]

Dave if you're at M S&T, its the injection that we can get at Student Death.

I'm not getting the flu shot because I'm not entirely convinced of the real need to get one for a virus that isn't as bad as the normal flu. I'm sure it works but its not something I really need to get. Is there really any reaso nto get it other then peace of mind?

Herd immunity? From what I understand it's not that it isn't as bad, but that it's not as widespread and it affects different age groups than the regular flu more severely.

[Alferd Packer]

I'm sure it works but its not something I really need to get. Is there really any reaso nto get it other then peace of mind?

According to the CDC (by way of the 60 Minutes report on TV last night), unless you were born before 1950, your body has had no exposure to a virus of this type. Because of this, younger individuals have the potential to get really, really sick, because their body has zero antibodies that might help to keep the virus in check. They highlighted a case of this high school football player in Arkansas. He, his team, the cheerleaders, and the opposing team all got sick with H1N1 following a Friday game. While almost all were recovered by next Friday's game, he was in the hospital a few days later with a severe bacterial pneumonia infection, and has been unconscious and on a respirator for a couple weeks.

In other words: you most likely won't get super sick from H1N1. But if you get bad, you're going to get it really bad.

[PeZook]

Even if it was "only" just as bad as regular flu, flu directly attacks your breathing pathways. Flu is not the common cold, and while a young otherwise healthy person living in a first-world country is probably in little danger of actually dying from it, every time you get the flu, you run the risk of serious health complications. If you have allergies or the first stages of asthma, then it's worse: you get a very real danger of asthma becoming a serious problem instead of a minor nuisance.

I think it's the most underrated disease ever, to be honest.

[Knife]

I would imagine that the inhalation of the mist before the sneeze would deliver enough of the vaccine down into the bronchiols and absorb enough of them that sneezing wouldn't make the whole process futile. Let alone what ever gets absorbed in your soft tissue in your nose and other lymphnodes along the way.

[TheLostVikings]

Hey guys.
Nasal vaccines become available on campus on Thursday. I plan to get one, but due to allergies I'm generally pretty liable to sneeze when someone jams anything up my nostrils. Can anybody who has been given one this season tell me what it feels like?

While this is sort of off topic it is worth mentioning that you (temporarily) stop yourself from sneezing if you pinch your nose closed. No seriously, ball you hand into a fist, then put the side of your index fingers on one side of you nose and your thumb on the other and squeeze your nose shut. Dupe to some weird innate reflex you will be temporarily unable to sneeze as long as your nose is blocked.

So if you inhale deeply as they administer the vaccine then immediately clamp your nose shut if you feel like sneezing you could probably circumvent the problem to begin with.

[Broomstick]

Since I have asthma, I'm unable to get the nasal spray and must wait for the shot.

I have a history of asthma and thus cannot get the nasal spray (and I'm also almost too old for it - they limit it to people under 50). However, I am also allergic to egg-based vaccines, so I am allergic to the "flu shot".

So, everyone else, PLEASE get vaccinated so you won't get sick and pass it on to people such as myself who can not be immunized for medical reasons.

Fortunately, I am no longer using mass transit to get to work (there's a petri dish for you!) and the majority of other people in my life have already been immunized. Also, I'm old enough to have been around the last time swine flu made the rounds and thus probably have some resistance to it. My sister the doctor thinks I may have already had it this time around, and if she's correct, for me it was a minor illness. But I have a genuine dread of a true, deadly flu pandemic. I wish they had a safe alternative such those such as myself.

Well, I guess I can get Tamiflu.... as long as it's not so misused as to render it useless because of resistant strains.

[Broomstick]

I'm not getting the flu shot because I'm not entirely convinced of the real need to get one for a virus that isn't as bad as the normal flu.

Even a mild flu results in tens of thousands of deaths per year, and even more hospitalizations. Further confusing the issue is that many people call a bad cold or other upper respiratory illness "the flu" when it really isn't, and then there is the term "stomach flu", which is really food poisoning or gastrointestinal infection.

"Mild" flu viruses can and do kill people. Flu has the potential to trigger an auto-immune reaction that can kill the young and healthy. That is a rare complication (usually) but it's the reason flu should be considered significant even in the young and healthy.

I'm sure it works but its not something I really need to get. Is there really any reason to get it other then peace of mind?

Um.... would you rather be sick or not sick? A flu shot can prevent illness, isn't that worth a jab in the arm?

Also - as I noted, some people can not get a flu shot. Some of those people, such as myself, are otherwise healthy, active adults so it's not just a matter of old people in nursing homes or sick kids on a cancer ward. Our society also has immune-suppressed citizens for whom any illness can become life-threatening, and again these folks are often out and about earning a living and not just invalids. One of the reasons for getting a flu shot, other than the pure self-interest of avoiding an illness, is to protect the person sitting next to you at the movies or on the bus, or in line with you at the grocery store, or sitting the next table over at a restaurant or cafe, who can't be immunized and thus is vulnerable. If you yourself can not get the flu because of a successful immunization then you can not pass it on to someone else.

[PeZook]

Also, consider this: people say the current swine flu strain is not more dangerous than normal flu. Guess what? Spanish flu was also caused by a virus from the AH1N1 group, and it came in three waves: the first was relatively mild, then the second and third mutated strains hit and killed millions. I imagine some people in 1918 were pretty smug with those worrying about the first wave, too.

But hey, there's no reason to get immunized against one of the deadliest diseases in the history of mankind, right? And if I get it, I'll just lay in bed and drink lots of hot tea...

[General Zod]

Also, consider this: people say the current swine flu strain is not more dangerous than normal flu. Guess what? Spanish flu was also caused by a virus from the AH1N1 group, and it came in three waves: the first was relatively mild, then the second and third mutated strains hit and killed millions. I imagine some people in 1918 were pretty smug with those worrying about the first wave, too.

But hey, there's no reason to get immunized against one of the deadliest diseases in the history of mankind, right? And if I get it, I'll just lay in bed and drink lots of hot tea...

It isn't as dangerous because it hasn't killed nearly as many people as normal influenza does every year. There's no "smugness" there, that's just numbers. There was also no influenza vaccine in 1918, so even if people wanted to get vaccinated when the third wave hit, they couldn't.

[PeZook]

It isn't as dangerous because it hasn't killed nearly as many people as normal influenza does every year. There's no "smugness" there, that's just numbers. There was also no influenza vaccine in 1918, so even if people wanted to get vaccinated when the third wave hit, they couldn't.

There's only been 254 thousand confirmed cases or so, with about 3000 deaths. This isn't a particularly bad mortality rate (1.5%), but first, nobody measures the number of people who suffered serious complications as a result, and second, it's just the first wave of a virus that behaves very similarly to the spanish flu, which means we may yet see a second wave.

Of course even a spanish flu scale pandemic won't kill nearly as many people, since medical technology has greatly improved since 1918, but that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to get vaccinated other than "peace of mind". Drug resistant strains are already showing up throughout the world, after all, so don't count too much on Tamiflu.

[General Zod]

Of course even a spanish flu scale pandemic won't kill nearly as many people, since medical technology has greatly improved since 1918, but that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to get vaccinated other than "peace of mind". Drug resistant strains are already showing up throughout the world, after all, so don't count too much on Tamiflu.

There's plenty of good reasons to get vaccinated, but pointing out that people are being smug because they're saying it's not as lethal is stupid.

[PeZook]

Well, okay, I can concede that.