(Tulsa, Ok) -- This story may help you from having to go to the doctor's office. State health department officials recommend getting vaccinated against the flu earlier this year. Also, the health departments' Don Blose says children need to keep getting flu shots through their 18th birthday.  Until this year federal recommendations called for children from 6 months to 5 years to receive flu shots.  Health department statistics indicate that nationwide, 83 children died during the last flu season from the illness.  About 36,000 people in the U.S., many of them elderly, die each year from the flu.