Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Influenza

Episode Date: November 13, 2014

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: The greatest medical holocaust in history. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saabones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello, we're already in Welcome to Saw saw bones a marital tour of Miss guy to medicine I'm your co-host Justin McRoy and I'm Sydney McRoy boy Sydney after that a little bit of a dark episode last week about Ebola I sure am happy to get back to something a little little more chill Well, I was hoping that that episode about Ebola would would calm people down, you know I mean, because at least in the United States, you know, the point is that Ebola really isn't that big a deal here.

Right. Yeah, so it's nice. So, that, I mean, and I've been saying that for a while now is that, you know, Ebola sounds so scary and it's so dramatic, but, um, but, you know, as far as in the United States, we really shouldn't be worrying about it. The virus that's you know gonna in the world is probably the flu. So I don't know why we're all worked up about Ebola. The flu? Well, yeah, I mean influenza for me is much more concerning than for me personally. This is good. In this country. It's great.

I was just starting to get calmed down about Ebola. And now you're telling me that the flu is going to end humanity. Well, if you look from a historical perspective, I mean, these flu pandemics come up every, you know, 10 to 50 years and I mean, sooner or later, it's just gonna be the big one. So, you know, the big flu.

So. A true story about my wife and I, we went and saw the movie Contagion and she leans, and I'm having like a full blown panic attack and she leans over just as the credit's been general and whispers in my ear, that's how it will happen. Cool, cool. Okay, all right, well, let's talk about the flu then, Tidning.

Let's talk about the flu. Let's talk about the flu, what's the flu? Okay, and let me just say, maybe Well, let's talk about the flu then, Tidning. Not. Let's talk about the flu. What's the flu? Okay, and let me just say, maybe I can calm people down about the flu a little, too. Now that I've worked you up, I'm gonna take you on an exhausting ride where you end up calm and you end up.

I just barely got calm about it, but okay. Tell me about the flu. Okay, so influenza. First of all, it's a virus. You probably know that. Right, I do know that much. It's part of the ortho mixo viridae family. You don't know that fancier name. I can see where we stick with flu There are now let me just say there are three different genus of the three different genuses gene genie genie

Genie, probably genie Yeah, that we'll go with that flu A times Swords types But flu A times sorts. Pipes. There are five genus genus in the in the in the ortho mix of your day family, but they're three of them are flu. And what we're going to focus on is flu A. There is flu B and flu C. Flu C is not important.

Flu B is sort of important. We'll touch on it. But flu A is what most people are thinking of each year when they talk about the flu. And especially when you hear us start using Hs and Ns, we're talking about different strains of type A flu, okay? The way we come up with that is that there are a lot of different antigens, which are just kind of proteins on the surface of the flu virus. And two of them in particular are called hemagglutinin and neuromenidase, which you will notice start with an H.

And an N, okay. So when we talk about, for instance, H1N1 is the one I think most people are familiar with, especially recently, we're talking about a certain type of the H, antigen, and a certain type of the N, antigen, and that helps us figure out which strain of fluid is. Got it. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay.

So, these viruses, the flu viruses, can infect humans, of course, we know that, but they can also, in fact, as you may have learned, birds and pigs. Swine flu, avian flu, right. I remember that. Exactly. In a sense, when we talk about avian flu and swine flu,

it's interesting. All flus are kind of av avian flu and swine flu, it's interesting. All flu's are kind of avian flu's and swine flu's. How so? Well, most of the time, flu viruses start off probably in birds. That's probably where they live before they get to humans. And then they change and mutate in a way that they can be communicable to humans.

A lot of the time, it's actually happening in pigs. You can kind of think of them as the mixing vessel. Birds get give flu's to pigs, humans and pigs can exchange flu's and all of these viruses are mixing and matching. And that's why you get all these different strains. Give Charlotte's web a much darker undercurrent. Yeah, right.

