Throughout the month of December, Valley-Wide Health Systems will be sharing information regarding Winter Wellness and how to stay physically and emotionally healthy during the Winter Season, as well as tips for keeping your teeth healthy. In the article below, our Pharmacy Team shares some tips to pay attention to when it comes to dealing with the flu.
Influenza, commonly referred to as “the flu” is a contagious disease that comes around every year, usually late fall early spring.
Anyone can get it. It has sudden onset and can last for days.
Typical symptoms: fever, sore throat, muscle aches, tiredness, cough, headache and runny/stuffy nose.
It can also have serious symptoms: pneumonia, blood infections, diarrhea and even seizures in kids.
Most people recover without any lasting problems. However, it can cause serious problems resulting in hospitalizations and causes thousands to die every year in the U.S.
Flu is especially problematic in older adults, infants, pregnant women and others with certain health conditions.
The flu vaccine:
- Helps you from getting the flu. Center for Disease Control recommends annual immunization for all people aged 6 months and older.
- Makes flu symptoms less severe if you do get it.
- Keeps you from spreading flu to your family and friends
- Cannot cause the flu as the viruses in the flu are inactivated (i.e. killed), which means they cannot cause an infection.
- It takes about 2 weeks to develop immunity after being vaccinated and this protection lasts through the current flu season.
- Last year’s will not work for the current season because the flu virus strains have changed.
- You can get the vaccine even if you are allergic to eggs.
Valley-Wide Pharmacy offers flu shots to anyone for a cash cost of $25.00. We currently have about 300 doses in the pharmacy, but we can order more. The pharmacy can only do 12 years and up. However, our clinics can do 6 months and up and they have plenty of shots.
