[Weese]

Saturday night- petting the cat, he wants to play, I push him away, he bites the back of my hand HARD. Smack the cat, wash my hand, peroxide, antibiotic, bandaid, go to bed.:yawn:

Sunday- hand red and swollen, keep elevated, change dressing etc...

Monday- go to work, co-worker said"when was your last tetanus shot. Ya know there was a lady who recently died of cat scratch fever" I go to urgent care. Antibiotics, Tetanus shot.

Tuesday- asked co-worker do we give just tetanus or DPT (diptherea, pertussis, Tetanus) shot here. " they always mark DPT shot from the ER". Body hurts all over. cant remeber the name for a highchair in conversation, down hill from that................ :worried:

Tuesday Night- hurt sooooooo bad! I would almost pay someone to knock me out! Took my pain pills, up for three hours, temp 101.0 F. Finally got to sleep at 2am. My arm that recieved the shot is red and swollen.

Wednesday-called into work, took more pain meds went back to bed. Now I still hurt all over but it is at a tolerable level.

Anyone else have these reactions to vaccines? For years before my diag of SLE I, like others, knew something was wrong. My labs finally came back showing Lupus after I had a MMR vaccine. (measles, mumps, Rubella). I am wondering if the mixture vaccines are worse than a single vaccine on us.

It makes sense as we all know the vaccine is stimulating the immune system even more. In ten years when I need another tetanus I think I will ask for just the tetanus toxoid alone!

I hope this will prepare anyone who is due for a vaccine to plan accordingly. Do it on a Friday and you might not have to miss work! Unless it is due to a injury then you will have to take it asap.

Good night all!

 

[peonyprincess]

Weese,

First let me say that if you heard me laughing all the way down here in Quincy, I'm sorry. Your story is just too funny. Your luck would be my luck. I had to get a Tetanus last year when using my nonexistant culinary ways when I tried to cut the top of my finger off. Of course what made it really grand for the ER dept was that I was on Coumadin at the time and they couldn't get me to clot. As they stitched up my poor appendage, you could see perfectly round little dots where the inserted the needle and out the other side. It was great. I had a newby RN who was all but ready to pass out.

Gotta laugh,
Nancy

 

[*~aurora~*]

hey there,
I too have horrific reactions to vaccinations! As a baby I got a really high fever and screamed all day and night, then I didn't get any more until I was 16, and I think that was really the catalyst for what looks strongly like lupus now. Right after my shots I got really sick, slept all the time, arrhythmia caused by heart swelling (I think it's pericarditis?), psych symptoms... then when I got my final shot in 2007 (at 18 ) I developed fibromyalgia and even worse fatigue right after it! Definitely not a good combo, me and shots.

 

[x_claire_x]

Too many Tetanuses?

Hi, just a thought; whilst practice nursing in the UK the Tetanus schedule was changed from 10 yrs to needing only FIVE Tetanus shots in your life, unless you are elderly or susceptible... I realise as Lupus patients we are potentially susceptible but Tetanus should still not be given as routine unless a 'dirty' incident occurs ie.. cat bite, gardening injury etc... I would be interested to know if the advice has changed???

XClaire

 

[debatat]

Weese

Sorry you are suffering, I hope that you are feeling a bit better now. I am allergic to tetanus vaccines, I have never met anyone else like that. How spooky is that! Both my boys react to vaccines as well, my youngest son after his last multiple vaccine ended up in hospital for a week in isolation. He was really sick, they treated him for meningitis. I never connected it to lupus, we all have a lot of allergies in our family and Ijust put it down to that. Your post made me think, interesting!!

Deb

 

[LolaLola]

Hello Weese,
First of all, sympathy and I am sure the cat didn't mean it!
Secondly, in the case of myself and my Father any vaccine reaction would be so strong, the body would repel it so much that it was just unbelievable. My Father had vaccines in the Navy which his body fought so much they would just sit in a mass in his arm and often had to be drained out weeks later.
It is good to hear of similar experiences.
When my Daughter took part in an Allegy trial locally her reactions were also fantastically extreme.
x Lola

 

[Clare.T]

Dear Weese

I am very sorry that you're feeling so rough and didn't find your misadventures at all funny. I'd like to think that you will one day though.


On the vaccination question the general recommendation is not to take "live" vaccines This recommendation can cause problems for health care workers.
I am pretty sure the tetanus doesn't count as live. When we applied for our permanent resident status in the USA there were obligatory vaccines depending on age. Luckily there were hardly any for people of our age but tetanus was one of them unless you could prove you had had it in the past five years or something like that. I've not had one for 39 years when I mistook my foot for the earth moving under my feet and stuck a garden fork right in. (The sky did not come tumbling down )

Even though the tetanus isn't live, my lupus doc advised against and wrote a request for exemption. I agreed with the immigration doc that it was unlikely I would be taking up agricultural work so I didn't have to have it.

I have had the flu vaccine for several years now without a problem. The general view is that if we get flu it will have a more serious effect on us, especially if we are immunosuppressed

I can't talk abut childhood vaccines because the only ones I had were DT?
then as a teen, oral polio and BCG. But I had all the childhood diseases- mumps, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, rubella. Now I would think that if vaccines are going to stimulate the immune system how much more will getting the diseases. Certain viral diseases like mono/glandular fever are implicated in triggering lupus in those susceptible. Not to mention all the other possible environmental triggers such as sunshine.

Chicken pox vaccination is not routinely offered in the UK.
I once read a tragic account of a young woman ( in the LFA Lupus News actually) who had come through very serious life threatening lupus and had been highly immunosuppressed but was doing remarkably well, out and about and pursuing her education. She suddenly fell very ill again much to her doctors puzzlement. After a couple of days in ICU the blisters of chicken pox appeared. They could do nothing to help her.
Even my perfectly healthy husband was very ill indeed when he got chicken pox in his early 40's.

Good Luck, Bad Luck, I conclude like everything else in this life.

Weese, I hope you are much better soon. It sounds like a good idea to reduce vaccinations to the mimum but I am not sure how one could tell the difference between reaction to a vaccine or the infection itself ? I know that the serious infections I have had definitely affected my general health as well as lupus symptoms for as long as they went unrecognised and untreated

All the best and wishing you a speedy recovery.
Clare

 

[Weese]

Thanks Clare

I do try to see the humor in most things. Nancy and I have the same Health Care worker type of black humor. It is what gets us through all the stress in our everyday life. Plus we are both from down state Illinois so we have that regional thing! No offense was taken

I do appreciate the good thoughts and information Clare! You are always good to include the big picture for any problem I have had, thank you.

Update. My hand is healing nicely. My arm is still a little swollen but I can lay on it part of the night now. The fatigue is getting better each day.

We went out shopping for a few things and for lunch today and I didn't feel like laying down on the floor to sleep in the middle of it! I also have my six month check with my rheumy next week, how is that for timing :wink2:.

Ditto (my cat) just walks around like nothing happened, what a butt!