O ne of the community partnerships Broomfield Senior Services relies on to deliver wellness services is with the Visiting Nurses Association of Denver. Professional nurses visit the Senior Center the third Tuesday morning of every month to provide foot care, blood pressure checks and diabetes checks, monitoring of heart disease, arthritis and lung disease, as well as an overall medical assessment.
This time of the year, the VNA is busy scheduling flu shot clinics and will be at the Senior Center at 9 a.m. Oct. 7 to administer your annual influenza vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 20 percent of the population gets the flu each year. Flu can lead to pneumonia, bronchitis, sinusitis, ear problems and dehydration. about 75 percent of flu deaths happen to people older than 70. the CDC recommends getting the vaccine as soon as it becomes available in your community, because it takes your body about two weeks to build up immunity. Immunity will last throughout flu season.
So, every year, we have to deal with the flu myths, and by far the one we hear the most, and one of the most dangerous, is you can get the flu from a flu shot. This is simply not true. Why? For one, injected flu vaccines only contain dead virus. Dead virus cannot infect you.
Despite the scientific impossibility of getting the flu from the flu vaccine, many seniors still believe this myth. Experts suspect there are two reasons for its persistence. one, people mistake the side effects of the vaccine for flu. while side effects to the vaccine these days tend to be a sore arm, in the past they often felt like mild symptoms of the flu. two, flu season coincides with a time of the year when bugs that cause colds and other respiratory illnesses are in the air. Many folks get the vaccine and, then, within a few days, get sick with an unrelated cold virus and blame the innocent flu vaccine rather than that relative with a runny nose and cough.
So step up and get your flu shot this fall. they are offered at every grocery store and drug store around Broomfield. If you want to get your flu shot at the Senior Center, here are the insurance requirements:
Not all insurance companies will pay for the flu vaccination though our VNA clinic. If you would like to use your insurance to pay for the vaccine, be sure you are using your primary insurance. the VNA for this year’s clinic is contracted with Aetna, Great West, Humana, Rocky Mountain HMO and Tricare. Basic Medicare and Medicaid are accepted, but only if it is your primary insurance. If you do not use insurance, the cost for the flu vaccination is $25.
If you have questions about whether your insurance will pay for a vaccine at the clinic at the Senior Center, call Nicki Sabin at 303-698-6349. And if you intend to obtain your flu shot at the Oct. 7 clinic, give Joanne a call at 303-464-5526, so she can get an estimated count for the nurses.
Be safe, get your flu shot and have a healthy and well fall and winter.
I will see you there.
Suzanne Bazinet is director of Senior Services. E-mail her at .