No, this is not Anderson Cooper's page on CNN, if you're looking for that you're in the wrong place.

Tomorrow I get to have my flu shot.  The last pneumonia shot I had gave me shock.  So, my allergist is supervising the injection of my flu shot, and then I am going to stay with a friend who is an internal medicine doc.  The docs I  work with said they will pen me if I drop at work.

So I got my new epipens, and they are sweet!  Have you seen the new high density plastic cases in the futuristic shape and colors.  Now we have bright sky blue plugs to pull and this sort of orange retro look to the pen.  I actually took then out of my purse today to show one of the docs I work with..  I am such a nerd... I was saying "Hey, want to see my new pen?", like it was a cell phone or something.  Geez, I need to get a dog or something else going in my life, that's pathetic!

Anyway, wish me luck people.  I don't want to do the drag and drop again.  That  was not good!

I like the new epi pens too.  You are less likely to mistake which end is which.  !!

 I did not react to the flu shot... everything is o.k.!!!!!  I thought I would post an educational answer here, as my allergist did an excellent job for me.  Hopefully, this will help others who might have similar dilemmas.

Background:  I had flu shots before, many times, no problems.  However, last year I had a pneumovax and DPT shot at the same time, and wound up shocking 12 hrs later, passed out, and split my head open.  Not a good thing.  This happened 12 hrs after I received my shots, in the middle of the night.  I woke up in the middle of the night with severe pain in my arm which received the pneumovax, nausea, and dizziness.  Passed out in the bathroom.

Cause: somewhat uncertain.  However, I was hypotensive, a little dehydrated, and I had my classic mast cell symptoms of ringing in ears, dizzy, nausea, soaking wet with sweat before it happened.  General consensus is that it was a delayed hypersesitivity reaction, probably because I had a lot of pneumonia as a kid.  My immune system over-responded.

Dilemma:  Should I get a flu shot?  What if my masto has gotten a little worse?  Could I tolerate an injection?  I am an asthmatic, so, it would be beneficial for me to have a flu shot if I could tolerate it.

Course of action (done with supervision at the allergist's office.  Please consult your docs if you do this, as prior dosing with antihistamines can affect your test results).

(1)  Skin prick with histamine and saline control to assess overall general state of reactivity.  Wait for reaction, then assess to step 2. I did have a reaction to the histamine (no surprise for this masto girl).

(2) Skin prick with low dose of flu vaccine (not a full shot, just a skin prick like an allergy test).  Also given control  No reaction?  Moved to Step 3

(3) Skin prick with normal dose of flu vaccine and control.  No reaction, proceded to Step 4

(4) Sub-cutaneous injection of flu vaccine and control.  Does not go systemic, just under the skin.  Assessed to see if reaction at this deeper skin level of exposure.  O.K.?  Moved to step 5

(5) Since my other reactions to vaccine were pretty much negative, and I tolerated them in the past, I was given the vaccine, and sat for observation in the doc's office for 30 minutes.

(6) For the rest of the day and night, I was in the presence of medically-trained people who could give me an epipen if needed. Lucky for me, I work with physicians every day, and I have a friend who was a physician who agreed to watch me overnight in case I needed an epipen.  THANKFULLY,  everything was o.k.

I believe that this  process was called a "dilution assessment"  for flu shot reactiviy.

Anyway, this is how it was assessed for me.  I do believe there are different ways to do this. So, if a person really needs a shot, you might want to ask a qualified professional to do an assessment of this this in a controlled medical setting, if you are able to make the proper arrangements/  Since I personally had not problems with other flu shots, and had this testing, it is probably now o.k. for me to go ahead and get my flu shot next year in a normal manner.  For others, it would depend on their personal history with vaccines and allergies. I remained at the medical office for 30 minutes after I got the shot, just as an extra precauton to make sure that nothing will happen.  In my case, if the manufacturers of the flu vaccines keep the formulation of the vehicle ( the solution in which the flu shot is dissolved) much the same, I should  in theory probably not react.  However, the flu antigen (protein) compoent does change each year, and so the response can be somewhat variable.  One has to make a personal choice about risk vs. disease prevention.  In my case, since I have BOTH asthma and systemic mastocytosis, I got the double whammy so I need as much disease prevention as I can possibly handle.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone!!!