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.
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 asked my (new to me! it was literally the first time i met her!!) PCP abt it a year ago, and she not only refused to vax me she fucking WENT OFF abt why i didn't need it, concluding with "if you're having sex with someone who has an organ that could give you HPV, there are things called condoms".
I absolutely had an out-of-body experience in the middle, like, is this really happening??? And i should have fired her on the spot and walked out, but i was in The Gown. God, i'm still so mad.
One of my best friends married her high school sweetheart. She has only ever had sex with him.
She caught hpv from him, her husband, and developed cervical cancer because he'd had sex with someone before her. Should she have worn a condom for twenty years? With her husband? What?
And like also... there's a vaccine for this!!! People should be able to get the vaccine and also wear a condom or not! What the ffffffffffffuck!!!
But the whole "it's an excuse for people (women) to be sluts" thing is so tired.
Right?? Like, what is the harm here in preventing disease? In retrospect i really should have grilled her on what, exactly, the negative side effects of the vaccine are, but i was far too shocked in the moment to actually use my brain.
