So, Vaccines are Good...Have YOU Been Vaccinated?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t mean just the flu. Adults need boosters every ten years for DTaP, and if you weren’t young enough to get hepB and Hib as a child, but you work in healthcare, you should get those. There’s also a vaccine for chickenpox, which if you are an adult who escaped having this as a child, and you now have a child, you should get this vaccine. Chickenpox as an adult is miserable, and can have residua that children don’t have to worry about.

Some people lose immunity to MMR after 30 years (probably from lack of re-exposure). If you travel outside the US, you should probably get a booster, and you should consider a TB vaccine as well, depending on where you are going-- ask your doctor; basically, any time you leave the US, tell your doctor where you are going, and ask about vaccines.

There’s a vaccine that protects against certain types of meningitis, which mostly high school and college students are at risk for (I had a friend in college die of it), but older adults who work with this population might be at risk-- again, ask your doctor.

The shingles vaccine is recommended for people over 60, but if you are like my husband, and had shingles at age 42, you can get the vaccine early, because people who had one case are at high risk for another.

Then, of course, there is the flu vaccine. I get annoyed at those Tamiflu commercials that seem to imply the the flu is a fact of life, when the fact is, there is barely a need for a medicine like Tamiflu if people get vaccinated.

I used to be one of those people who didn’t get the vaccine because I’d never had the flu, and I thought maybe I had some kind of natural immunity, and I was freeing up a vaccine for someone who might really need it-- I was always hearing about shortages. Then someone told me that the bad colds I sometimes got in the winter could have been mild flus that just didn’t knock me on my butt the way they did to most people, but I was still capable of infecting someone else with a serious case of the flu. Now I always get the vaccine.

It doesn’t hurt to get extra vaccines. I had a polio booster I didn’t need in high school, and an MMR I didn’t need in college, because when records were incomplete, it was easier to get the vaccine than to try to get my records from New York. In Basic Training, I got practically a full childhood series, because they assume that people missed shots, and just give everyone everything, rather than try to get everyone’s records and figure out who needs what. I don’t mind. I didn’t get HepB and Hib as a child because I was too old, and I was due for a DTaP booster. I didn’t need an MMR, but so what? It didn’t hurt. Add to that the fact that I got extra boosters in childhood before going to the Soviet Union, and also the TB vaccine, because we were going to visit Warsaw, which had a high rate of TB at the time. I had smallpox as a baby, because it was still a childhood vaccine when I was born.

About the only things I haven’t had are yellow fever, and Gardasil, and I was married before Gardasil was invented.

If autism were caused by vaccines, I should have a textbook case.

Everyone else fully covered?

2

Fully covered with all appropriate boosters (pertussis, TB, etc.) unless I go somewhere where I need yellow fever vaccine or something. I don’t know that I would get a booster that I knew I didn’t need rather than hunt down records, though, but all my immunizations have been done in one of two places within 10 miles of here, so that’s easy enough.

3

Mine are all up to date. As somebody who lives in airports I encounter a lot of the public in enclosed spaces. Max-performing my immunity is only smart.

4

FWIW, the extra, unnecessary boosters were free. Otherwise, I probably would have tracked down those records. My mother was aghast that I didn’t, because someone might think she didn’t do her due diligence in vaccinating me as a child, but I told her none of the people giving them knew her, or would remember me two minutes after they administered them.

5

I have all my vaccinations. I just turned 60 so I do need the shingles vaccination. Plan to get it soon.

6

I was boosted for polio in 1997 before a trip to Eastern Europe. I believe that was the very tail end of oral vaccine in the US … delicious! Also vaccinated for Typhoid & Hep B at that time.

I cut my hand and updated my Dtap (or whatever they’re calling it lately!) this year – I have generally kept my tetanus vaccine current over the years due to being around horses, but from living in the City I let it slide… last year I had pertussis and it was absolute shit. I usually have a pretty bad reaction to the shot (pain to where I can’t move my arm the next day, and once with an older formulation, feverish and fainting), but it sure beats tetanus and pertussis!

Had chicken pox, don’t need that one. Probably due for MMR if it only lasts 30 years.

7

Good reminder.

I had all the vaccines as a child except measles, because they didn’t have a vaccine for it then. Got the disease as an adult in the 80s and have never been sicker in my life. On the bright side, I don’t worry about catching measles anymore.

I do keep up with tetanus because of living on a farm but really do need to look into the other boosters.

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to get a small pox booster? I do.

