Tri-Valley Kaiser Flu Clinics About Out of Nasal Vaccine Spray

If you've got needle-phobic kids (or you don't much like getting stuck yourself), you're out of luck if you were counting on getting your flu vaccine via a nasal spray — at least at Kaiser's Tri-Valley flu clinics in Livermore and Pleasanton.

Our family went later than usual (we usually go in October) so we were surprised to find out that Pleasanton's clinic ran out of nasal vaccines on Monday and that the Livermore facility only had about two dozen nasal doses remaining.

Since I had dragged in two kids hoping for the nasal spray, they weren't happy to get that sort of news. It was the first time that had happened and is definitely something to remember for next year. (Note: Not everyone is a candidate for the nasal spray. It's not recommended for people with certain allergies or chronic medical conditions, such as asthma.)

The CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older get a flu vaccination each year. Even if you're healthy, you can catch the flu and spread it to others even before you start feeling sick.

However, compared to some of the vaccines the children have to get, the flu injection is not administered very deeply into the muscle, so it's likely to feel less painful than other childhood immunizations.