Arthritis Patients: Get Your Flu Shots
Treatment guidelines published by the Infectious Diseases Society of America remind doctors and patients that people with a chronic inflammatory disease, even those who take immune-suppressing medications, should not shy away from getting flu and pneumonia vaccines.
People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus, psoriatic arthritis and other autoimmune forms of arthritis face an elevated risk of infections, including influenza (the flu) and pneumonia. The increased risk may be due to the disease, which changes how the immune system functions, as well the medications used to control the disease, many of which suppress the immune system.