Stay well: It’s flu season

by Mary Turner
HIV Health Columnist

Living with HIV can be a challenge, especially if you have limited resources. However, it’s not impossible if you can maintain your regimen of medications, eat well, and do all the other things that any person needs to do to stay healthy.

With that said, though, you must remember that infections like HIV can lower your resistance to other infectious illnesses because it harms your immune system. October is usually considered the beginning of flu season. Many people don’t take the flu very seriously because they hear so much about it and because they equate it to having just “a really bad cold.”

Influenza is a serious viral infection, however, and a force to be reckoned with even if you are an otherwise healthy individual. If your body is compromised by another illness such as HIV, tuberculosis, or diabetes, adding flu into the equation can result in serious complications or death. Unlike getting a cold, symptoms of the flu come on very quickly. One moment, you feel fine. The next moment, you’re shivering and in extreme pain. While a really bad cold might give you a low-grade fever, the flu is associated with a much higher and more severe fever. Your body will ache and feel as though something heavy has been dropped on you.

Sufferers typically experience headaches, sore throats and runny noses, a dry cough, and extreme fatigue. The extreme pain and fatigue make moving difficult and unpleasant. Fortunately, there is a vaccine for the flu, and it is recommended that most people get one at the start of each season. Protection from the vaccine generally lasts about six months, so some people in higher risk groups (such as those who are HIV+) are encouraged to take the shot at the beginning and toward the end of flu season.

You should not get the flu shot if you are experiencing symptoms of some kind of viral infection. Wait until you feel better and are symptom free. Sometimes, people think they contract the flu after receiving the shot, but this is impossible, as the shot does not contain a live virus.

There may be some discomfort as a result of the vaccine, but it is not the flu. In addition to the flu vaccine, your doctor might also advise you to take the pneumonia vaccine. Unlike the flu vaccine, it only has to be taken every five to ten years to provide protection.

Keep in mind that even if you take the flu shot, you might still contract the flu. This is because those sneaky little viruses are constantly changing their appearance to try to fool the epidemiologists/researchers who make the vaccine. Should this happen, you won’t feel as bad (you won’t want to die) as you would have without the vaccine.

If you’re not HIV+, I recommend you get the flu shot anyway. For one, you don’t want to feel really crappy (or die) when you don’t have to. Also, since the flu is an infectious illness, it will temporarily impact your immune system and make the risk of contracting other infections more likely.

Stay well, my friends.

The Gayly – October 17, 2015 @ 1:45pm.