Can You Get The Flu Shot Twice In One Year

Can I Have The Flu Vaccine If I Take Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a type of medicine used to treat some cancers, including metastatic melanoma, renal clear cell carcinoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, non-small cell lung cancer and other solid organ tumours. Checkpoint inhibitors include ipilimumab, nivolumab and pembrolizumab.

People taking checkpoint inhibitors may have a higher risk of immune-related side effects following influenza vaccination. Talk to your oncologist about the risks and benefits of the flu shot.

Concerns About Side Effects

If the side effects following immunisation are unexpected, persistent, or severe, or if you are worried about yourself or your childs condition after a vaccination, see your doctor or immunisation nurse as soon as possible or go directly to a hospital.

Immunisation side effects may be reported to SAEFVIC, the central vaccine reporting service in Victoria on .

You can discuss how to report problems in other states or territories with your immunisation provider.

/5you May Catch The Flu Twice In A Row Here’s Why

Apart from the fact that you may contract the flu infection, there’s a high chance you may get it twice in a row. Why is it so? Let us find out.

There are four different types of the flu namely influenza A, B, C, and D. Influenza type A and B are the seasonal flu that arises during a particular season. Once you get infected with any of the two strains, you’re likely to develop antibodies against it and the possibility of re-infection with the same virus may be low.

However, you can get infected with a different strain of influenza, and the antibodies you developed from the first infection may not provide you protection against the other strains.

While two flu outbreaks overlap one another, raising your possibilities of catching the flu infection twice, the chances of you catching the flu virus twice may still be rare.

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How The Second Flu Shot Works

The second flu shot is a booster dose to improve the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in children. The second dose is given at least 28 days after the first dose. That first dose stimulates the child’s immune system, but it may not be enough to produce the level of antibodies needed for protection from the flu.

The second dose results in the child’s immune system producing enough antibodies so they will be able to fight off influenza when exposed. If your child didn’t receive the second dose, they likely have some protection against the flu, but it may not be enough.

Who Should Get The Flu Shot Who Shouldnt

People over 6 months of age should receive the flu shot each year.

Its particularly important for people who are at an increased risk for flu-related complications to be vaccinated.

This includes:

• anyone living or working in a nursing home or chronic care facility
• caregivers of any of the above

Children under 6 months of age shouldnt receive the influenza vaccine. To protect these children from potential exposure to the virus, all family members or caregivers should be vaccinated.

This is called herd immunity and will help protect those who cant receive the vaccine.

Additionally, if youre currently sick with an acute illness, you may need to wait until youre better to receive the vaccine.

Before youre vaccinated, you should let your doctor know if youve had:

• a prior allergic reaction to the flu vaccine
• complications from vaccines
• Guillain-Barré syndrome

These factors may indicate that you should not get the flu shot. But check with your doctor to see what they recommend.

Many flu shots contain a small amount of egg protein. If you have a history of egg allergies, talk with your doctor about receiving the flu shot.

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What Vaccines Protect Against Flu

For the 2020-2021 flu season, CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccination for everyone 6 months and older.

• Flu shots can be given to your child 6 months and older.
• The nasal spray vaccine can be given to people 2 through 49 years of age. However, certain people with underlying medical conditions should not get the nasal spray vaccine.

Your childs doctor will know which vaccines are right for your child.

What Are The Benefits Of Flu Vaccination

There are many reasons to get an influenza vaccine each year. Below is a summary of the benefits of flu vaccination and selected scientific studies that support these benefits.

• Flu vaccination can keep you from getting sick with the flu.

• Flu vaccination can reduce the risk of flu-associated hospitalization for children, working-age adults, and older adults.

• Flu vaccination is an important preventive tool for people with chronic health conditions.

• Flu vaccination has been associated with lower rates of some cardiac events among people with heart disease, especially among those who had had a cardiac event in the past year.

• Flu vaccination can reduce worsening and hospitalization for flu-related chronic lung disease, such as in persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

• Flu vaccination also has been shown in separate studies to be associated with reduced hospitalizations among people with diabetes and chronic lung disease.

• Flu vaccination helps protect women during and after pregnancy.

• Flu vaccines can be lifesaving in children.

• Flu vaccination has been shown in several studies to reduce the severity of illness in people who get vaccinated but still get sick.

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Rare Side Effects Of The Influenza Vaccine

There is a very small risk of a serious allergic reaction to any vaccine. This is why you are advised to stay at the clinic, medical surgery, or pharmacy for at least 15 minutes following vaccination in case further treatment is required.

