Get your flu vaccine while stocks last

Dr Robert M Jaggs-Fowler is suffering from the effects of flu...

WHILE you have been luxuriating in the pleasant early autumn weather we have been blessed with over the past week or two, I have been doing a little personal research on your behalf.

Over the course of 10 days, I have been exploring the personal effects of having a high fever, sinusitis (snotty nose), pharyngitis (sore throat), laryngitis (hoarse voice) and bronchitis (chest infection).



The symptoms are not very pleasant. Indeed, they are so unpleasant that my research kept me away from my duties at the surgery for a few days. Furthermore, I developed a particularly displeasing bout of pleurisy (inflammation of the lining of the lungs); and that, I can say without any hesitation, is a painful experience.

So, you may well be asking, what exactly is the point of this self-indulgent preamble? The answer is that it will soon be winter.

Winter, with its ominous threat of cold, ice and snow, and with it the cyclical threat of influenza.

Yes, the "flu", with all the symptoms I have just been intimately acquainted with and a few more thrown in for good measure (like muscular pain, headache, rigors, pneumonia and death, to name just a few).
However, it can be prevented. All you need is to remember to have your flu vaccine in good time.

Of course, some people are at greater risk of serious repercussions from flu than others, and it is really to those of you in this category to whom I and my medical colleagues wish to be handing out this year's designer flu vaccine, free of charge and courtesy of the NHS.

To be eligible for this great medical giveaway you need to be one of the following: aged 65 or over, pregnant, living in a residential or nursing home, a carer for an older or disabled person, or a frontline health and social care worker.

So, don't delay – watch out for the notices in your GP surgery and get your flu vaccine as soon as possible while stocks last!

Alternatively, if you are under 65 years but have one or more of the following conditions: heart disease, a chest complaint (such as asthma, COPD, or emphysema), kidney disease, lowered immunity (because of steroid medication or cancer treatment), liver disease, diabetes, a neurological condition (eg multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy), a problem with your spleen (or don't have one), or have had a stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA), then you too can benefit from this wonderful once-in-a-year opportunity.

Oh, and by the way, in case you are still concerned, I am now fully recovered. Thank you for asking.