I'm up-to-date on all of my other tetanus boosters and immunizations; it's just the TD2 on which I'm behind...I had it 7 years ago, not 5. I received a wound that is approximately 1/2 inch deep today (from a metal object) and thus I'm a little concerned. (Yes, I'm a worrier.)I'm going to try to get the booster tomorrow morning. Would it prevent a tetanus infection at that point?
Answer:
Well i think you should get the shot instead of the booster.
Tetanus will affect you pretty quicky so you should go asap if the metal was rusted. My husband had never had a shot and when he scratched himself on some rusted metal he didn't worry about it. For some reason he started stressing out a couple of days later and went to the hospital. They gave him a shot but the doctor said that there is no need to worry about it now as if something was going to happen it would happen soon after. On a tv show they had a guy who scratched himself on rusted wore and he died that afternoon. I know it is only a tv show but there should be some truth in it.
Well, you can exhale. Actually, for routine purposes tetanus is good for about 10 years for the normal cuts, scratches and bangs we get. They do prefer to have a recent- meaning within a year or two, in the case of a nasty high risk wound. Unless your wound involved a lot of dirt, saliva or feces- like if you were cut in the barnyard, then your old vaccination more that likely covers you fine. The incubation period for tetanus is about 7-8 days, so even if you were massively infected with tetanus baccili, a jab tomorrow would do just fine. You also have onboard immunity from those old vaccinations, which would buy you even more time. So, you can find something else to worry about. If the wound wasn't bad enough to send you to the ER in the first place, it more than likely wasn't enough to infect you with anything like Tetanus. That's not to say it can't get infected with something else, but as far as lockjaw- you're pretty safe.
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