Apart from anaphylaxis, other extremely rare side effects include in children.

A small increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome was seen in the US in 1976, but since that time, surveillance has shown that it is limited to one case for every million doses of the flu vaccine, if at all.

If any other reactions are severe and persistent, or if you are worried, contact your doctor for further information.

When Should I Get My Flu Shot

Though the exact timing of flu season varies year to year, infections generally start to ramp up around October. The best time to get your flu shot is in the early fall, ideally before the end of October.

“But if you miss that deadline, then get it as soon as you can afterward,” Dr. Moore says. “There’s no point at which it’s too late to get your influenza vaccine.”

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Myth #: Waiting Until Winter For A Flu Shot Is Safer

Fact: While peak flu season is between December and February, you can get sick as early as October. Some believe that getting vaccinated later will protect them longer, which is simply false. This also leaves you exposed for weeks, or months while the virus is floating around.

Also, an annual flu shot helps your body build immunity for the types of influenza viruses that research indicates will be the most common that season. But immunity isnt built as soon as you get the shot. How long does it take for the flu shot to take effect? Two weeks which is another reason to schedule your flu shot early.

While getting your flu shot as soon as the vaccine is available offers the best protection, the CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older get vaccinated by the end of October. Pregnant people particularly those in their third trimester of pregnancy should receive a flu shot as soon as the vaccine becomes available.

Misconceptions About Flu Vaccine Effectiveness

Influenza vaccine effectiveness can vary. The protection provided by a flu vaccine varies from season to season and depends in part on the age and health status of the person getting the vaccine and the similarity or match between the viruses in the vaccine and those in circulation. During years when the flu vaccine match is good, it is possible to measure substantial benefits from flu vaccination in terms of preventing flu illness and complications. However, the benefits of flu vaccination will still vary, depending on characteristics of the person being vaccinated , what influenza viruses are circulating that season and, potentially, which type of flu vaccine was used. For more information, see Vaccine Effectiveness How well does the Flu Vaccine Work. For information specific to this season, visit About the Current Flu Season.

There are many reasons to get an influenza vaccine each year. Flu vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones against flu and its potentially serious complications.

Below is a summary of the benefits of flu vaccination and selected scientific studies that support these benefits.

• Flu vaccination can keep you from getting sick with flu.

• A 2018 study showed that from 2012 to 2015, flu vaccination among adults reduced the risk of being admitted to an intensive care unit with flu by 82 percent.

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What Are The Flu Shot Guidelines

The flu vaccine works by presenting the immune system with a portion of the virus, allowing the body to develop an immune response so that when it encounters the real thing, it’s much better prepared to fight it off.

According to the CDC, it is recommended that everyone over the age of six months gets vaccinated against the flu every year, with very rare exception .

While getting the vaccine does not guarantee that you won’t suffer the misery that is the flu, it may reduce the risk of infection by 40% to 60%, and help prevent severe illness.

How Does Flu Spread

Flu spreads mainly by droplets when people who have flu talk, cough, or sneeze, and these droplets land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or are inhaled. Less often, a person might get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.

People can spread flu to others from one day before they have symptoms to 5-7 days after they get sick. This can be longer in children and people who are very sick.

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Is Flu Illness Serious

Millions of children get sick with flu each year and thousands are hospitalized. CDC estimates that since 2010, between 7,000 and 28,000 children younger than 5 years old have been hospitalized for flu each year in the United States. Children with chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, and disorders of the brain or nervous system, and children younger than 5 years old are more likely to end up in the hospital from flu.

Some people at high risk can develop complications that can result in hospitalization and even death.

Flu seasons vary in how serious they are from one season to another. Since 2010, CDC estimates that between 130 and 1,200 children have died from flu each year.

Can Kids Get A Covid

My family is getting the flu vaccine next week, and Im wondering if my kids can get a COVID-19 vaccine then too. Is that safe? -Monica

Yes. It is safe to get a COVID-19 vaccine along with any other routine vaccine, including the flu vaccine.

All kids 6 months of age and older should get both the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as they are available in their communities. All kids 5 years and older should get a COVID-19 booster dose. Some people should get a second booster dose, such as kids ages 12 and up who have weak immune systems.