Is there like a, no one there like a duck or a goose or something. If they're all there, all the, all the ingredients, that's all you need. I mean, and that's really, that's really true, actually, that you were joking about it, but places where people live in close quarters with animals, especially when we're talking about like chickens and pigs, you know, foul and, and swine, um, that tends to be where these flu viruses originate, and especially in densely populated areas. That's why we think a lot of the viruses start off in China is because you have, it's a very densely populated,

I think like a quarter of the world's population lives there. Something, I think that's the figure. So if you think about a really densely populated area, where some people live in close quarters with animals, that's a perfect situation for a new, unique flu virus to arise. Like I said, pandemics, meaning, you know, cross, cross national borders worldwide, epidemics of the flu happen about every 10 to 50 years. The most recent, you probably know, so I flew the H one in one, H one in one. out every 10 to 50 years, the most recent, you probably know. So I flew the H1N1.

H1N1, right? 2009, that was a pandemic. That was a pandemic. So I can just like chill. So you're good for a little while. For a little bit, I can like chill. Well, I mean, sort of, except next time I'll be an old, old man and super duper susceptible.

That's not great. It's actually interesting. I was reading kind of an older article about the flu and they were talking about how we can predict these, the win about these pandemics should happen based on past pandemics. And they say in the article that depending on what you count as our last pandemic,

the next one is probably do around 2008 or so. This isn't an older article. So, so they kind of, and that's pretty certain. So I don't know. We may be a few years out from our next one, or maybe it'll be another 50 years before the next one, who knows? This has probably been happening since the time of the ancient Greeks. There are accounts of illnesses that sound like flu epidemics written, you know, by

having a heart to pen down without some of our modern testing and what have you. Exactly. I mean, because, you know, the symptoms of the flu can be so non-specific. The description of it would not be very helpful for talking about ancient texts. So it's probably gone back that far. We know for sure the first absolute agreed upon pandemic that we are aware of was in 1580. And they've kind of been happening with this same frequency ever since. So what is it? How does the flu feel? I mean, I've had it before, or what's it

feel like? So the like I said, the symptoms of the flu can be pretty non-specific, you know, it can be similar to the common cold. You get fever, you can get what we would consider upper respiratory symptoms, cough, runny nose, sore throat, but you also get these body aches, and that's pretty, I don't want to say it's specific for the flu. There's certainly lots of viruses that cause that, but if you're not sure if it's the cold or the flu, if you are just hurting all over and exhausted, I'd lean a little more towards the flu. And then if you throw in some nausea and vomiting, that's definitely a flu picture.

Perfect. Perfect. It can leave you vulnerable for pneumonia. That's a big complication of the flu. And so that's when the respiratory symptoms seem to be getting worse instead of better. Who most viruses have a pretty predictable peak, you know, seven to 10 days, the flu may be up to 14 days where it gets worse, worse, worse, and then better,

better, better, and you're fine. If you're getting worse, worse, worse, and then worse, worse, worse, we start to wonder if maybe you got pneumonia on top of the flu. And it's spread by respiratory droplets, meaning when somebody coughs or sneezes really close to you and all those nasty little snott drops fly in your face and then you breathe them in or, you know, they're on your mouth and you eat liquid that gets in, you know, and you know, yeah, yeah, I get it.

No, I get the idea. And you get membranes like on your, you know, like you're pulling your skin inside your mouth. 19, 18 is written on this sheet. What's that mean? So I think if we're going to talk about former flu pandemics, I think the best one to talk about would be 1918. There are certainly ones that were paying before and there have been pandemic since, but I think it's the most interesting because it has been called the greatest medical holocaust in history. Wow. Yes.

Pretty firm. Yeah. So when when people, hey, when you're deciding that you don't need your flu shot, because flu is not that baggy deal, remember what I'm about to say. The greatest medical holocaust in history. It's no, but like by all means, don't go to the the CBS and take 10 minutes to get your shot. Sorry, I said. It's considered one of the three worst plagues in history with the Justinian plague and then of course the black death. We've got the what we call the Spanish flu, the influenza epidemic of

1918 pandemic. Excuse me. Where's it from? So this is this is a little harder to answer, not from Spain. Okay, as you may as you may think, right? It is not my first thought. Yes, it was not thought to originate in Spain We had this theory that originated in China, but that's just a theory. That wasn't actually traced there It may have originated in the US. Oh wow. Sorry The first kind of documented cases were simultaneous and this is the weird thing about it people started getting sick and were simultaneous and this is the weird thing about it. People started getting sick in disparate parts of the country at about the same time.

