Current mood:	okay
Current music:	Emilie Autumn - What If
Entry tags:	health

Got the shot
So, yesterday I got the H1N1 vaccine. No, they haven't opened it up to the general public yet, but my asthma, mild as it is, was enough to qualify me as high risk, particularly considering that any cold or flu I get has a higher-than-average likelihood of devolving into some kind of respiratory nastiness. Some of you might recall me posting last winter about a cold that morphed into something with horrible coughing spasms that were violent enough that I sometimes couldn't catch my breath between coughs, and felt like I was going to either throw up or pass out, and had major trouble sleeping at night, until I went on heavy-duty nausea-inducing antibiotics and codeine cough syrup. So I really didn't want to chance picking this particular flu up and possibly ending up on a respirator or something.

For those who are wondering what conditions are currently like at the public-health flu clinics:

The process, and (minimal) wait times

The lineups have considerably diminished since last week's mob scenes. You don't have to show up early in the morning any more. I went (to the one on Eglinton) in mid-afternoon, and was in and out in under an hour. There was a short wait (10-15 minutes) outside to get screened by a nurse (which was pretty minimal - "Hi, you know we're only doing high risk right now, right?" "I'm asthmatic." "Oh, OK, you definitely qualify!") and given a ticket with an appointment time on it - and the appointment time was for 9 minutes from when I got the ticket, thereby making the whole ticketing system a bit redundant. (They'd introduced it when people were lining up at 5am and that sort of thing, but it really doesn't seem to be necessary any more, though I suspect it will be again once they open the clinics up to the general, non-high-risk population.)

Once inside, there was a form to fill out (basic name & address etc., and a checklist to make sure I wasn't allergic to any of the vaccine components or otherwise contraindicated for it), and another lineup, but this one was short enough that by the time I finished filling out the form, I was the second person in line, and was let into the gym where they were doing the vaccinations a couple of minutes later. There were two waiting area with chairs in there (one for people waiting to be vaccinated and another for people who'd already been vaccinated and were waiting to make sure they didn't have any sort of reaction), and a bunch of stations around the edge with public health nurses giving the shots. I only had to wait about 5 minutes or so here.

At the vaccination station, the nurse went over my questionnaire double-checking all the safety stuff (not currently sick, not allergic to X Y or Z, etc.), and then I got the shot. It was weirdly painless - I barely felt anything at all. I don't know if this particular nurse just had a really light touch, or if I was just lucky and it didn't happen to hit any nerves, or what. Then off to the post-vaccination waiting area for 15 minutes, then out. Total time elapsed, maybe 45 minutes or so.

Interesting note - I didn't have to provide any kind of verification that I had asthma. I'd been worried I might need to go see my doctor and get a note or something, but apparently not. I guess they're worried that if everyone had to do that it would overburden doctors' offices at a time when they're already under stress, and maybe deter people from getting vaccinated who need to be. From a herd immunity perspective, every person who gets vaccinated reduced the risk for everyone else, so I guess they'd rather risk some people who aren't high-risk getting vaccinated under false pretenses than have people who actually are not get vaccinated because they don't have a family doctor, or can't take enough time off work to make an appointment to get a note and then go to the clinic as well.

Adjuvanted vs. non-adjuvanted

One thing I asked the nurse about when I was there was the availability of the non-adjuvanted version - I'd seen a news story indicating that it was now in, but I didn't know if that meant actually in the clinics, or in Canada but still waiting to be shipped out to the clinics. Turns out that yes, they do have it, but not very much - the clinic I was at had gotten 100 doses, and only had 16 left, and weren't sure when more would be coming. Due to the short supply, they are mostly keeping to pregnant women - anyone who just prefers the non-adjuvanted version is probably out of luck at this point. But people who might have other medical reasons to need the non-adjuvanted version might be able to - the nurse I talked to about it said that would be handled on a case-by-case basis.

I asked whether young children could get it, because apparently there are at least some authorities who think kids under 3 should not have the adjuvanted version because it hasn't been tested thoroughly enough on them, and she said that most authorities consider it safe for kids over 6 months, but if a parent was especially concerned they might be able to get the non-adjuvanted one for their child, depending on who they talked to and how much was left - no guarantees either way. It sounds like it would basically be at the discretion of whoever they saw while they were there.

Personally, I didn't have any problem with the idea of getting the adjuvanted one, but I know people who have concerns for various reasons, so I thought I would check for them.

Side effects, or relative lack thereof

Side-effect-wise, the arm I got it in is a bit achy, though it didn't start to be until a few hours after I got it. But it's not too bad - I haven't felt like I needed to take any painkillers or anything. It's just minor nuisance level, nothing overly painful. Some people I know have gotten a brief round of flu-like symptoms after getting the vaccine (usually lasting less than a day, though in some cases it was pretty unpleasant while it lasted), but I haven't, at least not to any noticeable extent. Thus far, anyway - the people I know who've had that got it within 24-48 hours of the shot, and it's been not quite 24 hours yet for me, so I suppose I could still get that later today or tomorrow.

I was feeling a bit achy, tired and chilled last night, but I think that had more to do with having biked a total of over 20 km (12.96 miles according to Mapquest) that day, much of it in very cold weather (also, 22km (13.5 miles) on Wednesday). At least, I don't think the flu tends to concentrate its particular achiness in your glutes and quadriceps... :-)

Anyway, just thought I'd post the above for the benefit of anyone who was considering going to get the shot but wasn't sure about lineups, wait times, side effects, etc.