As it's been explained to me, you don't get the flu from the flu shot, but the vaccine forces a reaction from your immune system to prepare it to fight the real thing. The way your body reacts can make you feel sick, but you're not actually sick. And the way you feel is much more mild than what the real thing would do to you.

oh makes sense. I didn't reliase that comment meant "i get sick every time" ( from flu shot). I thought it meant "i get sick every time" regardless of flu shot.

Then you were very unlucky in that you caught a different flu than the strains you were vaccinated against - there are 3-4 strains in a typical shot, but many more can come up during the flu season. Alternativey, you didn't have a real flu but a bad cold, which can be quite nasty in some cases.

Speaking for myself, I definitely do "get sick" when I get the vaccine, and it has a new strain in it. Sometimes flu shots don't change from year to year, and this year's doesn't actually have anything new in it. When there's nothing new I basically notice nothing.

However, "get sick" is a very vague term. In my case, to be specific, about 3 through 9 hours after the shot with a new strain in it, the shot site is tender and I run a small, but noticeable, fever kind of thing, barely worthy of the term but definitely a bit of an elevated temperature. Then it subsides. It is basically a minor inconvenience. By contrast, while I don't get the flu every year, it can hang with me for two weeks and knock me out cold for a good three or four days in the middle. And the shot generally covers more than one flu.

So yeah, both things may be "get sick" in some sense, but just because they both fit into the phrase "get sick" does not mean they are particularly comparable.

(Incidentally, over the past 10 years I've managed to do a lot of improvement to my immune system for various reasons. When I got the shot with a less-strong immune system, I generally didn't notice any symptoms from a flu shot at all. Everyone's different, but I'd suggest you generally should notice some symptoms from an effectual shot.)

Well now hang on...

The flu shot you get every year in USA and Europe is the vaccine for the most common flu that was seen in Asia and Australia the 6 months previous. And vice versa.

It’s a guess. If there are two common flus that went around, they pick one to vaccine for. Sometimes they get it wrong and the shot you get has nothing to do with the flu that ends up being common in your area.

It’s very possible to get the shot every year and still get sick.

There is a little bit of art in this science, a lot of people don’t get that.

> It’s very possible to get the shot every year and still get sick.

haha so I wasn't the only one who interpreted it wrong. comment means "I get sick everytime from flu shot"

Ohh... well, it should be the dead version of the virus, but the whole point is you develop an immune response. Do some people experience that as being sick-actual? I suppose there is some per person variance possible?

Normally there's at least 2 strains the vaccinate against. They've had flu shots with three strains before (around the time of swine flu)