A personal experience…
[Natalie] I discovered that even tetanus shots are unnecessary for most people, because I bet if they were to have a tetanus titer blood test drawn to measure their immunity, that it would show that they’re probably immune, no matter how long it’s been since their last booster, or whether they were ever vaccinated at all. Several years ago I had a tetanus titer done on my teen daughter so she could go on a mission trip to Honduras, which showed she was immune even though it had been 13 years since she’d had a tetanus shot as a preschooler (before my eyes were opened,) so she didn’t have to get a shot. After she graduated from college & got her 1st job shortly thereafter in a research lab working with mice, they wanted her to get a tetanus shot. Her PCP said she probably wouldn’t still have immunity since it had been 19 years since her last DTaP, but my daughter decided to have titers drawn anyway & guess what? Her tetanus immunity had more than DOUBLED in the last 6 years since she had it drawn before the mission trip—19 years since her last tetanus shot, so she had to have gained natural immunity in the intervening 6 years. She just gave a copy of the titer lab report to her employer showing she’s immune and that was that.
More recently, when our PCP was urging us to get “up to date” with our tetanus shots, my young adult son and I opted instead for tetanus titer antibody tests, and sure enough, even though it had been 22 years since his last tetanus vaccine, my son still showed a high level of immunity, and I did, as well.
That got me curious, and I found this study which showed the existence of natural immunity to tetanus was unquestionably demonstrated by presence of protective levels of tetanus antitoxin in the blood of the majority of 59 surveyed subjects, none of whom had ever received any tetanus toxoid injections & most of them never received a single shot of any drug.
0 Comments