When COVID-19 vaccines first became available, experts had suggested that people not get other vaccines at the same time. Instead, they recommended getting them either 2 weeks before or after the COVID-19 vaccine. But now that millions of people have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine , its clear that theyre safe and effective when given with other vaccines.

Getting both vaccines now can mean fewer trips to the doctor and feeling any vaccine-related side effects only once. Kids already get some routine childhood vaccines for different infections in a single shot, such as the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine. And doctors often give multiple shots during one office visit. The immune system handles these well.

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When You’re Infected With The Flu Multiple Times A Year

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to get the flu more than once a year, Cotton says. If you do get infected twice, it shouldn’t necessarily be a cause for alarm.

“If you get the flu more than once a season, you shouldn’t be worried. Contracting the virus is more related to how much exposure you have had rather than your body’s strength to fight it,” Cotton adds.

Bottom line: Your best bet for guarding yourself against the many strains and types of flu viruses is to get vaccinated for the flu every year.

Why Do I Need A Flu Vaccine Every Year

• A flu vaccine is needed every season for two reasons. First, a persons immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Second, because flu viruses are constantly changing, flu vaccines may be updated from one season to the next to protect against the viruses that research suggests may be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated annually.

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Does A Flu Vaccine Increase Your Risk Of Getting Covid

• There is no evidence that getting a flu vaccine increases your risk of getting sick from a coronavirus, like the one that causes COVID-19.

• You may have heard about a study published in January 2020 that reported an association between flu vaccination and the risk of four commonly circulating seasonal coronaviruses, but not the one that causes COVID-19. This report was later found to be incorrect.

• The results from that initial study led researchers in Canada to look at their data to see if they could find similar results in their population. The results from Canadas study showed that flu vaccination did not increase the risk for these seasonal coronaviruses. The Canadian findings highlighted the protective benefits of flu vaccination.

• The Canadian researchers also identified a flaw in the methods of the first study, noting that it violated the part of the study design that compares vaccination rates among patients with and without flu . This flaw led to the incorrect association between flu vaccination and seasonal coronavirus risk. When these researchers reexamined data from the first study using the correct methods, they found that flu vaccination did not increase the risk for infection with other respiratory viruses, including seasonal coronaviruses.

Should I Get Two Flu Shots This Year

The short answer is no.

Flu shot recommendations remain the same, and unless you are under nine years old and have never gotten a flu shot before, a second dose is not recommended, says Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director for immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition.

Children ages six months through eight years who have never been vaccinated against the flu benefit from two doses the first season they get the vaccine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

“If your immune system has never seen influenza before and you’re getting the vaccine for the first time, your immune system doesn’t quite know what to do with that,” Dr. Moore tells CNBC Make It. “It learns, but it doesn’t learn quite well enough, and it needs that second dose to really mount a protective response.”

However, past the age of eight, just one yearly dose will do.

“When you’re older and you’ve had flu vaccines before, or you’ve had influenza before, then your immune system responds quite quickly to one dose of vaccine,” Dr. Moore explains. “We don’t see a noticeable benefit from getting multiple doses of the vaccine.

Other vaccines such as measles, chickenpox and hepatitis require two doses, which can be confusing, Moore adds.

“People may think, ‘If one is good, two must be better,’ but in reality, that’s not how our immune system works,” she says. “And while that is the case for certain vaccines and certain viruses, it’s not the case for the influenza vaccine.”

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Can My Child Get Flu From A Flu Vaccine

No, flu vaccines do not cause flu. Flu vaccines are currently made in two ways: the vaccine is made either with

Flu vaccine protects your child from flu illness. However, flu shots can sometimes cause mild side effects that may be mistaken for flu. Keep in mind that it will take about 2 weeks after getting a vaccine for your child to build protection against flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, and American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommend children receive all vaccines according to the recommended vaccine schedule.

Side Effects And Risks

It is much safer to get the flu vaccine than to get the flu. Flu vaccines are safe and well-tolerated. Side effects are usually mild and last a few days. Common side effects include pain, redness and swelling at the injection site headache, fever, muscle aches, joint pain or feeling tired. Side effects in children include irritability, drowsiness or loss of appetite.

In rare cases, serious allergic reactions can occur. Seek medical attention if you have trouble breathing, rash or swelling of the face and throat. Allergic reactions can be treated and are usually temporary. The risk of Oculo-Respiratory Syndrome or Guillain-Barré Syndrome after flu vaccination is very low, about one case in a million flu shots.

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