Flu season is upon us, which means getting annual vaccines is recommended.

However, after a century of existence, people are still hesitant to get the shot out of fear of becoming sick.

So, can the flu vaccine make you sick?

According to doctors in an article with The Sacramento Bee, you may feel sick after the vaccine, but the shot cannot actually make you sick.

Dr. Kristin Gates of Kaiser Permanente told the outlet, “It doesn’t make you sick, but people aren’t crazy in thinking, ‘when I got the flu shot, I feel like I got sick right after.’ It makes it easy for another virus to knock on the door and not have as much resistance because your immune system is distracted.”

“All medications, all vaccines can have side effects,” shared UC Davis Health chief of pediatric infectious disease, Dr. Dean Blumberg. “This generally lasts a day or two and then it goes away but it does not cause the flu. There‘s no way that the injected flu vaccine can cause the flu because there’s no live virus in there.”

How do you prepare for cold and flu season?