Is This Flu Stronger or Did They Get the Vaccean Wrong Again
Dispelling misinformation about the flu vaccine, sickness, treatment, and recovery
If you've ever had the flu, you know how ill you lot can exist. Chances are skillful that some of the advice friends and family gave y'all almost avoiding or dealing with the influenza was wrong. There seems to be no shortage of misinformation and bad advice when information technology comes to dealing with the flu and the influenza shot.
Here are 10 common myths about the flu.
- MYTH: You tin can catch the influenza from the vaccine.
The flu shot is made from an inactivated virus that tin't transmit infection. So, people who get ill after receiving a flu vaccination were going to go sick anyhow. It takes a week or two to become protection from the vaccine. But people assume that because they got sick after getting the vaccine, the flu shot caused their illness.
- MYTH: Salubrious people don't need to be vaccinated.
While it'south peculiarly important for people who accept a chronic illness to go the flu shot, anyone — even good for you folks — can benefit from being vaccinated. Electric current CDC guidelines recommend yearly vaccination confronting flu for everyone older than half-dozen months of age, including meaning women.
- MYTH: Getting the flu vaccination is all you lot need to do to protect yourself from the flu.
There are a number of steps yous can have to protect yourself during flu season likewise vaccination. Avert contact with people who have the flu, launder your easily often, and consider taking anti-viral medications if you were exposed to the flu before existence vaccinated.
- MYTH: The flu is just a bad cold.
Influenza may cause bad cold symptoms, like sore throat, runny olfactory organ, sneezing, hoarseness, and cough. But according to CDC, the 2019-20 influenza flavour led to at to the lowest degree 18 million medical visits, 24,000 deaths and 410,000 hospitalizations. The cumulative hospitalization charge per unit for children ages four and under this flu season was 95.1 per 100,000 people as of the calendar week ending on April 25, 2020. Experts attribute the high number of pediatric deaths to a "double barrel" flu season where both influenza A and B were dominant. Information technology's non too belatedly to get a flu shot. Even if it doesn't prevent you from getting the influenza, it can decrease the chance of astringent symptoms.
- MYTH: You can't spread the flu if you're feeling well.
Actually, twenty% to xxx% of people conveying the influenza virus have no symptoms.
- MYTH: You don't need to get a flu shot every yr.
The influenza virus changes (mutates) each year. So, getting vaccinated each year is important to make sure you have immunity to the strains virtually probable to cause an outbreak.
- MYTH: You tin grab the flu from going out in cold weather without a coat, with moisture hair or by sitting well-nigh a drafty window.
The only way to grab the flu is by being exposed to the flu virus. Influenza season coincides with the common cold weather. And so, people ofttimes associate the flu with a common cold, drafty environment. But they are non related.
- MYTH: Feed a cold, starve a fever.
If you lot have the flu (or a cold) and a fever, you lot need more fluids. At that place'due south niggling reason to increase or decrease how much you eat. Though you may have no appetite, "starving" yourself volition achieve little. And poor nutrition will non help you get better.
- MYTH: Chicken soup volition speed your recovery from the influenza.
Hot liquids can soothe a sore throat and provide much needed fluids. But chicken soup has no other specific qualities that can help fight the flu.
- MYTH: If yous have a high fever with the flu that lasts more than a solar day or 2, antibiotics may exist necessary.
Antibiotics work well against bacteria, merely they aren't effective for a viral infection like the flu. Then over again, some people develop a bacterial infection as a complication of the flu, so it may be a expert idea to get checked out if your symptoms drag on or worsen.
The influenza is a skillful example of how medical myths can get in the style of good medical care. When it's flu season, take the necessary steps to stay healthy. That includes separating fact from myth.
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Source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/10-flu-myths