Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on May 01, 2009, 12:12:30 pm
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What with the somewhat-recent threads on vaccinations and swine flu, I figured I'd share a personal anecdote.
After much harping by my fiancee, who is an RN (Registered Nurse), I finally went for my Tetanus/Diptheria booster yesterday (which is given every 10 years). I've been due for a few months and just haven't made it in. So, the nurse sits me down and explains the process to me, and I tell her I've never had a reaction to a vaccine nor do I have any relevant allergies. So she whips out the needle, and injects the vaccine into my arm. She then presses a pamphlet into my hand which I try to politely decline (I've forgotten more about vaccines than the pamphlet even stated in the first place, honestly, I have no concerns) and go out into the lobby for the mandatory 15 minute wait.
And it's a good bloody thing I did. If I'd gotten in my car and headed home I could have caused a serious accident.
About 5 minutes after receiving the injection, I start feeling tired and my eyes start to involuntarily close. Within another minute, that has stopped, but I'm feeling severely nauseated. 30 seconds later, the nausea is gone but my body temperature has shot up and the sweat is LITERALLY RUNNING off my face, neck, and back. I'm thinking to myself "There is no way this is a reaction to the vaccine contents, this has got to be psychosomatic (mental anxiety manifested as physical symptoms)." BZZZT! WRONG! The sweating stops within 2 minutes and I start to get severely chilled, so I stand up to grab paper towel and mop the moisture figuring that the symptoms are already disappearing and I'll be fine in 10 minutes or so. The receptionist sees me and literally runs for the nurse (turns out I was as pale as a ghost). The nurse hauls me back into a waiting room.
So I'm sitting there thinking to myself that this is ridiculous and she tells me that I'm pale as a ghost, and I look down at my arms and my skin has gone from it's normal slight-brownish to translucent. My pulse was thready and low, and my blood pressure (systolic and diastolic) were 20 below their normal values. AWESOME! And the RN is getting the adrenaline out and ready just in case my blood pressure drops any lower (adrenaline is a vasoconstrictor which will tighten vessels to increase blood pressure and increase heart rate).
Within 10 minutes, I was back to normal. Jill came over to drive the car as a precaution, and we headed home. So what happened? My immune system works.
I post this because people often attribute reactions like this as bad reactions to a vaccine and either refuse to get vaccinated again themselves or refuse to do their kids. That's a mistake. What happened to me is a reaction to an injection. A reaction to a vaccine itself will take several hours to manifest (unless it's an allergic reaction to eggs or something used to grow the vaccine, which can cause anaphylactic shock within minutes). I have no allergies so it wasn't anaphylatic shock (though the symptoms mirror it fairly closely).
Our bodies have a natural defense against foreign material entering the body through the skin.
1. Nerve and immune detection cells trigger a host of automatic responses designed to purge generic pathogens. This includes nausea, designed to purge the stomach and throat.
2. Immune cells trigger a cascade which results in blood being re-rerouted from the extremities to the body core and brain. This is where my initial light-headedness (eye closing) came from as it takes a few minutes. This causes a simultaneously loss in blood pressure outside the body core. The mechanism is designed to prevent the spread of a foreign material through the bloodstream.
3. Body temperature rises dramatically for a short period. Most pathogens have a very limited temperature range of survival. Raising the temperature of the body even 2 degrees will kill most foreign biological materials.
So, the short of it is that I would have experience all these symptoms if I'd received an injection of sugar water. It was a reaction to foreign material penetrating the skin barrier, rather than a specific reaction to what the material was. It is a normal reaction to the introduction of foreign material (if a little more severe than most people generally experience).
Anyway, I just figured I'd share since I now have a personal experience to explain reactions to vaccines. There are three types: generic immune reaction to an injection (what I had, fairly common), allergic reaction to the vaccine medium (rare), and specific negative immune response to the vaccine itself (extremely rare). While all of them may make you feel crappy, they are infinitely better than contracting the illness.
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The nurse hauls me back into a waiting room.
The dreaded waiting room.
"I'm dying!"
"Please wait till your called upon. Sit back down."
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Last summer, I learned that they don't make you wait if you are holding a cup of blood.
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Huh, the immune system is pretty badass. :yes:
In b4 religious ****storm.
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Most interesting. Sounds scary though.
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I've only had a reaction once to a vaccine when I was about three or four. Since then they've done nothing for me. And I haven't been sick for ten and a half years, if I feel remotely uneasy it only lasts about four hours before it disappears without any recovery methods. Unlike most people who need an entire day to sleep and a ****ton of medicine to get rid of anything.
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I've never had a reaction IIRC, 'cept for the general throbbing you get (especially after the Tetanus vaccine.)
