It's a very tough concept for people to understand how you can have all of the symptoms of the flu, without actually having it, but I'll try my best to help.
For many infections caused by a virus or bacteria, many of the symptoms that you get are not actually caused by the virus or bacteria itself. For example, when you are infected with the flu, you get a fever. A fever is your body's own way of turning up the thermostat to try and kill or whatever is infecting you. Sometimes, the virus or bacteria releases things called pyrogens which actually make you have a fever. Your body can also make it's own immune chemicals that act as pyrogens, raising your temperature.
In addition to fever, most of the symptoms you get when you feel sick are actually caused by your own body, as defense mechanisms. Coughing, runny nose, stuffy nose, etc. are all just defensive ways of your body trying to get rid of something it doesn't recognize.
When you get the flu vaccine, your body recognizes that there is something in your body that isn't supposed to be there. In this case, it would be the dead flu virus. So, your body makes a fever, you don't feel so great, etc. But, after your body is done, it can remember what the flu virus was like. This way, if you get the real, live flu virus inside of you, it can take care of it much more easily and quickly than if it had never seen it before.
I hope this helps.
Also, believe me, big pharma companies don't make much money at all for developing vaccines. It would be much better on their pocketbooks for you to actually get quite sick and need expensive medications. Back in the 80's it was very unprofitable to make vaccines, so the govt. had to step in and provide incentives to produce them. This still holds true today.
Trans_Maro wrote:
bequietanddrive wrote:
I wish people won't go around spreading the common myth that the flu shot can cause the flu. It could definitely make your body mount some kind of immune reaction, which would give all of the symptoms everyone here describes (fever, achiness), but you cannot get the flu. It really dissuades some people in high risk categories that need it the most.
Right, because only having "flu like symptoms" (nausea, dehydration, E36 M3ting out of every orofice) is not nearly as bad as actually having the flu.
I fail to see how you can have all the symptoms of the flu and not actually have it.
I heard about that Thursday when I got back to work.