There were cases popping up in San Quentin, in Detroit, in North Carolina, all around the same time. Which is very weird. And like I said, they still were trying to trace back what did it show up in the US from China, we don't know. But it proceeds from the US to devastate Europe, India, China, Australia, Africa. And of course, this was all exacerbated by what was going on in 1918. World War One. Exactly. So the American expeditionary force probably carried it overseas by boat,

which was a big problem because the the war effort not only spread the virus outside of national borders, you know, because people were going all over the world, it also helped to spread it within the US where you have, you know, different people being called up for military service and going to different bases around the US. Bob hoped to as USA had two or just spreading it. Bob hope and all those dancing girls just took it all over thanks guys spread it everywhere song a little dance a little of flu filled the building fatal flu and then some jokes about golf or something yeah I think jokes about golf and also he

was he was probably not doing a lot of shows in 1918, but still. Still, you get the idea. It's probably something with a puppet. Things sucked back then. Sorry. Especially if you had the flu. Yeah. For the whole, yes. And if you think about it, it was also the perfect, not only did we have a lot

of people moving around, which is always a risk factor for spreading disease when you've got people breaking national borders in great masses for some reason. But then you think about the way that our soldiers were living, whether it be in military bases in the US or in trenches overseas, people were living in close quarters and then when we moved into actually the war front on sanitary conditions. So it was very easy for one sick person to quickly infect a lot of other people,

especially if their immune system was depressed by being malnourished and cold and fatigued, and then probably fighting off other illnesses. And then spam. Yeah, exactly. Well, under the stress of warfare. Sure. So it spread through Germany, Italy, Italy, France, Spain, you know,

all the countries that were involved in the war were certainly affected through the UK, through Russia. And at one point, it started to mutate. And we see this because it begins to pass back through countries that had already kind of, we had already seen the peak and it had started to ebb. So we saw this huge flu, this rise in cases, people started getting better, and then all of a sudden, the second wave of infections started. Revival.

It was. A revival of the flu started happening. The three vamp. It was the batman begins of the flu. And unfortunately, this mutation, this new wave of the flu appeared to be worse than the flu. And unfortunately, this mutation, this new wave of the flu appeared to be worse than the first. Similar to when we think about, you know, the thing that was so sad, I should say, about the H1N1 epidemic, is that it was actually killing a different segment of the

population than we're used to, a more a younger healthier segment, which the problem with that is that at the time we were only targeting the very young and the very old for flu vaccine. So the exact population that we weren't targeting for flu vaccination was getting affected by the flu, which we've learned our lesson since then. But at the time, you know, before the flu vaccine, all the sudden we have all these young healthy people getting the flu with a second wave. So the first wave hurt the very young, the very old, the second wave started taking out everybody in between. And it was pretty devastating. All told in this pandemic,

about half of the world's population probably got infected with the flu. Half. Half. Now, let me clarify, though, about a quarter developed symptoms. A quarter? Yes. That's still like a bajillion people. Yes. Lots and lots of people got the flu. The death rate from the flu is usually pretty low, maybe like 0.1%.

With this particular pandemic, it was more like 2%, which sounds low, right? Like that doesn't sound low. Well, it sounds low until you realize that half the people had it. So when you look at sheer numbers, we're really talking about probably 40 or 50 million people who died of the flu between about 1918 and 1920.

You know, it's so interesting that like, to use a bowl as an example, I think makes this so scary is because that death rate is so much higher. And it's like, but the flu is actually like sneaker. The flu is like an underground sleeper success. It's like an underground hit that everybody sees like after it's out of theaters.

