(no subject)

[the_rck]

I have to make a decision about getting a flu shot.

For years, I haven't gotten them because I have problems with eggs. An egg allergy makes flu shots hugely dangerous. I'm just not sure that what I have is an allergy.

When I was in fifth grade, my mother did a diet elimination to see what foods make me sick. Eggs were the spectacularly obvious reaction inducing food-- I had a blinding headache and severe nausea from one hard boiled egg. I wanted to die and thought it couldn't possibly happen soon enough. The connection in my head is strong enough that the smell of eggs cooking can make me feel queasy.

But that's not an allergy reaction. We called it an allergy because we didn't have a vocabulary to talk about anything else in the mid-70s. I wasn't seeing doctors regularly then because we didn't have insurance and because my mother had had numerous very, very bad experiences with doctors telling her that she was a bad parent for trying to get me checked for asthma and such. I was sick almost constantly during elementary school, to the point that my parents labeled me as an attention seeking hypochondriac. Somehow, discovering that our most common breakfast food made me extremely ill didn't alter that attitude.

At any rate, I called the egg problem an allergy for years. In actuality, it's a migraine trigger. It's just that it's only been the last ten to fifteen years that I've understood which headaches are migraines. I don't get auras, so I have to guess based on other clues. The biggest one is that I get nausea with migraines, sometimes more nausea than headache. Apart from that, I can only tell by throwing medications at the headache and seeing which ones help.

I also suspect that it's a problem with egg yolks rather than with egg whites. My mother assumed egg whites were the problem because she was under the impression that that's where all the proteins are (I've no idea if this is correct or not). The thing is that I can safely eat nougat which is largely egg white. I didn't realize for years that there's egg in that or I'd have avoided it like the plague. The connection between eggs and feeling dreadful is powerful enough in my psyche that I don't really regret giving up egg heavy foods, not in the way I regret foods with nuts.

At any rate, I'm in a high risk group, having asthma, and should get flu shots. My doctor hasn't been willing to recommend them given my trouble with eggs. The allergist I talked to said that I don't skin test as egg allergic but that that doesn't mean I'm not allergic. Pretty much everybody passes the buck on the question because of the huge consequences of being wrong. If I am allergic, after all, a flu shot might kill me (worst case). If I'm not, a flu shot might still give me a migraine (I think it unlikely given the concentrations, but.... I've never done it before, so who knows?). I also might be completely fine and end up knowing that I can take this step for my own health.

Flu shots are a Good Idea. I'm not keen on shots in general. I'm also not keen on possibly getting a bit sick from one. I'm just even less enthusiastic about getting any form of the flu. Flu can kill and is more likely to kill me than a possible mild egg allergy, but....

Today's the best day to do it if I'm going to. Scott will be home tomorrow and Saturday. Of course, I've committed to trying to get Cordelia out of the house for several hours tomorrow. I'll need to do that whether I'm well or sick. Scott needs to reconcile months worth of financial records and can't do it while Cordelia's demanding his attention.

Tomorrow's going to be the middle day of three days of nothing for her. We have nothing planned at all. No play dates. No activities. No trips out except for groceries and returning library materials.

I'm trying to figure out options that won't exhaust me completely. I can get to the Hands On Museum and the Natural History Museum by bus. I'm not sure I'm up to chasing Cordelia through either for 4-6 hours, though. Especially not with a trip home afterwards.

I may try asking Scott to drive us out to Jungle Java and drop us off there. The drawback to that is that we wouldn't be able to come home until he was free to come and get us (well, and that it eats into his time for working). I've no idea how bad the crowds are there on a weekend like this. I'd expect things to be crazy. Jungle Java does have the advantages that I can sit down while Cordelia runs herself into exhaustion and that I can use my laptop. I wish it were actually on the bus lines instead of out past the last stop.

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I wasn't seeing doctors regularly then because we didn't have insurance and because my mother had had numerous very, very bad experiences with doctors telling her that she was a bad parent for trying to get me checked for asthma and such.

... What? Why on earth would that make her a bad parent? Not having insurance thing is scary, but not getting your child checked for a potentially dangerous illness is far scarier. What gives?

But as for the flu shot itself for you now... yeah. I've got no wisdom and I understand why it's a tough call for you. I guess the determining factor is whether or not you think you're likely to get the flu in the first place.

[the_rck]

I have a kindergartener. The likelihood of her bringing home illness is fairly high. I'm asthmatic and can get very, very sick if I'm unfortunate enough to catch something, even a cold. Asthmatics are more likely to die from the flu than most people. That's why we're generally in one of the top priority groups for the vaccine in years when it's hard to come by.

I'm weighing an unknown risk of side effects (flu shot with egg difficulties) against a known risk of problems (flu with asthma).

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Back in the old days of not so long ago, the cause of asthma was thought to be overprotective parents. Some doctors "cured" asthma by "performing a parentectomy". If Therck's mother encountered doctors like that, then I could see where all kinds of weird doctor behavior would ensue.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who DOES get the flu shot every year (asthma/diabetes/over 50), I can say that it doesn't hurt like a normal shot does and that it often does make me slightly ill for a few days after (mostly a bit of nausea/tenderness in shot area). On the plus side, I can also say that since I have been getting it regularly I have not gotten the flu or very many severe colds (I discount the year I had the month-long asthma attack, since I can't remember if I got a flu shot that year or not -- I'm thinking not, since I hadn't been diagnosed with diabetes yet). And with preschool/gradeschool kids and a daughter in retail living in the house, I am exposed to beaucoup germs. So I think it may be worth the risk. What does the pharmacist who gives the shot have to say? It's their butt on the line if you keel over and die on them, so I would expect their advice to be pretty straightforward.

[the_rck]

The pharmacist said that she thought it would be okay as long as I don't have an actual egg allergy. She doesn't think that there's enough egg to give me a migraine but also said that she can't be certain because she has no way of knowing my level of sensitivity.

I think I'm going to try it. If I'm sick tomorrow, I'll have to suck it up. The financial stuff *has* to get done, so I have to get Cordelia out of the house.

[kyrielle]

If you do try it and have problems with it, I have heard (which may or may not be true!) that the nasal vaccine (which uses a weakened live virus) doesn't have egg. If that's true, it might be an alternative, but of course weakened live virus is not as safe as dead virus in other ways.

[the_rck]

Unfortunately, the nasal spray is still cultured in egg. I asked when it first came out, and the pharmacist mentioned when I talked to her earlier this week that it still is.

Basically, egg is a really cheap and reliable medium for culturing such things. There isn't a perceived demand for a vaccine cultured in another way, so nobody's looking for alternatives.