Tuesday, October 02, 2012

This year’s flu shot

Today my husband said, “Let’s get our flu shot.”  “OK.” So he called to make an appointment.  But the recording was so confusing with instructions of how to go to the emergency room, or how to get English, or how to wait for our doctor, we just got in our car and went to his office.

I had just been there in July, but apparently another Obamacare computer change was in the works and things were chaos.  This time our Medicare cards were scanned instead of photocopied, she recorded our race and ethnicity, and the computer took our photo to add to our records.  One of the staff members came in carrying her portable/lap top version and was about to have a meltdown.  The staffer at the desk mumbled and grumbled that she’d prefer a notebook and pencil to all this nonsense.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/qa_fluzone.htm

“Why is a higher dose vaccine available for adults 65 and older?

Human immune defenses become weaker with age, which places older people at greater risk of severe illness from influenza. Also, ageing decreases the body's ability to have a good immune response after getting influenza vaccine. A higher dose of antigen in the vaccine is supposed to give older people a better immune response and therefore better protection against flu.”

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