Seniors Be Warned – Flu Season is Approaching

Health Wellness

With flu season knocking at our doorsteps, it’s nothing to sneeze at.

Last flu season (2017-18), more than 30,000 people ended up in the hospital, with a large percentage of them being young children of adults 50 and over. According to experts, last year’s flu season was one of the deadliest in recorded history.

In February, it was reported:

“The flu season is still a bad one and it’s broken a few recent records, federal health officials said Friday.”

A week later, it was reported:

“Deaths from influenza and pneumonia, which are closely tied to each other in the winter months, were responsible for 1 of every 10 deaths last week, and that’s likely to rise, Schuchat said in a conference call Friday. There were 40,414 deaths in the U.S. during the third week of 2018, the most recent data available, and 4,064 were from pneumonia or influenza, according to the CDC data. The number for that week is expected to rise more reports are sent to the agency.”

Most of the news concentrated on the 180 pediatric deaths, but the most deaths from the flu and related pneumonia were people 50 and over.

Many health experts are concerned that this year’s flu season could be as bad as last flu season and are warning everyone, especially kids and older people to get a flu shot.

Yes, it was reported last year that the flu vaccine was only about 25% effective, because of the different strains of influenza that were circulating. However, consider this. If the flu, without a vaccine kills 10,000 people and with a vaccine only 25% effective, chances are that no more than 7,500 will die from the flu.

Here is another thing to consider. The older one gets, the weaker our immune system gets and that’s due to a number of reasons. If you have a chronic condition, it can weaken the immune system. Some medications can weaken the immune system. Injuries can weaken the immune system and face it, as our bodies age, they don’t function as well as they used to, so our immune system is weakened.

I’ve lived in constant pain since I was 17-years of age, due to injuries. I’m now 66. I also suffer from 3 distinct sleep disorders, so I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in years. What does that mean? It means that my immune system is very weak and compromised. I tend to catch anything going around and even the slightest bug can cause me to run 102º to 103º fever for 7-10 days, and trust me, that takes a lot out of you.

I’ve never been one for flu shots, but this is the third year in a row that I’ve got a flu shot.

If you have any health condition, injury, chronic pain or just getting older, it’s highly recommended that you get a flu shot, I was told by my doctor that it was covered by Medicare, which helped.

What do you have to lose by getting a flu shot, other than your life?

Flu Season

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