And the bowl was sort of like a underground hit that everybody sees like after it's out of theaters. And the Bolas sort of like a smash, it's like the Transformers. Exactly. Right. Like a smash release that everybody like they're really devastating people. It's kind of like Ebola is kind of like the blue album in the Weezer collection. the flu is more like Pinkerton. Time to grow. Yeah. Exactly. Gotcha. But if you're a true fan, you like the flu better. I mean, you don't like the flu better. I don't like the flu better. You respect it. You respect it. You gotta have respect for the flu. Gotcha. So the interesting thing about this is that when we look at mortality during World War One,

we're probably looking at as many deaths from influenza as we are from the war itself. Wow. Um, it's estimated that maybe half of American soldiers who died in World War One died from influenza. And I don't know, I can't tell you all the specifics in terms of how that impacted the war itself, but if you consider that a lot of the soldiers who were sent overseas were probably too sick to fight, and a lot of the soldiers who were already there on the other side were probably too sick to fight, this probably had a major impact on many battles and maybe helped

play some part in ending the war when it did, because so many people were sick. I'm just not living it anymore. I can't. I can't do it. Well, I mean, if you think about it, if you look around and you've got nobody left to fight because everybody's in bed with the flu, and when you look at... What if they threw a war and everybody had diarrhea? I think that's what the hippies really had in mind. Right. With all that lack of bathing, that was probably the goal.

So at the Treaty of Versailles, do you know that several of the participants actually had the flu? I did not know that. Yeah, Woodrow Wilson, for instance, the Prime Minister of the UK, David Lloyd George, and the Premier of France. I'll have the flu during the Treaty of Versailles. Excellent. I mean, that still went okay, I think.

So why was it the Spanish flu? The only reason it was called the Spanish flu is because early on in the course of the flu, as they were figuring out that this was a pandemic that was happening everywhere, and as they were kind of sketching it out as an entity, there was a huge outbreak in Spain, and a lot of people died,

and it got a lot of attention on the world stage and so it was dubbed the Spanish flu because of that. But depending on where you were, you called it something different. For instance, if you were in Germany, you may have called it the French flu. And if you were in France, you may have called it the German flu. So we've talked a whole lot about how this thing is. But how do we, we've talked a whole lot about, you know, how the, you know, what this thing is, but how do we, how do we fight back? That's what this shows us about. How do we treat it? And there are lots of treatments and I'm thrilled to tell you about them, but before we do that,

you're going to need to hop on over to the billing department. Let's go. Sydney, let's fix the flu. Let's cure the flu. All right, so when we're talking about treatments for the flu, a lot of these came out of that big pandemic in 1918 because this was before the age of antibiotics, which wouldn't have helped us by the way anyway because the flu is a virus and not a bacteria. But we really didn't know how we could treat it. And by the way, I should just say this, these treatments, these hospitals that were set up at the time, it was crazy. Like churches and schools were turned into hospitals, they were makeshift hospitals all over the country. Med students were running these

hospitals. Yeah, I mean, that because they didn't have enough healthcare professionals. So it's like when you were in Honduras the first time. That's true. That's true, because a lack of medical professionals, it was just, it was whoever was there. And this was really the kind of situation that we were looking at in the US at the time. So any treatment that worked for anything was being tried. And so you had some really practical things like aspirin was around. Sure.

So give them some aspirin. They gave people oxygen if they needed it, which we had the capacity to do. Although we also did it by injecting it under the skin, which is not a treatment that I'm familiar with, not quite sure how that would help very much. For pneumonia, they gave a lot of epinephrine, which again would not be

something that I don't know even know what that is like an epipin. Yeah, it's an epinephrine. Yeah, it's like roots to get an algae. So yeah, so I guess they're trying to open airways quickly. Okay, sure. Which would open your airways, ultimately it wouldn't fix pneumonia. Yeah, right.

But if you were also an anaphylactic shock. Sure. If a bee was nearby at the time that you got pneumonia, you're covered. Cinnamon and milk was a very popular. Nice. I mean, that would be pleasant. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I would. I mean, I.

