On flu shots and blood work

Last Thursday, I posted Tips on fighting the flu. I thought it was a good time for these tips as we are entering flu season. Also, I had an appointment to get my own flu shot on the following day. Please check out that post as there is a lot of good information in it for you relevant to protecting yourself from the flu bugs eating away at your system. Also, Dr. Jonathan, who writes the blog All About Healthy Choices had some very informed ideas on fighting the flu which he offered in comments.

I know that there is a division of opinion about getting flu shots. I think flu shots, like politics, religion and labor unions are third rail conversational topics. Some people swear by flu shots (me) and some swear at them. The decision is yours, of course.  I would offer anecdotally that I started getting them around 16 years ago when I was teaching journalism at Northwestern University. One of my students interviewed a senior citizen who said that she had been getting flu shots for 10 years and in that time she had not only not caught the flu, but she didn’t even catch a cold. That was good enough for me. I have been getting them ever since with similar results.

This year, I got the stronger senior citizen shot and had a couple of unpleasant days and nights with a sore throat, runny nose and other discomforts. I haven’t had this bad a reaction before, but this was the first time I got the heavier dose of serum. Also, I had a number of panels of blood tests done and that may have weakened my resistance to the drug.

On to the blood work. I thought I would share my Lipid Panel in this post. That is the cholesterol summary report that most people are familiar with. For the record, I am 76 years old, eat intelligently (I think) and exercise regularly. My resting heart rate is under 50 beats per minute.

Component                            Your Value
CHOLESTEROL                      188 mg/dL
Optimal (not to be construed as a target for drug therapy):

TRIGLYCERIDE                      48 mg/dL
Optimal (not to be construed as a target for drug therapy):

HDL CHOLESTEROL             79 mg/dL
Optimal (not to be construed as a target for drug therapy):

LDL CHOL (CALC)                  99 mg/dL
Optimal (not to be construed as a target for drug therapy):

Non-HDL Cholesterol          109 mg/dL
Optimal (not to be construed as a target for drug therapy):

Tony