Flu vaccines have been around for more than 50 years and have been given to hundreds and hundreds of millions of people without incident.
Despite what some have experienced, the flu vaccine itself cannot give you the flu. But there are still some relatively common side effects, such as soreness at the injection site, achiness, and fever. These side effects typically subside quickly.
In rare cases, the flu vaccine has been demonstrated to cause more serious conditions, such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) and anaphylaxis.
Improperly administered vaccines are also causing more and more shoulder injuries as a result of the injection of the needle and vaccine too high on the shoulder and into areas of the shoulder that can be damaged by the trauma of the injection itself or by the vaccine antigen. These injuries—Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration, or SIRVA—have been demonstrated to compromise the integrity of the shoulder and cause pain and loss of range of motion similar to a frozen shoulder or rotator cuff injury.