It’s quickly becoming an iconic moment of adolescent female sexuality. First you’re penetrated, then it hurts terribly. You may cry. You may even faint. For a day or two afterward, you might feel kind of weird.
Losing your virginity? No, getting the HPV vaccine.
75% of me wants to write off this story about how incredibly painful the shot is (with hints of maybe you shouldn’t let your daughter get the raging slut shot) as mostly laziness. The reporter clearly went to a CDC-based conference in Georgia and saw this presentation and thought, “Both easy to write about and has a great hook, because it’s about teenage girls and Teh Sex.” But the hyperbolic language of the piece, especially the stuff about the vaccine being the most painful shot ever (more painful than having your cervix removed?) is irresponsible in an atmosphere where sexphobic, religion-addled parents are resisting getting this life-saving prevention for their daughters in the first place, and are probably looking for any excuse possible to avoid it.
Because the shot doesn’t sound significantly different than other vaccines.
The pain is short-lived, girls say; many react with little more than a grimace. But some teens say it’s uncomfortable driving with or sleeping on the injected arm for up to a day after getting the shot.
Ever get a flu shot or a tetanus shot as a teenager? I suspect that girls are alarmed by this shot, because their vaccination point of reference is all from childhood, when they don’t really remember how much it hurt. Also, as the article notes later, teenagers are special fainting risks from shots, so this is probably all more a result of what age you are when you get it, not the shot itself. Nervousness is also a factor, and considering that a percentage of these girls are probably getting a dose of parental hysteria and lecturing about having a sexuality (even if being sexually active is way in the future), I’m not surprised some have high emotions to go with the pain. But all this information is buried in the second half of the article, i.e. the “don’t expect people to read it” half.
Again, I doubt the reporter is trying to stir up right wing nonsense. And a quick bout of googling shows that the anti-choicers out there have largely ignored this story. It’s more a combination of laziness, and the fact that this story fits a pre-existing cultural script about female sexuality. I wish I had Hanne Blank’s book here, because she describes the script perfectly, about how female sexuality is about pain and sacrifice. Anything unpleasant, from childbirth pains to medical treatments like this vaccine to the objectifications and humiliations for women in so much porn, gets put into a cultural narrative about how women’s very biology speaks to our rightful position in society as lesser to men, and how our sexuality is about pleasure and use for them, and pain and sacrifice for us.
To make it clear to those who confuse (often deliberately confuse) describing with inventing a cultural construct, I reject the notion that a woman’s natural role is to suffer and sacrifice, or that it’s inevitable. It’s not impossible to reimagine most of our feminine sacrifices in a way that doesn’t construct women as lesser than men. The HPV vaccine is not all that unique in terms of vaccines of the sort that even men get, for instance, and imagining it that way gets it out of the realm of feminine suffering and into the realm of normal medical prevention.
I’ve been getting my hepatitis shots over the past year (I get every shot recommended by my doctor), and yeah, they hurt when you get them. The injection site hurts for a day or so after, and then it’s fine. That’s been my experience with flu shots and indeed every vaccine I’ve ever received. The only surprise would have been if the HPV vaccine didn’t have those symptoms. Then it would have been a vaccine worth studying to figure out why it felt so good.
This asshat was apparently born after smallpox was eradicated.
Seriously.
Like many people born in my generation, the last to be so tortured, I bear the blackberryish scar of that damn painful “shot”. Smallpox vax didin’t involve just one needle but multiple needles, and there was often some scraping involved.
HPV? Too painful? Puhleeze. Try childbirth. Maybe the writer will someday develop some painful cancer to compare it by.
From the CDC Fact Sheet:
Oh noes! We can’t eradicate a scourge of humankind …the widdle girls will CRY!
Any reason to avoid ’sex’.
If God didn’t want us to be happy then how come he made preventing pregnancy so easy? Answer that the fundie nuts won’t…
Imagine the conversation in the future: “You have cervical cancer.” “How did that happen?” “Didn’t your parents have you get the vaccine?” “No, their heads were firmly buried in their bibles and their asses.”
Hah. I remember when my daughter wanted to get her ears pierced, but was scared it was going to hurt. I told her then, ‘what, you’re seriously going to let fear of a little pain keep you from something you want?’. She went and did it, and thought it was nothing (of course I took her to a piercing studio to be done with a needle by a pro, not a teenager in the mall with a gun, so I think it was far less painful than normal). Seems like the same idea applies here. Pain is fleeting. There’s nothing you can’t live through for a few seconds, and come out stronger. But then, unlike these asshats, I don’t think of girls and women as dainty flowers, either.
Interestingly, my mom and aunt said for both of them the worst shot they ever had by far was the gamma globulin shot in the 50s before they went overseas.
OH, it can get worse. I took my (still sexually inactive daughter) in for her annual PAP and to get her BC pill renewed. She asked to be vaccinated and was told that her doctor did not stock the vaccine and so could not be vaccinated. When she asked where to go, the Doctor mumble something about try Planned Parenthood, or I can pay the co-pay on my prescription plan get the vaccine and then my doctor will administer it. The kicker is that my daughter was home on Christmas break, so finding another doctor, and getting her in will be a major chore. I am so mad I could spit.
LindaH,
That is shocking! My daughter just received the vaccine (two out of the three shots) at age eleven at the insistence of her doctor. Not that we were objecting, but I mean its every doctor’s duty to be pro-active on this.
aimai
Amanda wrote: I suspect that girls are alarmed by this shot, because their vaccination point of reference is all from childhood, when they don’t really remember how much it hurt.
I was going to ask, what, they aren’t immunised against rubella any more? And then I looked it up and discovered most kids are now immunised against rubella in their MMR vaccine at 5.
