UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

I have seen this mentioned elsewhere, but it really interested me so I ma asking the question separately here. Having had a graft last november am I ok to have my usual flu jab this winter? I have mild asthma so I always have the jab, and was planning to have it next week at a drop in surgery.
but I read that the jab can be unwise and lead to rejection- is this true? does anyone have any fact based info on this?
thanks

I read that on another topic last week too, and it was the first time I'd heard it (though, logically, I can see the sense behind it).
I'm due to have a flu jab next Saturday (again, at a drop in session)
I'm going to have the flu jab anyway. Unless I am urgently told different by anyone wh can pick holes in my logic before then!
Here's why.
I have asthma.
Because of this, if I get a flu/bad chesty cold and cough, it goes to my chest badly and makes the asthma bad.
I can no longer use the "normal" preventer inhalers, because I've been hypersensitised to the steroids they contain by the graft op.
This means I have to use a different regime of 3 types of inhalers, of different colours and with different types of something called beta-agonists.
If I do have an asthma attack and end in A&E, they can't give me steroids then either, or I'll be having hallucinations again.
(Which they did before when I discovered I'd become allergic to horses and what was going to be my first riding lesson in 20+ years ended in casualty strapped to an oxygen cylinder.
What's more, I can't use the inhalers I've got too close together - so if the new preventers don't prevent the wheezing and I reach for the "reliever", I get racing heart, palpitations, panic attacks - and more of the post-op Hallucinations from the panic.
I've done this by accident a couple of times in just ordinary summer, walking along the street in the traffic conditions. Don't want to try getting flu/heavy chesty cough and try to keep asthma under control through that with those restrictions.
The eye is, apparently "very clear" and showing no signs of rejection. As of last Wednesday.
If the eye does start to reject, I'm in trouble - the extra doses of steroid eye drops are likely to start up the hallucinations again.
If I can't breathe, I'm in even more trouble even more quickly.
One can live a lot longer with an eye problem than one can without breathing.
WOuld rather live with an eye problem than with any more oxygen-deprivation brain damage screwing up my balance even further.
YOur mileage may vary and your asthma is probably far less of a problem than mine is these days.
Rosemary

I guess that this question, like all others, is answered by saying that every one of us should weigh the benefits of a course of action against any potential risks.

If anyone is worried about flu jabs (I am going to have mine next week), they should ask their ophthalmologist or their GP about any risks that may be associated with taking this action. Once they have had this consultation, they make their own decision about whether to proceed.

Andrew

I have flu jabs every year and have done so for over 10 years with grafts that are 20 years old.

Never had a problem with either, just make sure the healthcare practitioners that look after you are aware of any treatments you are having or have had.

I had a flu jab last year, within a week or so I had quite a bad rejection episode.cant say if it was the flu jab or not.

BUT

im still going to have another flu jab this year.

nicola

Went t see the asthma nurse for a checkup yesterday.
Happened to mention something about, I'd be back there on Saturday for Flu Jab Day.
Oh, she said, didn't I want her to do it today?
Well, if sje could and would.... so she popped off to get one.
Wasn't tehe slightest worried about sticking a flu jab into someon post-transplant.
The THING is not showing signs of rejection yet.....
SPent the rest of the day sitting in a warehouse unit on an industrial estate mailing out customer satisfaction questionnaires. One way to get feel cold in one of those warehouse units - have a flu jab that morning.
No, I jest! - the boss kept saying it was hot and muggy too.
Maybe we should offer our services to eye clinics - sending out surveys into the levels of satisfaction of their patients?
- hmmm, do we want to ahve to open the rplies, though?
Rosemary

Rosemary

We wouldn't have to open the replies, it would be Anne

I was handed a form in Gartnavel asking me to rate my experience of the hospital both as an in-patient and an out-patient. They asked what clinics I attended.

I answered all the questions and gave high marks for both the in patient and out patient experience. I guess somebody then had to convert my answers to their quesitons into some sort of digitally manipulatable form so that the bosses could see the hospital's overall score.

Actually I think I subsequently saw the Scottish Executive's published result of this survey. Gartnavel scored consistently highly across its various departments, and Ophthalmology was in the top bracket. Quite right, too!

Andrew

GarethB wrote:Rosemary

We wouldn't have to open the replies, it would be Anne

I meant "we" as in, the company I was working for, sending out the questionaires the afternoon after the flu jab.
It's a mailing house operation.
We send out satisfaction survey questionaires, newsletters, mail order catalogues, training course information, etc etc - and also collate and pack delegate bags for conferences, courses and the like. We in the warehouse do the mailing - getting stocks of encelopes, plastic bags, questionaires etc, collating, stickong on labels, matchin gup the mailmerged letters, stuffing into envelopes, bundling p into boxes or mailbags stacked on mailbag trolleys and send off with the mail man, and manage the post book accounts for the clients.
Our "opposite numbers" in the computer room manage the mailing lists, clean up lists (remove duplicates, amend faulty post codes, remove the "returned to sender" ones, print out labels and mail mered letters (with appropriate salutions) and do the grouping by code areas for mailings being sent out "mailsort" - and then receive the returned questionaires, check off those received so we don't send them reminders, collate them into sets for particular clients and pass on to the statistics team who enter the replies, compute overall results and report back.
I've never myself done the job of opening the returned questionaires, but can imagine it....
..... some of them are covered with pure vitriol - and sometimes what is in the envelope is not just a returned questionnaire.
I'll leave you to guess what some of them may contain ..... but the heaviest I've heard of awas an envelope crammed full of pebbles.
Rosemary

Was the dude with the pebbles satisfied or not?