Second reminder about vaccination prompted by my most recent MMR thread: several people have mentioned their doctors have never told them the DPT (diphtheria, pertussis/whooping cough, tetanus) shot is NOT a lifetime shot. You need boosters every 10 years.
The other method (and the one I use): get one when a relative is having a baby and then get boosters when the kid is having a birthday that ends in 0. (Our oldest niece is our clock for that.)
If you frequently work outside, around metal, or get injuries that make a doctor ask "when was your last tetanus shot", you can get the TD shot that's just tetanus and diphtheria every 5 years, but don't let more than 10 years pass between TDaP (the one with the pertussis protection).
Whooping cough is pretty much always circulating at a low level of transmission and a LOT of doctors can't recognize it anymore. It is miserable and you don't want it! Get a booster!
Friend had whooping cough symptoms for about 2 months, confirms that you don't want it.
I'd guess she was about 50 at the time, had her usual childhood vaccinations, and California had an outbreak of it.
If the doctor can't recognize that distinctive seal bark cough, get a different doctor. I was shown a video of different kids' coughs in paramedic school. You don't forget that cough. And you don't forget stridor in epiglottis. That kid scared TF out of me.
I remember my gramma telling about a child with whooping cough on a dock in FL, and her going medieval on the parents who didn’t know what it was because vaccination had been universal for decades, but CAN YOU BELIEVE THESE IDIOTS DIDN’T VACCINATE THEIR CHILD!?
That was mid-70’s.
And here we are.
I got pertussis after I had bird flu (good times), and my now retired doctor, who diagnosed me by listening to me cough over the phone, said that it's a known thing that any serious viral infection can wipe out your immunity to pertussis, so if you even think you MIGHT have had covid, get a booster.
My Mom has clear memories of thinking she was going to die with her next breath at 5 or 6 years old. She and her brothers and several cousins all had whooping cough at the same time. Some of the cousins did not survive.
You DO NOT want whooping cough!
I got it as a teenager in 2000. I was coughing for about 6 months and had to take a semester off from gym class. My BFF got it in college and coughed so hard she dislocated a rib.
Thankfully we have That Doc, who does ask about Tdap, so partner & I didn't get it when the (vaccinated) kid caught pertussis from an unvaxed classmate on the school trip. He was super sick & has perm
lung damage; that's what a vaccine buys you instead of "dead" for a bad case. You don't want it!
I was in a gnarly mountain bike accident in 2020 and got asked "when was your last tetanus shot?" by at least three hospital staff. Including the plastic surgeon. (It was a few months before the accident. No tetanus here!) I should probably get it re-upped next year.
this is what i did with one of my nephews. he's not ten yet so i'm good on that vax for a while.
kind of glad because i ended up with a bump the size of a baseball at the injection site. no pain. just the giant bump
I did that too! It worked great because my nephew on my spouse's side of the family turned 10 right around the time my brother started fostering an infant, so I was already getting the booster.
One good thing about living in TX: the cvs app can query the immunization database and notice that you're overdue for DPT. (I discovered yesterday when I was scheduling a hepatitis B shot for myself that 1) I was not, in fact, too old for the HPV vaccine and 2) it could do this and then inform me)
Up to age 45 according to the CDC ( www.cdc.gov/hpv/hcp/sche... ) but many doctors will do it after because even if you have one of the strains of HPV there is still benefit to being immunized against the others. Insurance just won't pay for it if you're over 45
I’m in this guardasil cohort too. I decided to just pay for it and got my first dose this week. Having been through it once I’m not messing around with any preventable cancers.
Luckily my insurance paid 90% but I was going to get it even if I had to pay cash.
Good on you for getting back to it, though! Drink loads of water for the 48h before and after you're getting boosters and remember, you don't have to get them ALL at once, heh.
My girlfriend had it as a child and has lifelong respiratory complications as a result. I'd hate to accidentally help spread it. Thanks for the heads up.
I have a convenient reminder, which is that I started my current cycle of DPT shots after I was mugged and thrown from a moving car. Every 10 years after that.
My doctor asked me when my last tetanus shot was, and when I immediately said "August of 2016" she was like "everyone who knows the answer has a story".
She was not wrong.
One of my dad’s dearest friends died of tetanus in his early 50s because no one had ever told him this. It’s an awful, horrible, completely preventable way to go, and even though it happened when I was a teenager I’m still not over it.
Related: there are two formulations for adults, one that includes pertussis and one that does not. If you are around small humans at all, you want the one with pertussis.
If you have multiple coworkers who live with small humans, you also should consider it.
Nothing like coughing until you vomit -or- pop a couple blood vessels in your eyes because a coworker caught the latest daycare superspreader & didn’t call out until they had infected half of the building.
Yeah I only learned that when I went to a travel clinic some years ago to get shots specific to the country I was going to and the lady there just went through my vaccines and updated everything that was out of date… that’s how I learned some of them can expire!
