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've been lucky with this GCA, in WY there aren't that damn many cases period. But the folks treating me are do deep dives into it to learn and help me get the treatment right. So 20 cases per 100k, there might be 40 cases in the state per year.
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.