I would give you some of that. I'll fake a flu if I'll get me some cinnamon and milk. Come on. And let me say, there were some really practical things that people did. Bed rest. Yeah. You know, try to feed people, give them lots of fluids. That's okay. Man, those were probably the mainstay as is true now of treatment of the flu. Right.

They had, they were really enjoying doing this cold pack on head treatment. That was something that was used for many different illnesses at the time. It's very impressive. Yeah, just put a big ice pack right on your head. I'll keep my cinnamon and milk. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know that I would enjoy that. And then you're supposed to drink warm drinks while you're doing it. Just, it's like muscle confusion, right? And the axe. Okay. So put a nice pack on your head and drink some tea. And then of course hydrotherapy was still popular at the time. So just stick him in a warm bath.

Right. Which wouldn't help, but again probably didn't hurt anybody. One interesting thing, if you look at the pandemic in 1918, people were trying something that made a lot of sense, which was to take blood from people who had the flu and got better and give it to other people. They did that with the boa. Yes. And that makes a lot of sense because you formed antibodies. So you're giving somebody passive immunity. You're trying to take the antibodies that are protecting somebody who's already gotten the flu and give them to someone who's never been exposed. That's, I mean, that's passive immunity.

I mean, it was very high tech at the time. I'm assuming it didn't, didn't pan out. It may have helped some. It's hard. I'm assuming it didn't pan out. It may have helped some. It's hard. I mean, it wasn't like people were doing real regimented studies to prove that any of this was helping. If the blood was a match, then it may have helped.

But that's a big question. Some less helpful treatments. Salt up the nose. You could try a goose grease poultice? It's a fairy-like. It's kind of like a festive. Oh, my say, it has like a holiday vibe to it, these full treatments.

Actually, it does, because you can top this off with a bag of garlic gum around your neck. It's nice. You know, you're ready to get roasted. Now, if you're a turkey, if you're trying to career turkeys in influenza, and you've got a bunch of family coming over, and you want to make sure it's done just right, and also cured of, and you've got a bunch of family coming over, anyone make sure it's done just right,

and also cured of influenza, we've got a lot of treatments for you. You're gonna wanna inject it with some cinnamon milk, put some oxygen right under the skin, really delicious, and then get some garlic gum, rub that around the neck, salt up its nose, chicken, the turkeys don't have noses, but, and then a goose grease pulp is inside,

it's really gonna be, it's just delicious. This is the treatment that the witch from a handsome and Greta Grattle told kids to do right Yeah, some you know what I'll fix that up cumin Just a little more salt up your nose a little more salt's be nose Hop in the seven onions were a popular treatment. Okay Sure Stuffing they would they, they would feed. And a lot of these were used on kids, by the way,

because kids were the ones getting, I mean, everybody was getting the flu, but especially little kids. So they would like take their kid and after they've salted them and greased them and put garlic on them. And preheated it. Cover them and raw onions.

Yeah. You could eat the onions, but why not cover you and onions? Seems even better. Mm-hmm. If you couldn't the onions, but why not cover you and onions seems even better. If you couldn't handle onions, one thing that they recommended as a second line treatment, I suppose, is you could take some hot coals and sprinkle either sulfur or brown sugar, which seems like a big gap there.

Can I vote? Are we voting? Because I'm going say Brown Sugar. Also, how is your efficacy with your onion thing? If you think that like instead of eating onions, you could sprinkle Brown Sugar on hot rocks. Maybe that would do something. I, we don't know, we're making it up. Well, no, you have to like burn the coals then

and let the fumes like inhale them. Right, I mean, I'm with you. It's just like a pretty far cry from eating onion, Sydney, small macaroy. I think my theory is that we're still basing this on the idea that like disease doesn't like strong smells and things that make you... It's so sedicated. Yeah.

It's kind of, it's not that far off from things that would make you puke or poop a lot, which probably eating all these onions would. So quarantine was popular, of course, if you didn't know how to treat the flu at least, try not to spread it. So during the time a lot of theaters, stores, schools, churches, everything was closed, there were laws passed different places about wearing masks and about banning public spitting. That, yeah, it seems seems I think we should keep those in place. Well, that was done. If you remember, we talked about it in the tuberculosis episode.

