How is it possible to feel so awful after flu jab if it isn't a live vaccine??

[dinoprincesses]

Had my flu jab yesterday, I have it every year due to asthma. Every time I've had it (bar one) I've been really poorly, normally starts a few hours afterwards and then the night of it terrible. I've been boiling hot then freezing cold, shivery, headache, everything aches etc. Then normally after 24 hours ish it goes away.

My Dm has also been the same every year. Yet I know a few people who have had it with no side effects.

How can it cause these flu like side effects if it's not a live vaccine? I doubt it could be a placebo effect as I don't think that could cause real physical symptoms of a high fever etc.

Because lots of illness symptoms - like fever - are how your body fights off infection. You feel rubbish because your immune system is attacking something. Your symptoms are due to a healthy immune response.

Because we give the flu jab in the cough and cold season, and to get it you go to a healthcare facility where there are lots of ill people. It's not uncommon to then coincidentally get a cold soon after.

It’s your immune system kicking in and doing what it is supposed to do. I’d say it shows that you really needed it.
Personally, I’ve never felt Ill off a flu jab, but one of my covid jabs floored me.

If its due to a healthy immune system, what does it mean if you have no symptoms after a flu jab

Ah ok, the immune response makes sense! Glad I've got an answer now as I've wondered about it for years

@Devoutspoken it's just luck of the draw. Some people will feel their immune system respond, others won't. It's not reflective of how effective your immune systems response was.

I'm the same - I had COVID and flu jabs on the same day this time and I was so ill!

Glands under my arms were swollen up to golf ball size, fever, horrible joint aches like the flu that meant I couldn't sleep all night, headache and dizziness. Ugh.

I did a bit of Google research to try and find out why some immune systems react more than others.

I think I was hoping to find out it meant I had an awesome immune system so I could pacify myself with that thought while lying there feeling like death.

Apparently not though.

It is more common as a response in women though.

Nothing - the symptoms aren't due to your immune system

The vaccine does not contain live flu strains that infect you with real flu but dead ones that trick your immune system into thinking they are the real flus. Your immune system then attacks the dead flus and gets a dummy run at recognising the real thing. And most of the flu symptoms are your immune system fighting off the virus (sneezing, nose running, high temperature etc.)

Also it apparently has no correlation to how you would have responded to the actual illness (even when it's a live vaccine).

I was horrified by my response to the COVID vaccine because I thought "Fuck me, if this is how I feel after a microscopic dose the real thing would've killed me".

But no, no link according to the scientists.

Just your immune response. Your body sees a threat and deals with it.

I never have a reaction to flu jabs, but Covid jabs make me feel rubbish and they're not a live vaccine either.

I wonder what the symptoms of flu would be if you took away the ones that are actually your own immune system?

These are all your own immune system:

• Fever (raising your temp to try to kill the virus)
• Joint aches (unfortunate by product)
• Sneezing (expelling virus from airway)
• Tiredness (it wants you to stay in bed so energy can be used to fight off virus)

I finally had it out with my GP about this. I always get ill after the jab. I also had a bad reaction to whooping cough jab as a child. He read my notes and mumbled something about I might have a point as I have allergies, asthma and some autoimmune issues around stress. Basically the flu jab sends my immune system into overdrive.

last time I had the flu jab I got pneumonia and then pleurisy, it’s all very well the doctors saying rest up after the jab, but with a family to take care of that never happens.

Of course they are. Maybe check out NHS info before commenting.

Yes its your immune system doing its job. Remember that it's not a live vaccine, and it's out of your system in 48 hours maximum, leaving you with plenty of protection.

It's not a live vaccine.

Yep.

But the more your body has seen something the faster it can kill it off, so it doesn't need the fever and stuff, that's why not everyone reacts the same and not everyone gets the same illnesses. Plus we're all different and our bodies work at different rates. Some people's bodies are more reactive.

Death? 🤣

@SomethingOriginal2 Yeah pretty much.

@wheresmymojo If your immune system didn't have that response then the virus would multiply unchecked in every respiratory cell possible and overwhelm their inner workings. If you think of cells as little factories which have some sort of job/output, once they're infected the virus takes over and makes them primarily produce more virus. This stops them from functioning correctly because they're so busy making more viral particles. And without respiratory cells functioning correctly, you die.

This is why you have to be so careful if you're immunocompromised. Because even minor infections can become deadly if your immune system is out of action, because infected cells stop functioning in their normal role and the human body is a finely balanced machine.

It's your immune system making you feel like shit. Not the vaccine.

Echoing immune response

I can't get the flu jab due to how I've reacted in the past

I have lots of allergies too.

Flu jab causes nothing.

Still ill 9 weeks after Covid jab and was same after the last one.