I went to see the consultant at the hospital yesterday and asked him if i should have the pneumonia jab. I had asked my GP last week and he said he didn't know and that he had received no information recommending patients with RA to have one. Although he did say that there are only 3 of us on anti tnf meds. The consultant said that i should have one every 3/5 years. I'm on enbrel and mtx injections. I will book one soon.

How about the rest of you? What have you been advised to do?

Love Shirley x

Hi

I had one a couple of years ago when I started on Enbrel and as far as I know I do not need to have it again.

Sue

But Barbara we can't fight any infection like others can we? In a conversation that I had a a few days ago my specialist nurse she told me that that drugs we take are to bring our immune system down to a normal level but if we do get ill it just doesn't kick in and work like a normal immune system should. I think your GP needs to go and look up RA.

I briefly read my GP's surgery notice about the flu jab in the surgery waiting room and it did mention patients with auto immune diseases. There was a piece on this mornings BBC breakfast programme about how numbers are down compared with last years on who's had the flu jabs that falls into the at risk category. The government is about to do an advertising campaign next week they reported. No wonder the numbers are down if GP's are denying people who should get it from having it.

Paula x

The reason you should have one with RA is because the drugs we take to suppress the inflammation also suppress our immune system and therefore we are more susceptible.
My surgery always puts me down as immune suppressed as reason for having flu jab.
Hope this helps

Sue

Hi All - I had my flu jab yesterday (and I had the pneumonia jab a couple of weeks ago) - all went very smoothly. My GP surgery really excelled itself - virtually no queue even though were loads of people getting it done, very fast throughput, all the staff knew exactly what they had to do, so it was quick, efficient and painless. No side effects, except I was extremely sleepy yesterday evening and went to bed about 7pm and slept right through till this morning - but feel very well today!

Definitely recommend having it done - I'd originally been told I wasn't eligible but when I queried this when I saw the practice nurse a couple of weeks ago, she checked the criteria and said yes I was, so she booked my appointment then and there. I didn't bother doing battle with the reception staff - they don't know anything and can be very obstructive. Now it's marked on my records permanently so next year I should be invited automatically without me having to remember about it. It definitely pays to know what you're entitled to and sometimes you have to be pushy to be heard, after all having flu is not fun for anybody, but with our immune system compromised through the MTX (etc) we really would suffer badly if we got it!

Sylvia xx

i've had RA since June 2010 well diagnosed then,

i've always had the flu jab every October since then,

and on recommendation from the Consultant and asking my GP i had the pneumonia jab in August as i didn't want the two together.

all was fine.

Suzanne x

HI IM NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND HAVE BEEN GIVEN BOTH THE PNEUMONIA JAB AND THE FLU JAB AS THE DOCTOR SAID THE MEDS LOWERE YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. X

I was advised by the consultant to get the flu and pneumonia jabs. When I had them done I was told by the nurse that I'd need to have the pneumonia one every 5 years and the flu one yearly. There seems to be quite a bit of variance in what we've all been told so I'm now not sure what the truth is.

Hi Zena - don't fret about it, you don't need any extra stress!

Just remember that we all need to have a flu jab every year, because the vaccines change each year to take account of whichever variants of flu are most common during the current winter period. It's becoming very routine for all sorts of higher than average risk groups to be invited for a flu jab, so it won't just be RA patients, but also included are those with asthma, older patients, and those with various other ailments

Monique - now you have a diagnosis of RA you will discover that you're in a very select bunch of people and we get extra special treatment from the GPs. So you will probably get lots of letters inviting you for various things. For the flu jab, that's normally done in the early November and the GPs often run extra clinics just to get everybody through as quickly as possible - we had a lot of chat on here at that time. But of course you were not on the list as you're newly diagnosed, so they have obviously had to catch up with you later. It's very straightforward and routine and will mean that you're even less likely to get flu this year.

The pneumonia jab is given much less frequently and it depends on how old you are as to how often you need it done. There's no specific guidance and so we all tend to get different messages from the GP, but certainly it's no more frequent than 5 years and probably only once if you are over 65. This article is quite good, but a word of warning as the numbers refer to the USA so they are big. UK numbers would be much smaller.

Cheers - Sylvia xx