Good and BAD news about avoiding the flu….

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 12-1-2015

This post has two parts.

I.  The first part is the short version of how to avoid the flu and harm from getting it if you do.

It’s just a bit over a single page.

II. The second part has the good and VERY BAD recent news about your efforts to do this.

I.  As you know if you have read my posts on avoiding the flu before, as I see it there are five things you should do to avoid the flu AND being harmed by it.

1.  You can do the things that help you avoid getting the flu other than getting the flu shot.

This includes things like washing your hands and only touching your nose or eyes with a clean cloth or tissue and not your fingers and getting enough regular sleep – AND the 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 that now looks to be optimum.

Those protect you before you get your flu shot and protect you from kinds of flu not covered by the flu shot and even make the flu shots you do get more likely to work.

2.  You can get a flu shot each year. 

(They aren’t 100 % effective and don’t cover all the flu strains every season.  But if you also take the 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 that now looks to be optimum, the boost that gives your immune system dramatically boosts the chances the flu shot you do get will work.)

In addition to that, flu viruses change but also have common elements.  So after a few years of taking them, I believe you become slightly to mostly immune to flu viruses with the common elements of many years flu shots that you have gotten in previous year.

This year you can get a quadrivalent flu shot that protects you against the four most likely flu viruses for this season. 

Or, you can get the “Fluzone High-Dose vaccine” which only prevents the 3 most likely flu viruses for this season.

If you don’t know how to boost your immunity and do it and have type 2 diabetes or are over 60 or so or in poor health, the high dose vaccine DOES test as being more protective for the three strains it covers.

If you are in decent health and under 80 and take the 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 that now looks to be optimum, I think the quadrivalent flu shot is the best one to take.  By taking that much vitamin D3, the single strength plus the boost that gives your immune system is likely to be effective and you get four protections instead of three!

3.  You can do the things that make it likely the flu shot will work. 

Getting enough sleep, eating right, and the 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 that now looks to be optimum, gives your immune system a boost that dramatically boosts the chances the flu shot you get WILL work.

4.  You can do things that minimize the impact getting the flu has on you if you do get it.

Get extra rest and enough sleep and eat right and eat enough.

BUT whether or not you can stay home to rest or have to work, drink LOTS of water. 

Between the fever literally causing you to sweat a bit extra and the mouth breathing and feeling bad enough you don’t notice being thirsty, if you fail to drink extra water, you’ll get dehydrated.  That can cause you to feel weak and depleted on top of being sick!  You can even get dehydrated enough to be harmed or faint and fall.

BUT if you do drink the extra water, you still feel sick BUT that danger and feeling weak and being unable to function if you have to while you are still sick simply no longer happens!

That’s a HUGE advantage! 

Doctors say to drink extra water.  But few of them let on that this is WHY it is so protective and helpful to you to do it!

There is even a simple system to do it.  When you first get up in the morning drink some water if you don’t already do that.  THEN, every single time you go to the bathroom, immediately drink a glass of water to replace what you lost!

AND, this next one is NOT well known. Do NOT take OTC meds to lower the fever!!  Unless the fever is over 104 and you think you may need to see a doctor, the fever is your friend! 

It’s the fire alarm system to your immune system to attack!  So the more fever you have and the longer you can leave it alone, the sooner your immune system will kill the flu and make you well.   Also taking an extra 20,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 when you have the flu and a fever more than doubles this immune system boost.

I did that once; and within an hour I felt well; but the fever lasted two more days!  Having a fever and feeling well is an odd sensation.  But it beats the dickens out of having less fever and being horribly sick.

Leaving your fever alone is safe IF you drink extra water.  And if you need to and are at home, you can read favorite books or watch favorite movies or also drink hot buttered rum or a savory broth as a distraction.

5.  And, you can get the pneumonia vaccine every five years or so because it prevents the flu from triggering you getting pneumonia. 

That is also important since the flu kills far more people with the follow on pneumonia it triggers than it does by itself.

Taking the 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 that is now thought to be optimum also has been shown to make the flu less likely to kill you by itself AND make the pneumonia vaccine more likely to work. 

II. Here’s the good and the VERY BAD news first.

a) As you have seen I believe in and support the flu shot and recommend them.

BUT the VERY BAD news is that the FDA just approved a new kind of flu shot no one in their right mind should ever get even once or allow it to be given to their kids ever!

Regular flu shots plus enough vitamin D3 work.

The double strength Fluzone High-Dose vaccine has been tested to work in older people who don’t take extra D3.

In an effort to create a third way to ensure flu shots work, the FDA just approved a new flu shot called Fluad.

“FDA OKs First Seasonal Influenza Vaccine With an Adjuvant.”

 It's named Fluad. Do NOT get it under any circumstances! It's horribly harmful!!

The adjuvant in it is squalene. 

When injected in high doses as this shot does, squalene boosts your immune system so much it’s like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, instead of boosting enough and stopping. It over-amps your immune system so much in practice, it has caused disabling autoimmune diseases and ruined people’s lives!

We know that because squalene was used as an adjuvant for the Anthrax vaccine given to veterans and some civilian contractors during the Gulf war.

Many of them had severely harmful kinds of autoimmune disease because of it.

It was sometimes devastating.  One young man I read about planned to become or resume being a body builder and clearly could have done so under normal circumstances.  After the shots with squalene, he wound up disabled enough he was unable to even work, let alone do work outs with weights!

This is truly MOST unfortunate because taking 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 give you enough boost to make vaccines work.  BUT, unlike squalene vitamin D3 ALSO boosts the accuracy of your immune response and how much boost is needed.

So, instead of causing autoimmune diseases, taking that much vitamin D3 tends to prevent them!

b)  The good news is less spectacular. But it’s very good news even so.

The previous pneumonia vaccine did prevent the most common kinds; but still left enough kinds it did not cover that it was clear a vaccine that also prevented most of the remaining kinds of pneumonia would be MUCH more protective.

It’s here!  You can get it this year!

It’s called PNEUMOVAX 23.  And it literally helps prevent 23 kinds of pneumonia.

That upgraded vaccine looks worth getting!  And, I plan to do so myself.