The Other Vaccine You Should Talk to Your Doctor About

COVID-19 isn’t the only vaccine you should be talking to your doctor about. With so much focus on the COVID-19 vaccine, you may be overlooking your annual flu shot. Last year, the incidence of flu went way down, thanks to all the COVID precautions we were taking. But as Family Medicine Physician Nektarios Demetriou, D.O., explains, this cold season, we might not be so lucky.

“Typically speaking, the recommendation for flu would be to start around about September, October,” Dr. Demetriou advises. “That would be the prime time to get your flu shot. Primarily because if you get it too early, it won’t last through the entire flu season.”

Dr. Demetriou predicts this year’s flu season could be particularly brutal, all again thanks to COVID-19. “With the lifting of masks and everything else, I’m sure it’s going to be a little bit more ramped up than it was last year.”

One of the biggest excuses physicians hear from patients is that they’re afraid they’ll get the flu from the flu shot. Dr. Demetriou assures us this is just not true. “You can’t get the flu from the flu vaccine,” he assures. “They were probably harboring the virus before they were given the flu shot. And that’s how that can happen.”

So all excuses aside, the flu vaccine is your best “shot” at avoiding serious sickness this flu season. “I would say that you owe it to yourself, especially during this time, this period that we’re going through to give yourself the best possible chance,” says Dr. Demetriou. “But not just for you, for others around you as well.”