True. So, so you could get, actually, I think the Boy Scouts were big on that. They would come up if they saw you spitting and give you a little card to remind you that it was illegal to spit in public places. Excellent. It's a great job for the Boy Scouts, I think. Thanks. Hey, Boy Scout, you smell like onions and brown sugar.

Where do you get off? I found this great website with a bunch of flu stories, like accounts from people who were around during the flu pandemic, or either the like kids or grandkids of these people. There was one account, and I was looking for cures for the flu from the time. One account was from someone named Sadie afraid of his horse's Janice, which is a great name. Yes. And she said that one of the treatments they would use

was caracene and sugar. Oh, in what form? They would, I'm assuming it was like rubbing caracene and sugar on people. I don't think they would be silly enough to drink caracene. Let's hope but like you rub yourself a caracene and sugar There was another account from a bud pancake Where he was talking about a local country doctor where where he lived and This doctor swore that the only thing that would cure the flu was boot like whiskey sure that makes perfect scent

The problem is that he used up all of his supplies, you know, courageously saving the lives of the townsfolk. Right. And so he started looking around like where else is there some more bootleg whiskey? And he thought to go ask the sheriff because part of the sheriff's job was to round up bootleg whiskey. So he went and he talked to the sheriff and he said, do you have any whiskey? And he said, yeah, but we're keeping it for evidence.

We're trying to put this guy behind bars. So in the story that Bud tells his, this doctor got together a vigilante committee. To go retrieve the whiskey. To go round up the whiskey. I like that it's a vigilante committee. It's a very organized. It is. they follow Robert Susan rules of order and they very mannerly well where powdered legs uh there

was another survivor who said that the reason he made it is that he bathed in listerine so there you go she could try that today and one um now this is a current home remedy I found this was something that somebody recommended right now for the flu. So she claims that she cured her children of the flu and her husband when they got it with drinking a gallon of water a day. Sure. Warm liquids. Okay.

Taking vitamin C tablets, 500 milligrams at a time, until you achieve bow tolerance. Okay. Was that me? Bow tolerance is when you can't stop pooping. Excellent. Okay. And that's when you're taking enough vitamin C. Perfect.

Great. Okay. I'm no longer thinking about my flu. No, because you're pooping, not that. I'm pooping all the time, pooping back and forth forever. Also try some oil of oregano, elderberry syrup, and organic apple cider vinegar. Okay. Oh and by the way stop eating any carbs or sugars.

Okay, all right, all right lady, you're off the show. There's the door. Okay, we know you're kind on sawdust out of here. If you remember from our previous episode, please do not take Megadoses of Vitamin C. We do not recommend it. And certainly not until you achieve Balthalorans. Yes. In China, they just tried killing all the chickens. There you go. So you can do that too. So anyway, we've had a flu vaccine since 44, 1944.

Okay. The like I said, the most recent pandemic was the H1N1 in 2009. And the reason I mentioned it again is I hope that that has made more people aware that the flu is a big deal. And you should get vaccinated against it. Since 2010, we now recommend that everybody get a flu vaccine unless you have some reason you absolutely cannot.

There's a new virus every flu season. Well, there can be a new virus every flu season, I should say. But periodically, we get something called antigenic shift, which is when there's a giant change in the flu virus. And at that point, we can get things like the H1N1 flu that can obviously be very deadly. So this is why it's so important for you to try to get your flu vaccine every year. This is what you need to know about the

flu vaccine. Okay. The flu vaccine protects you usually against three different strains of the flu virus. They can be quadrivalent, which means there are four, but most of the flu vaccines you're getting at your local pharmacy or at your doctor's office or the trivalent three. It contains two different flu A strains, so an H1N1 and an H3N2, two of the more common flu strains, and it also protects you against the most common B strain of flu, okay? Even if we guess a little bit wrong, it can still help you. So even if it's not the strain of flu that's popular this year, isn't that exact strain that we've vaccinated you against?

