Red, swollen, hot to touch.....are you running a fever? Are there any red streaks from where they gave the shot toward your central body (ie - if they gave the shot in your upper arm (deltoid region), the streak would go towards your chest).....(if you had a pustule on your lower leg the infection streak would go towards your groin)......
2 things can happen when you get immunized:
1) most common - your body stores a memory of things it has reacted to in the past ... if you've had a Flu shot or Pneumovac in the past, your body is just saying to you...."hey - I remember this stuff - I'm gonna try to get rid of it"....and you get a red, swollen area - sometimes hot, sometimes cold (cold & non painful is better).....think of it like a mosquito bite...some people get a quarter size red area (like me), some people get a dime sized area (almost everyone else I know)....I react to mosquito bites, most people dont.
2) this is the one to watch for: red, swollen, hot to touch can also = infection. Did they clean the area that they gave the shots in with rubbing alcohol before injecting you? Did they wash their hands before preparing the shot & giving it to you? (perish the thought - were they using clean needles?)
If it's just an amnestic (I remember this stuff) response from previous injection, it'll go down in a day or so - they do make your arm ache - sometimes it feels like it's gonna fall off, it aches so bad...ice, tylenol or motrin, and maybe a dose of benadryl (or the generic equivalents) are all you need.
If it's infection - it'll get worse - hotter, larger, redder and may develop an abscess (boil) at the injection site, if you let a skin infection go, you can start running fever & it can spread to other areas of your body (through the blood stream) - go get it checked out if you think this is what is happening to your arm......NO doc or nurse should make you feel bad for being worried that you might have a skin infection or abscess forming from an injection!
btw: They were right in telling you that if you have a heart condition you should get those immunizations. Flu shots are needed every year. If you've never had one before, you'll need a booster in 1 month...(sorry!!).....if I remember right, Pneumovacs are every 2 - 5 years in adults (someone out there help me on this one---).....also included in the list of people that should get these are asthmatics, people with chronic lung disease, the very young & very old, I think they also give them to immune suppressed people (their bodies don't have what it takes to fight off these very common infections)............
Hope this is helpful & not too scary....pleas e give us folks in the white coats a break - most of us don't act like the ones you met........(I don't wear my white coat!)
-LaurieW
