Hi,<\/p>\n
Thanks for your email.<\/p>\n
Although I can understand you are worried your CD4 count is very good, and the likelihood of you developing complications from the flu is relatively low. The greatest concern would be for people with CD4 counts of 200 of below.<\/p>\n
Although the flu jab makes it less likely that you will get a flu like illness there is still a risk. This is because there are different strains of the flu, as well as other viruses (like colds) with similar symptoms.<\/p>\n
HIV positive people aren’t generally at higher risk of getting colds or the flu than HIV negative people. You should therefore take the same precautions as HIV negative people. This includes eating well, washing your hands regularly and avoiding people with flu like symptoms (where practical!).<\/p>\n
If you do think you are getting more of these viruses than normal speak to your doctor about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello, I was just wondering how often HIV people die of influenza. <\/p>\n
I had 3 episodes of flu last year and 1 already this year (Jan 2013). I took the flu jab for the first time late last year (Dec 2012) and was still suprised I got the flu early this year!! less than a month of flu jab. <\/p>\n
Compared to the seriousness of the type of flu I normally get in the past (painful sore throat that lasts for weeks,chesty cough with thick yellow sputum last for weeks,blocked nose,headache,fever), this current one is mild (sore throat cleared up within a day, chesty cough responded easily to Beechams all in one, no headache, no fever, no feeling weak etc). <\/p>\n
I am beginning to get worried because I know influenza can kill and I am too young to die. My CD4 is 650 and my viral load is undetectable ( has been the same since my diagnosis 6 years ago). <\/p>\n
I notice I always have the flu if I go into the rain alot or don’t wrap up warm enough could this be the reason of my frequent episodes or is it normal for people with HIV to to have influenza every year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}