College students look forward to being twenty-one for one main reason: Alcohol. However, twenty-one comes with another milestone that you may have forgotten about.
The tetanus booster shot.
Unless your family was anti-vaccinations, you most likely had your last tetanus shot around age eleven. Despite getting the initial tetanus shots as babies and toddlers, the CDC said, “Because our protection from tetanus decreases over time, older children need the Tdap [tetanus] vaccine.”
The booster shot (called the “Td”) is every ten years after the Tdap vaccine, making your next shot due date around age twenty-one. It’s important to continue to receive your routine booster shots as tetanus is becoming more common in older adults.
The shot itself is administered into your shoulder, just like a flu shot would be. Like the flu shot, you cannot get tetanus from the vaccine. WebMD states the mild side effects from the shot are soreness, redness, or swelling at the injection site, fever, headache or body aches, and/or fatigue.
Side effects resolve themselves in about three days. WebMD states that “It’s important to know that, in general, the risk of problems from getting tetanus is much greater than from getting the tetanus vaccine.” Which means, what you can get from the vaccine is nothing compared to what tetanus does to you.
What exactly is tetanus?
“Tetanus is a serious bacterial disease that affects your nervous system, leading to painful muscle contractions, particularly of your jaw and neck muscles,” said the Mayo Clinic’s website. “Tetanus can interfere with your ability to breathe and, ultimately, threaten your life.”
Tetanus, commonly referred to as “lockjaw,” has no cure. “Treatment focuses on managing complications until the effects of the tetanus toxin resolve,” said the Mayo Clinic.
People generally develop tetanus by deep flesh wounds. The bacteria that causes tetanus are found in soil, dust, and animal feces. Symptoms of actual tetanus include spasms and stiffness in your jaw and neck muscles, difficulty swallowing, stiffness in your abdominal muscles, rapid heart rate, fever, and painful body spasms lasting for several minutes. The body spasms are typically triggered by minor occurrences such as draft, loud noise, physical touch, or light.
By all means, go out and celebrate turning twenty-one, but also make a visit to the clinic to find out when you need your tetanus shot. It could save you from a world of painful body spasms and suffocating to death.
