flu shot

[Etherfish]

I was probably wrong about flu shots giving you the flu. I have known quite a few cases of people getting very sick after the flu shot when they were perfectly well before it. Maybe it's not the flu they got, but they felt like they had the flu, and were very ill for several days. They swore off flu shots because they said it was just as bad as getting the flu.

The kind of things you can cure with a water fast is any cold, flu, strep, just about anything that strengthening the immune system will cure.
The only things I know that it definitely won't help is consumptive
type diseases like consumptive tuberculosis, and I assume incurable stuff
like aids or cancer. I was just talking about the average stuff most people catch from each other. Animals in the wild naturally fast when they're ill. That's why they don't need drugs. I don't know if it works so quickly in everyone's system. You might have to detoxify for it to work quickly.

[Jim and His Karma]

Strengthening the immune system is the worst thing one can do for a genuine flu (much of what we call flu is just a cold). The flu does its damage - lethally, in some cases such as bird flu - by disastrously overactivating the immune system. That's why most victims in the 1918 pandemic were young people with very healthy constitutions...same will be true with bird flu.

if you want to survive a flu pandemic, your best bet is, quite seriously, to have the most run down immune system imaginable. if you can manage to stay infected with other viruses, so much the better. If you'll check this out with a doctor or scientist, they'll confirm.

[Etherfish]

I'll check that out, but initially it doesn't seem to make sense. Young people don't have a fully developed immune system. It takes time to build up immunities. It is easy for babies to die of common diseases for this reason. Why would fasting always cure things for me that other people are getting laid up for? i will start to come down with something everybody else is getting, fast, and it goes away. Is this fighting disease by weakening the immune system?

[david_obsidian]

Jim,

I'm very interested in what you said there about the flu.  Do you have any references?

This doesn't sound impossible to me -- there are many situations in which the body does a lot of damage to itself by over-reacting to a morbidity -- people with a heart-attack or a damaged spinal cord are well-treated immediately with a powerful anti-inflammatory to stop the body's own defenses doubling or tripling the damage done.  But I had never heard of this in connection with the flu.

[Jim and His Karma]

here's one of myriad references. the relevant term is "cytokine storm". In the deadliest sort of flu epidemic, young, healthy people are at most risk.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-cytokine-storm.htm

[Etherfish]

Very interesting. You got me going now. . .
here's a site with a lot more detail:

http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Science.PrimerCytokineStorm

What they say is the cytokine storm is one explanation for the 1918 epidemic, but it hasn't been proved yet. In fact, it is a very rare phenomenon, and that's why we don't have much info on it, and we don't know for sure if it is a real phenomenon.
The immune system is extremely complex, and we're still trying to figure it out.
It sounds to me like an immune system with a cytokine storm is not all that healthy, particularly the lymphatic system, but just has plenty of T-cells.

A cytocine storm causes problems because the T-cells and dead cells build up in the lungs. One of the most important parts of the immune system is the lymphatic system, that carries away the toxins created when T-cells kill other cells. The lymphatic system has no heart to pump lymph, but depends on muscular movement and one-way valves. That's one reason exercise is so important to our health. The main "pump" in the lymphatic system is abdominal breathing, and it works best during strenuous activity (or bastrika?!!). I usually trust the body's own expertise over drugs and the medical knowledge of man.
Western science is good at fixing physical broken stuff like bones. Eastern science is good at energetic imbalances and mental equilibrium. But the body is incredibly equipped to take care of itself, if we can figure out what it needs for optimum functioning. I think AYP practices brings us closer to that knowledge.

Anyway, I'll still fast when the avian flu comes around, and you guys take your shots, and whomever stops posting for an extended period of time loses, OK?

[Jim and His Karma]

"What they say is the cytokine storm is one explanation for the 1918 epidemic, but it hasn't been proved yet"

My understanding is that research on this contemporary bird flu has confirmed the theory. In any case, whatever underlying mechanism is cited to explain the cause of immune system overresponse, the people who die in flu pandemics (1918 and others) are disproportionally young people with healthy immune systems that overheat. That's accepted fact.

[Etherfish]

Thank God I'm not young. . .Never thought I'd say that!

[Jim and His Karma]

No joke. The next year or two is oldster's revenge.

[Etherfish]

I did some more research on this at the medical authorities on the net here
in the USA. I went to WHO, CDC, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of NIH.
I could find no evidence that a weaker immune system would fare better with the avian flu. The agencies working on developing the avian flu vaccines are looking for it to "stimulate an immune response", so that would make me think a good immune system is needed for the shot to work.
The main concern with the H5N1 avian flu (the only strain they are worried about out of more than 20) IS the cytokine storm phenomenon, but they don't say a weaker immune system won't do that.

The H5N1 virus travels easily between birds, in fact it is likely that normal human flu strains came partly from birds to begin with. birds normally carry many avian flu viruses in their intestines but it doesn't make them sick.
So far, one person has been observed to catch the avian flu from one other, but the contagion has not gone past one person. The fear is that the virus could mutate and gain the ability to transmit from human to human, and could cause a pandemic. Avian flu has been deadly in a lot of cases. Human infection has been known since 1997.
Current flu shots don't protect against avian flu. It is transmitted from coming into contact with infected birds, their feces, saliva, or nasal secretions. Eating poultry can't give it to you. There is very little risk in having a wild bird feeder in your yard. Just wash your hands after touching it. Most birds affected are waterfowl and shore birds.

[Etherfish]

The W.H.O. DOES recommend getting a regular flu shot in areas affected by the avian flu, even though it doesn't protect against avian flu. The reason for this is getting both of them is more dangerous, and most importantly having both diseases can cause "reassortment" which is a kind of collaboration between the two viruses which could contribute to increasing the avian flu bug's ability to transmit between humans and cause a pandemic.