Is there a limit to the number of vaccinations you can get?

[Schnitte]

Over the course of the years, I have accumulated a number of vaccinations - polio, tetanus, mumps/measles/rubella, yellow fever, meningitis, hepatitis, the usual suspects. Many people get vaccinations against flu every year to keep up to date with recent mutations of the virus. So I wonder if there is a limit to the number of immunities the human body can develop. When you get more and more vaccinations is there a point when where further action against other diseases will not lead to the production of antibodies because your immune system is preoccupied with producing other antibodies from previous injections? Can new vaccinations affect the effectiveness of previous ones by “replacing” them?

Edit: Typo

[Caractacus_Pott]

I’m not a doctor but I’ve had a number of immunizations due to work. When I went to Africa, I got 6 shots for more than 6 diseases. I was disheartened to learn that I had to get some of them again because immunizations for some bad diseases last only a couple years, dammit. I hate injections. At least the yellow fever shot lasts a decade. That shot hurts! I didn’t know the body could “forget” what Typhoid is.

Having given you an anecdote, take a look at what the facts, at least what the US CDC says about travel medicine. From reading that and other linked documents, you can see that it’s a complex topic. It should be interesting reading until our resident doctors arrive.

[Jman]

Yeah, the yellow fever shot does hurt, but it’s a piece of cake compared to the Anthrax vaccine, which, 10 seconds after injection, feels like someone has imbedded a 2 inch white hot poker into your arm. After a minute, that fades, but it then feels like you’ve been attacked by a baseball bat for the next day. I was one of the 40% who also got a nice hard lump at the injection site. That lasted a week on the first injection, 3 weeks on the second, and 5 months on the third. Luckily, they stopped the mandatory vaccination program at that point, and I elected not to have the other 3 boosters.

IANAD, but I would think that there is little to worry about as far as a hard number limit. Otherwise, your doctor would ask what vaccines you may have had outside of the ‘norm’ to make sure you weren’t being over vaccinated, but as above, I’ll wait for the doctors to show up for the definitive say.

[chacoguy]

I would guess that if one were foolish enough and had the ability to pay, you could be vaccinated against moonbeams and earthquakes.

[Squink]

It’s been a long time since immunology, however:
Susumu Tonegawa

Tonegawa is best known for elucidating the genetic mechanism in the adaptive immune system. To achieve the diversity of antibodies needed to protect against any type of antigen, the immune system would require millions of genes coding for different antibodies, if each antibody was encoded by one gene. Instead, as Tonegawa showed in a landmark series of experiments beginning in 1976, genetic material can rearrange itself to form the vast array of available antibodies. Comparing the DNA of B cells (a type of white blood cell) in embryonic and adult mice, he observed that genes in the mature B cells of the adult mice are moved around, recombined, and deleted to form the diversity of the variable region of antibodies.

More detail, probably out of date by now:

(fall 2002)
Antibody Diversity

The following numbers are those given in Tamarin, Table 15.3:

With 150 V genes, 5 J genes and up to 10 possible ways of joining VJ genes together, the total number of (kappa) light chains possible is 7500.

With 80 V genes, 50 D genes, 6 J genes and up to 100 different ways of productively joining V-D and D-J, there are 2.4 million possible heavy chains.

Thus there are 7500 x 2.4 million or 18 billion different antibodies possible.