If they're close enough, it will still help to protect you. Those antibodies can still be protective. We pick based on sampling of pigs and chickens and birds and that kind of thing to try to predict what flu virus is going to be the big, the hot new virus this year. And we also follow trends worldwide. The injection you get cannot give you the flu. Would you say that for me, Justin, in your family voice? The injection you get cannot give you the flu. That's right. The flu virus, the flu shot is a killed virus. You cannot get the flu from it. So no matter how many people tell you they got

the flu from the flu shot, they didn't. They just unfortunately got sick. Not from the flu shot. They just got sick. It's flu season guides. There's lots of colds and flus out there. Everybody over six months should can get the injection. And then there's also a nasal spray that has a live virus that kids between two and eight can get healthy kids between two and eight. You need it once every year because immunity wanes and because sometimes we change the flu vaccine to adapt it to get healthy kids between two and eight. You need it once every year because immunity wanes and because sometimes we change the flu vaccine to adapt it to whatever the current virus is. What's the hot what what time of year is there a certain time of year when like it changes over. The new flu. Yeah, the new flu.

You should be getting it in early fall. So we started giving it to people in September. I got mine. Yes, I got mine to it. It takes about two weeks to work. While you're building up an immune response to it. So the earlier you get it, the better as soon as it comes out, I'd advise you to get it. So that by the time flu season really hits, which is kind of now, now is we're moving into late November and to December, January, February, that's when we really start to see the peak flu. You're already protected. And here's the thing, if we guess completely wrong with the flu strain or if something like happened in 2009 happens, the flu vaccine may not protect you.

But most of the time we don't pick wrong and the flu vaccine does protect you. And if nothing else, even if because it's not 100%, even if you get the flu, you'll get a milder version that lasts shorter, shorter time span and your symptoms won't be as bad. And either way, it's better than doing nothing, you goose. Well, it gets my herd immunity going here. That's right, because there are people who can't get the flu vaccine. So, ask your doctor. Most of you should be able to get it if you're listening, but ask your doctor if you're concerned that there's a reason you can't get the flu

vaccine. And then go ask your neighbor or your family member or your loved one to get the flu vaccine if you can't, because then they can protect you from the flu. Right. Our baby can't get the flu vaccine. So go get your flu shot today for Charlie. So this one's for Charlie. That's right. I'm getting a flu vaccine for Charlie. Also, if you get the flu, please stay away from my baby. Yeah, you don't need an appointment by the way. Just go to the drug store and say, hey, give me that shot. Yeah, go to the drug store, go to your local health department. I guarantee your doctor's office, if you have a primary care doctor can provide it.

We don't even need appointments for it. You just come to our office and say you need a flu shot and we will give you one so. This has been our program solbona. Thank you so much for listening to it. We hope you're driving to go get your flu shot right now. There's a lot of other shows on the maximum fun network for you to enjoy. That's the network we're a part of. We got Judge John Hodgman. There's a culture show called Bullseye which is a great culture interview program. Always something interesting there You got stop podcasting yourself a couple of really funny cats. I always have a great third guest My brother my brother and me

Which is the show with this one really cute guy. Oh my there's these other two guys too But there's one really cute guy. That's a comedy if I showed you my brothers. Listen to that and so much more on the maximum fun network one really cute guys. That's a comedy if I showed you my brothers. Listen to that so much more on the Maximum Fun Network. I'm gonna think that it taxpayers for the use of their song Medicines as our intro and outro when I encourage you to follow us on Twitter. If you don't already, it's at Saul Bones. We also have Facebook page to search for Saul Bones. Or I think go to Facebook.com slash Saul Bones show.

I think we'll get you there too. If you want to email us, SaulBonesMaximumFun.org and I think that's gonna do it for us until next Tuesday. I think we'll get you there too. If you wanna email us, saw bones maximum fun. .org and I think that's gonna do it for us until next Tuesday, I'm Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!