8

Moderator Action

Since this is basically an informal poll of user vaccinations, it belongs in IMHO.

Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

9

Yep, I am up to date. Between my job and the strange places I end up sometimes, I make sure to be up to date. Kids are all taken care of, and we all get an annual flu shot as well.

Yay, science.

10

Been vaccinated for everything under the sun, including some of the more exotic ones.

11

I had measles, mumps, and chicken pox as a child, and probably rubella, so I don’t need those vaccines. I’m 52, so too young for the shingles vaccine, but I will get it as soon as they let me. Ditto on the pneumonia vaccine. I get my flu shot every year now (I get the unpreserved one since I’m allergic to the preservative). I’m pretty sure I got a tetanus booster a few years back - I last had a tetanus shot in the early 80’s and had a bad reaction, but they’ve reformulated it since then so I can get it now. I’m not a healthcare worker and I don’t travel, so I probably don’t need any other shots but I’d get them if my doctor said I might need them.

12

I almost put it there anyway, but I was afraid you’d move it.

I forgot about the pneumonia vaccine. That’s another one DH gets in spite of his age (or, lack thereof), because he had a mild pneumonia (wasn’t even hospitalized) after catching a penicillin-resistant strep, which he had for several weeks before the doctor decided the second round of PCN wasn’t making a dent in it and put him on azithro. At first she just thought it was really entrenched (and gave him a stronger dose of PCN) because he’d waited for like a week before even going to the doctor, and went only because our son got sick, and came up positive for strep.

13

Nah. Haven’t seen a needle since leaving school. Might consider it if I was visiting the Bight of Benin for a pleasure trip.

But then I’m British, and we rioted against the Compulsory Vaccination Acts the governments brought in throughout the 19th century until they buckled.

Also I would die if given anti-tetanus. Supposed to carry a medallion, although I never bothered. It makes one wary of injections — since one only finds out one was allergic looking down from Heaven.

14

I’ve had all my shots. All of them.

If you, your loved ones, your kids or any of your friends catch measles and become sterile (barren?) or miscarry, it won’t be because of me or mine.

15

In my case TB doesn’t make sense since, like 99% of people in Spain, I’m tuberculine-positive anyway. The bugs are there, but contained. The medical establishment’s joke says that the other 1% is not negative but untested.

I got the full schedule as it was when I was growing up; also a couple for tropical diseases when I was going to Brazil, even though they were actually dis-recommended for the location. My tetanus shot is up to date, I review my vaccinations every time I get a general check-up (between the public healthcare system and additional worker’s insurance, that comes to about once a year), and I’m told not to get the flu shot unless I’m going to be spending a lot of time around someone who’s considered high-risk.

16

Hmm…I had everything required by Ohio to get in to primary and then secondary school. I feel like that included a MMR booster for college.

Flu shot every year and DTaP when my niece was born 5 years ago.

I got the pneumonia vaccine when I was still a smoker. Not sure if that is yearly or not.

Never been out f the US or Canada so I have not gotten any travel vaccines.

17

I’m pretty much current, coming up on a major round of gettin old shots. Mrs. B. is mostly current but has had some severe reactions in the past and so has to use caution and be supervised. Our kids are always current.

Oh, and BTW, the missus has been in the autism field for nearly 30 years. Neck-deep, not classroom aide.

18

In the 40s, hen I was four my family moved to Sierra Leone. This was sometimes referred to as “The White Man’s Grave” so my sister and I were vaccinated against every disease that they had a vaccine for. They were all done over three days as I recall and we were both pretty ill afterwards.

Once there, we managed to survive - obviously - and neither of us caught anything except colds when we came home on leave. This was in spite of us being free range kids who roamed all over the place. I can still hear my mother yelling at us to put our shoes on.

Since then I have only had the odd tetanus shot and flue jabs for the last few years. I did have the shingles vaccine when I was 70.

19

As far as I know, I got every needle in central Illinois injected into me at some point when I was a wee child, and since mom believes that parents who don’t vaccinate should have their kids taken from them (literally!), I’m going to assume that she was diligent about keeping me up to speed.

As an adult, I’ve had routine flu shots, and I’ve been vaccinated against [some strain of] Hepatits when I worked in health care. I also am pretty sure Dr. Albracht shoved a tetanus shot into me once.

20

The only shot that ever hurt for any length of time for me was yellow fever.

That sucker was a real pain… so to speak… the actual shot and the aftermath.

In recent years, flu, tetanus, & something else.