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People complain about the Anthrax boosters too much, the warm feeling only lasts about ten minutes for me.
They say it lasts weeks.
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In b4 religious ****storm.
I don't believe in vaccination because it's obviously based on the lie of evolution.
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Yeah and religion's going to get rid of this Swine Flu for everyone. :rolleyes:
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Yeah, and Swine Flu is going to kill everyone.
Honestly, I live in Kansas. There have been three, count 'em, three cases of Swine Flu in the whole f*cking state! They came within a hairsbredth of closing the school cause some idiot had the sniffles. It's f*cking histeria. I'll take my chances.
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I wouldn't. People at my old school would come to school with the plague so they wouldn't miss class. I used to get sick all. the. time.
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Eh, I don't get sick easily. It's very helpful, and morbidly amusing, when I can come to school and just watch my classmates drop like flies.
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I don't get sick a lot, but I play hooky somewhat. What I do is stupid **** that gets me injured.
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Yeah, and Swine Flu is going to kill everyone.
Honestly, I live in Kansas. There have been three, count 'em, three cases of Swine Flu in the whole f*cking state! They came within a hairsbredth of closing the school cause some idiot had the sniffles. It's f*cking histeria. I'll take my chances.
I'm in Kansas now myself, I still don't give a damn about it. Until the numbers go up like Ebola or Plague and it's in the age groups that are typically the most healthy (Since the one death in U.S. was what, an eight month old child?) and in places that are not Third-World countries (Hurr Mexico), then I'll change my stance on the subject. Until then, I still say the country's overreacting like a bunch of girls that saw a cockroach skitter by. :doubt:
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They sent home a bull**** 3 page letter to every parent in Nova Scotia. That's about 600000 pieces of paper.
They're calling it H1N1 now because people were becoming morbidly afraid of pigs.
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Heard about the name change yesterday.
And like I said, overreacting like hell.
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Funny thing is that my 'immunization' against Chicken Pox involved dragging me round my cousins house when he had it, so as to make sure I caught it too, since, once you've caught it, your immune system 'knows' it and it's very difficult for that particular strain to take a hold again.
Strangely enough it's an old custom that dates back to using cowpox to immunise against smallpox.
On the subject of the child in the US, being that young is far more a danger than a help with diseases like flu, because the danger to the child is not the disease itself, but the bodies' reaction to it, the lungs fill up with fluid much faster on a child, because the lungs are both smaller and weaker, some diseases, it helps to have the over-blown immune system of a baby, but flu isn't one of them.
Edit: However, it should be noted that the 1918 Asian Flu targeted mostly 18-30 year-olds, I assume because these were the most active socially and therefore more likely to catch or spread the disease, however, bear in mind that in 1918, 30 was considered just past 'Middle Age' among working class Brits.
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Funny thing is that my 'immunization' against Chicken Pox involved dragging me round my cousins house when he had it, so as to make sure I caught it too, since, once you've caught it, your immune system 'knows' it and it's very difficult for that particular strain to take a hold again.
Works pretty well too (until you get shingles).
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My chem teacher had shingles, she was out for 6 weeks.
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In other news:
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2cx8ajo.png)
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You know I never actually knew what tetanus did other then it was associated with rust. After reading it up on wikipedia, damn I don't want to get that.
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I'm glad you are OK. :nod:
Huh, the immune system is pretty badass. :yes:
In b4 religious ****storm.
red...wha...?!??!??!??????
I've been clear on this, vaccines are a good thing. What does religion have to do with it?
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Anything that claims to do something good that isn't done by Jeebus is EVIL! :P
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Edit: However, it should be noted that the 1918 Asian Flu targeted mostly 18-30 year-olds, I assume because these were the most active socially and therefore more likely to catch or spread the disease, however, bear in mind that in 1918, 30 was considered just past 'Middle Age' among working class Brits.
Really? I thought 18-30 year olds were mostly targeted because the influenza strain caused more damage in people with stronger immune systems, and hence there was higher survival rate among children and the elderly due to their weaker immune responses.
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It creates more fluid in the lungs due to stronger immune response and smaller lung size.
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Cytokine stoooooorm!
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You know I never actually knew what tetanus did other then it was associated with rust. After reading it up on wikipedia, damn I don't want to get that.
I think it's metal in general, not just rust, right?
Huh, the immune system is pretty badass. :yes:
In b4 religious ****storm.
red...wha...?!??!??!??????
I've been clear on this, vaccines are a good thing. What does religion have to do with it?
Hey, it's a thread on Gen. Disc. Assuming that it will eventually turn into a religious argument is a pretty safe bet around here. ;)
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Cytokine stoooooorm!
Spanish Flu?