To not let dd have flu nasal spray this year?

[blueraindrop]

Firstly I'm very pro vaccine dd 6 has had everything offered to her so far.
But every year without fail she succumbs to illness straight after the flu nasal spray.
One year was a whole week off school and this year both me and dh have new jobs and we just don't have time to take the time off for effectively a planned bout of illness!
We live pretty boring lives rurally, other than school we don't really go many places so I'm not sure it's really worth it. Not to mention poor dd being ill every year.

She's not high risk other than being a dc so I really don't see how I can justify it. I don't actually no anyone personally who has had the flu. I know it's awful etc but just not sure.
Feel free to highlight my ignorance though!

And what's on the list of Flumist side effect?
Headache,
low fever,
runny or stuffy nose,
sore throat,
cough,
tiredness,
fatigue,
irritability etc.

I’m not massively convinced by the nasal spray either so DD gets the shot instead (not UK so we get to choose). If that was my only choice though I’d get the nasal spray. I had flu as a teen when living in the UK, I don’t know where I caught it as none of my family or anyone at school had it, and it was 2 weeks of utter misery and I ended up in hospital on a drip.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to dispel the myth that the flu vaccine gives you flu.

A fever like response is normal, means the vaccination is working. A cold like illness is usually the result of a viral infection that would have been incubating before the injection, very common for this time of year and easily spread around children.

Flu can kill healthy people. Also you’d have to take more than a week off work if your child caught it OP.

Thanks all have to sign the form tonight. Still undecided. Tbh 100% want the injection now but Superdrug website absolutely useless for info and I can't find anywhere else that does it. Annoying there's a shortage as otherwise I would take my time getting the injection done and leave the spray.

Each vaccine every year contains a different strain of the flu. So the more vaccines you end up having, the more flu strains the vaccines works against.

Although being protected against flu is a benefit its really about herd immunity. Its not as if your childs locked in a room and has nil contact with anyone else. Please vaccinate her.

My DD had it this year. She had a stuffy nose afterwards, but then she had a stuffy nose the week before and the week after too.

One of her grandfathers had a heart attack a few years ago following a bad bout of flu. No doubt there were underlying issues but he'd had no pre-existing symptoms and his doctors agreed that the strain the flu put on his body was a factor. Bloody scary illness.

Sorry to be rude. But when she gets it and passes this on to a pregnant woman or an elderly person who dies through complications then well done, you've killed someone through ignorance.

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/nasal-flu-vaccine

Really informative link attached here.

It is a live vaccine but is weakened so can not cause the illness is immuno competent people.

It is more than likely coincidence of timing that has caused your D.C. to be unwell previously.

Also consider the nasal flu is offered because it is proven to be more effective in the eligible individuals than the inactivated injectable vaccine.

Additionally, watch the video on the above link, flu can be devastating.

Ok @Pikachusmum she'd be pretty unlucky given no one I know has had it. I don't think the spray causes the flu but the side effects do look just like what dd has after it and the injection seems less likely to suffer from that. Will phone doctor in the morning and check if she can have injection there instead.

Pikachusmum

Wow. Very obnoxious thing to say.
The flu vaccine is the least effective and barely protects anyone.

YABU because the vaccine doesn’t make you ill - you just get it at a time of year when lots of viruses are going around anyway. It’s coincidental. Or are you saying she gets the actual flu every year? You can’t just catch a cold from a flu jab, or someone with the flu for that matter.

@HouseSchmurchase the flu vaccine contrains different strains of virus each year, and has different success rates each year depending on how the actual flu virus mutates each year. It has different success rates in different years.

What's probably happening is that your dd is having a strong immune response as most people incorrectly assume that the side effects we see are caused by the virus/bacteria when actually it's the immune system. For example virus and bacteria can only survive/replicate at a certain temperature so it's the immune system that increases the body's temperature. The same with snot/mucus it is actually produced by the immune system to trap and transport the virus out of the body. Also because the body is using so many resources to mount this immune response we usually feel tired and weak as well due the the immune system. So it could just be that her immune response is strong so she will be very well protected.

Thanks @Mummycrankypants hadn't really thought about it being an immune response. Spoken to dh and we've said seeing as seems so difficult to get the jab probably safer to just get on with the nasal spray and if she's ill we'll have to sacrifice pay etc. Thanks all. Very grateful we live in a country where we can choose and appreciate the responses on here as they have helped me decide.

@blueraindrop that's exactly what the common side effects listed on the product insert are- they are due to the immune system responding to the vaccine.

The vaccine is given to children to protect the whole community. You may not know who is vulnerable that she is in contact with. An elderly grandparent or someone going through cancer treatment could be in serious trouble if they caught the flu.
I think it is probably coincidence that your dd has been ill after getting the vaccine in the past.

Spoken to dh and we've said seeing as seems so difficult to get the jab probably safer to just get on with the nasal spray and if she's ill we'll have to sacrifice pay etc.

Hopefully that won’t happen this time. Fingers crossed!

OP

For 5 out of the last 7 years I have had a chest infection the same week. I know it is the same because it coincides with half term and my birthday is in that week. It's pure coincidence.

SInce I have stopped working I seem to not get it. Your dd may still get ill without the flu vaccine.

You can get the same side effects with the jab.
DS2 had the jab last year rather than the Nasal spray because I am immunocompromised and cannot be in the room when they give the spray (very small risk but still not worth it) and I'm the only one who could take him.
He had the same immune response of short high temp, runny nose, tired, feeling rubbish for a day or so etc as his friends from nursery who had the nasal spray.

I think she also said the jab for kids was slightly less effective than the spray as it had one less strain in it but for us it was better than nothing

If she gets the flu she will be a hell of a lot more Poorly and off longer let her have the vaccine

I have had flu once I actually thought I was dying threw up black stuff couldn't walk didn't eat for five days lost half a stone came down with it on Christmas day didn't go back to work until the 10th of January the only time in my life I've ever been signed off work. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy

The vaccine is given to children to protect the whole community. You may not know who is vulnerable that she is in contact with. An elderly grandparent or someone going through cancer treatment could be in serious trouble if they caught the flu.

Yet the vaccine insert says you must stay away from elderly and immunocompromised people for 2 weeks after having it..therefore vaccinated children are high risk to those individuals that it's supposed to protect. Backwards logic.

Public health professional here, you can't get sick from the flu vaccine, even the nasal spray one (well, unless you fall into certain immuno compromised categories, but I assume your dd isn't having chemo). It's purely coincidental that she has gotten ill right after. Mine always get ill with some horrible chest infection in November, which is the same time as the vaccination campaigns. But even worse than having 4 days off for a cold is having to take 2 weeks off with a child in hospital with the flu...

They've run out of the kids' vaccine where I am. We just have to cross our fingers that the two kids in her year who are immuno suppressed, get through the flu season without catching it.

Also, I wouldn't put much stock in all the rubbish about 'side effects' that people are spouting. I do clinical trials. If we are trialing something with someone or doing any sort of health research with live human subjects, and someone gets a chest infection, we have to report it as an 'adverse event.' That goes in the little leaflet you get with all vaccines. If someone fell down the steps walking out of the building because they tripped over a bucket, that gets reported as an adverse event. There is not necessarily any connection between the 'side effects' listed in the leaflets and the medicinal product being tested. But it's just the practice that everything gets reported because better safe than sorry from a liability standpoint. It shouldn't be interpreted as in any way causal though.