We met our new doctor today. I like getting new doctors about as much as I like jean shopping. You know, all doctors seem to have a secret language that is easily decoded once you are a regular patient. I don't mind this process, it helps me to respect their knowledge, I think we just picked the worst possible time to start the process. I had lots of questions over the flu and H1N1. He answered them well, he came highly recomended, and I feel comfortable with him. However, I still left with no answer to the should we or shouldn't we????
Two of my kids have asthma and the other was hospitalized for seven days this past winter for pneumonia. So we are considered higher risk. I think. Ok, it depends on who you ask. Anyway, I am getting off track.
We have the oppurtunity to have the nasal version of this done for my oldest (asthma) and my husband at the school. After doing some basic research we found that if you have asthma you are not to have the mist because it is a LIVE virus. (scary word!!) There could be some side effects for those with asthma. Then the local health department tells me that the shot version has preservatives ( at this point I am thinking, grape or strawberry??). She says there has been some controversy over it and they are just letting people know. This throws a red flag up at me. I have always thought I was pretty well informed mommy and had some good common sense. But in this case, I could see I needed reenforcement. My research savvy husband looked online and found the names of the preservatives (and they are not grape or strawberry!! How dissapointing!) One is actually mercury. I called someone else..
Did your kids get the H1N1 shot?
No.
Ok, she knew about the preservatives.
A few more calls later, I discover my head must have been in kiddie land because EVERYONE knows about these non yummy preservatives!! But me.
I still don't know what I am going to do. Anybody got any good resources for this??
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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Sorry this comment is so many days after the fact! Somehow I missed this one on my reader :(
ReplyDeleteI think I've decided we're not going to get the H1N1 vaccine. Not that YOU should make that decision too...just my thoughts for our family. We never really get the regular flu vaccine, and I'm more of a the-fewer-chemicals-we-put-in-our-bodies-the-better kind of girl. I knew about the preservatives, but I was under the impression that you could get a non-preservative dose if you requested it. Those are more expensive because they can only put one dose in each bottle, whereas the bottles with preservatives can carry multiple doses making them cheaper. The main reason I don't want us to get the H1N1 vaccine is because it looks like this flu isn't going to be anywhere near as bad as it was in Mexico last year. It will be minor illnesses in most cases. Not fun, but neither is a cold, and not worth subjecting our bodies to the chemical injection, in my opinion. My pediatrician is more concerned with the seasonal flu than H1N1. She said with so many people terrified of H1N1, they're missing the fact that the seasonal flu is shaping up to be much worse than H1N1 this year.
Also -- and I've never said this out loud before because it just sounds crazy -- I worry about getting this vaccine and then compromising my body's ability to fight a sickness like this on it's own. Like, what if this swine flu keeps building up for years to come -- a new strain each year, but the same basic idea -- and we've vaccinated ourselves so much that our bodies no longer are able to fight it. And what if the virus ends up being too complex to make a new vaccine for and we've all never allowed our bodies to fight the original -- very mild -- strain, so we're just SOL if it gets worse. I know that's all very uneducated sounding, but it's what goes through my head :)
I've read some helpful articles, but I can't remember where they were! So, I guess my thoughts aren't really all that helpful, but I thought I'd share anyway :)
Oh, and sorry for the novel!