Get Your Other Vaccines Too

Photo: Shot of Prevention

Luckily I had a great primary care doctor a few years ago who was proactive and started me on the road of proactiveness! He retired and was replaced by another good doctor, a female this time, who I now see. I go for an annual physical, which you should not forget to do despite our fears and heightened focus on COVID-19. 

Of course you get your vitals taken and your blood drawn, but equally important, I receive excellent preventative care. One year my old doctor gave me a tetanus shot, which I had no idea I had to continue getting as an adult. The next year, he said his new target was childhood disease antibodies, and I'm sending your blood to the lab to see which ones you've had. Sure enough the report showed I had never had the mumps, so off I went to get vaccinated against it. Mumps ... if your listening, you're wasting your time as I've got the mumps' antibodies in my system now that will annihilate you without ever having been sick!

Photo: uhc.com

Several middle aged people I know who had chickenpox as a child, got shingles as adults, also called herpes zoster, an acute and painful inflammation of the nerve ganglia, with a skin eruption of blisters. It is caused by the same virus as chickenpox and lives in your body until it decides to rear its ugly self to make you sick again!

Eckkk! It's such a creepy-looking illness, you should google it. I can't bring myself to upload the image here. And more seriously, getting shingles has the possibility of leaving a few lingering aftereffects. If the rash breaks out close to your eye, it has the ability to blind you. Some people report ongoing sensitive or painful nerves in their bodies after the rash, itself, is gone.

If COVID is doing anything positive, it reminds us of the wonder and importance of science. How lucky are we to have available vaccines to avoid many infectious diseases that in earlier times killed many people, including children, and left others with lingering complications. Who the hell needs it???

Photo: cdc.gov

Go get your vaccines people if you haven't already. First for COVID and while waiting for the necessary time period to pass for its optimal effectiveness, make an appointment with your primary care doctor, so together you can determine what other preventitive vaccines to get next. Know what lies ahead of you so you're on top of your health. Invest the time in your health, dear readers! It's cheaper and a smart way of insuring a good quality of life! Nobody wants to get sick when they don't have too! 

Also, if you don't have a trusted primary care doctor, find one! Start by checking with your health insurance (online perhaps?) to bring up a list of providers who accept your policy. We all need gentle nudges to stay aware and healthy.

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