Same here. I got flu shots twice In my life and both times felt worse than any flu I have had without.

Last time my wife and I came down with what we're reasonably sure was the flu she was bed-ridden and rarely conscious for two weeks, and I was barely mobile basically only out of necessity (someone had to get out of bed to feed us and let the dogs out).

I felt worse than I'd ever felt in my life. Everything hurt when I moved or when I didn't. My head was killing me. I never stopped coughing. It woke me up at all hours of the night and took me hours to get back to sleep. I was drinking cough syrup like it was candy just to get some barely passable naps during the night. It eventually devolved into pneumonia.

By the time I recovered and came back to work, I'd coughed so much I no longer had any voice.

I'd thought I'd had the flu before, but like many other people are saying it was pretty quickly apparent that it had always just been colds. I got the flu the first time when I was almost 30. I too would be extremely surprised if your reaction to the flu shot was anywhere near as bad as a flu.

So, you had a flu shot and you were confined to bed for over a week?

Maybe 3-4 days. I have never been confined to bed for longer with or without flu shot. In terms of headache and other pain the flu shot times were among the worst.

This is interesting. I suspect you may never have had “the flu.” Many people think or have felt like they’ve had the flu, but people rarely get tested. Also, and I could be wrong, but if you’re immune response to the vaccine is so strong wouldn’t your immune response to the actual virus be much worse? What component of the vaccines you have had do you believe caused your adverse reactions?

The real virus isn't directly injected into your body tissue, it has to find a way in through mucus membranes when the immune system may be strong enough to fight it off before full on body aches.

Same question to you: The last time you had "the flu", did you get tested for Influenza? Are you sure it was Influenza and not a common cold, for which there is no vaccine anyway?

Taking to some nurse friends they say a lot of people think they have the flu when it's a bad cold. And some people just appear to not be very susceptible. Friends that have gotten the flu appear to be laid out flat for week or more.

Based on that I think I've never had the flu.

> laid out flat for week or more

That sounds about right. I did not really appreciate the distinction between a bad cold and the flu until I finally got the flu. I gained a real appreciation for why it kills weaker people.

I didn’t get the flu until well into my 20s. Never got vaccinated, either. Ditto strep throat and sinus infections. Get all of them now. My diet and lifestyle are vastly healthier now than then and I have less exposure, so I guess HGH and massive amounts of testosterone are just a hell of a drug.

It doesn't matter. The point still stands. So far he's been worse off when getting the shot than when not. But who's to say what would have happened those two years without the shot? Perhaps it saved him from a severe flu case or even death.

> It doesn't matter.

It does matter. The claim here is basically "for certain people (me), the flu shot has been worse than the flu". If that person never experienced an actual Influenza infection, then that claim was made in error.

The claim has not been made in error. If he has never experienced the flu, but has experienced symptoms from the flu shot, then the statement "the flu shot has been worse than the flu" is 100% true.

I am not claiming I had the flu. What I am saying is that the flu shots made me more miserable than any cold/flu I ever had. I am very reluctant to intentionally make myself sick for a few days every year.

That's an important distinction. You may never have had the flu in the first place.

In that case, it would be like saying "my reaction to the vaccine was worse than any infection I never had".

That is equivalent to "my reaction to the vaccine was worse than my reaction to nothing", or more simply "I had a negative reaction to the vaccine". Fair enough, there's no questioning that.

Now, if you had ever had an actual Influenza infection, my guess would be that you would prefer the vaccine. If you react that strongly to just the vaccine, why should you react less strongly to the actual virus? To be on the safer side, why not just assume that the actual virus would completely overwhelm you?

> I am very reluctant to intentionally make myself sick for a few days every year.

That's the tradeoff. Feel miserable for a few days per year versus taking the risk of contracting a severe infection and potentially being dead for the remaining years of your life.

To complicate the matter, flu vaccines are only about 50% effective, though I'm told they help even with actual infections.

I'm not telling you what to do, except to re-evaluate your thinking on the matter.

>> I too have a far more severe reaction every time I get a flu shot than I've ever had from actual flu.

Then why bother?

Some years I don't depending on my circumstances. But it's the same thing as COVID-19: it's not just about me getting it, I'm in a relatively low-risk demographic. It's about not spreading it if I will associate with high-risk demographics a lot. Herd immunity.

Also the immune response can suck, but I would think the risk for complications is still actually lower than genuine infection. I would see the flu shot as taking one for the team.

my wife and I noticed this last year's shot was more painful - she especially had soreness in her arm for close to a week - in the past years it's typically been a day or two. Now... we're both getting older, which may account for some of it, but it can hurt for a while. And perhaps some people react other ways, which perpetuates the "I won't get one cause it makes me sick" scenarios.

> I too have a far more severe reaction every time I get a flu shot than I've ever had from actual flu.

Are you sure you ever had an actual Influenza infection? It's not like a common cold.

Even then, let's say you do get Influenza, there's a solid chance you'll get pneumonia, even as an otherwise healthy person.

Most diseases to vaccinate against have are mild in the majority of cases. You're vaccinating because of the fraction of cases that are severe.

I have been diagnosed by a doctor as probably having flu, but they don't always test, and I have had pneumonia, albeit not from influenza. But please understand you're preaching to the choir on vaccinations. I'm just saying that telling people something they actually experienced just isn't real just because it's not infectious is equally incorrect and counterproductive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling out that reactions to flu shots can be more severe than actual (mild) infections.

It just strikes me as unlikely. It's more likely that people don't understand the difference between a flu and a cold.

That's why I'm asking for clarification.