But that was a familiar ritual: all the girls lining up to get their rubella shot. Used to be age 12, got kicked back to age 11 when some girl was pregnant when she got the shot - not that you get many, but even a very few would be more than you want.
The people who claim HPV vaccine will let girls think they can have sex now would probably claim that rubella vaccine would let girls think they could get pregnant now.
Gardasil was definitely no more painful than a Tetanus shot, which is, by far, the most painful shot I’ve ever had. I did faint, but that’s because I have a tendency to pass out at the smallest thing (low blood pressure and all).
I actually had a nurse at the health center of the university I attend ask me if I thought Gardasil was more painful than other shots, I guess she had heard rumors about it being painful, and I told her it wasn’t bad at all.
The most painful part about Gardasil? My insurance doesn’t cover it. $150 a shot is a LOT of money.
This isn’t about teh sex or scaring girls away from a lifesaving HPV vaccine. Instead it looks like we have another case of “advertisement disguised as real news” The last paragraph gives it away.
Gardasil is soooo painful. Fortunately, Cervarix(tm) will be approved soon!
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Shots may hurt, but I’m pretty damned sure cancer hurts worse.
My paranoid conspiracy theory:
Cervarix really IS better than Gardasil. Merck knows this, therefore, they are spending a huge amount of money to push Gardasil as hard and as fast as possible so that they can make as much money as they can off of it before Cervarix makes it obsolete.
To a certain degree the wingnuts are the drug companies best friends. Feminists and those concerned with women’s health spend most of their time and energy fighting the wingnuts and give the drug companies a free pass. Women’s health suffers as a result.
Ha! The HPV shot (and even the smallpox vacc.) was nothing compared to the Anthrax shot. Those things hurt like hell going in, and leave a swollen painful lump on your arm for 7-10 days.
I had a tetanus shot last year, and my arm hurt like a bitch for over a week. It makes me wonder whether the author of the article is running around unvaccinated.
I recently had both a tetanus shot and an HPV shot on the same day, one in each arm. Neither hurt me (for once being the person who always has the odd-out physiology pays off).
However, the nurses and doctors were emphatic about warning me beforehand that HPV is one of the most painful shots they give people. The needle was put in after a warning of, “This is going to hurt.”
With Guardasil, I really think it depends on who is getting the shot, and possibly amount of muscle in the arm. Because a bunch of my friends and I have gotten it, and it hurt at different intensities for each of us. Mine was pretty light, yeah it stung and was a bit sore, but nothing more than that. A friend of mine had it hurt really bad (she usually has a higher pain tolerance than I do as well) and then couldn’t lift her arm for several days without pain. Another had the first two really moderate, but then the third really hurt.
Amanda is right about how suffering is gendered female, and this article clearly buys into the easy losing-your-virginity(whatever that is)-is-painful chestnut. You know, sex must be painful for women; that way we can pretend they don’t like it.
However, what you are missing is that in that paradigm, women must be medicalized more than men. Part of the a woman’s life is suffering meme includes that we are more responsible for caring for our bodies because we must be the ones to bring in the next generation. Thus, women go to doctors more,etc. While I’m not going to advocate against gardasil (I’m still thinking about it), I will point out that neither the CDC nor Merck is rushing those trials on boys and men. I’ll also mention that Jesurgislac’s example about Rubella is telling. They first administered that one to girls only - until they realized is wouldn’t work without immunizing everyone. Why with the girls first in that example - to protect unborns not the women themselves. The Gardasil situation (and this article) plays into that history of medicalizing women only. Remember the Infectious Diseases Act in 19th Century Britain?
I’ve had surgery, and I’ve had big-ass shots (typhoid comes in a convenient 2 liter syringe).
Surgery hurts more.
And I didn’t even fool with childbirth, after the nurse who picked me up and treated my head injury from fainting during the typhoid vaccine told me how much I didn’t have to complain about.
She wanted to know why we were traveling to a part of the globe where typhoid was endemic, found out that adoption was a work-around to get out of labor, and said: Great. This didn’t really hurt.
There was a time when rubella was administered separately from measles and mumps? I learn something new every time I visit.
Tetanus is a shot I react fairly strongly to. The injection site swells and is extremely tender for about a week So tender my HS boyfriend had to switch which side of me he walked on, and had it down in less than a day because even a light brush caused a scream-and-leap reaction. Gardasil painful? Not so much.
Do you guys in the US not get TB vaccines as standard? Now THAT hurts, but y’know, funnily enough it’s considered better to have a few days of discomfort than die unnecessarily early later on in life.
The Gardasil shot didn’t hurt, but maybe I’m tough lol. The worst part, like AJ said, was that insurance didn’t cover it, so at $150 a shot for three shots total, it definitely hurt my wallet.
LindaH:
Where do you live? Because that’s actually pretty shocking, to me. IIRC my daughters’ shots didn’t even require a co-pay — like our flu shots, the insurance company has been picking up the cost, because it’s *insurance*.
In 1964 my family travelled to southern Europe to live for a year. At that time the State Dept. was still recommending typhus vaccination for those circumstances. It was *incredibly*, memorably painful, way more painful than any other of the long string of shots we had to have.
I think wayward has hit this on the nose: it’s advertizing.
My daughters have both gotten Gardasil at the same times as other shots and felt that tetanaus was significanlty more painful and the flu shot about the same - it wasn’t a big deal.
LindaH I’m shocked by your doctor. We’re in the same boat of having to fit things in over break and our doctors’s office was very accommodating. Your daughter should be able to get the shot at her university’s health service although it probably won’t be paid for under her school’s health care - you’ll have to submit it to your health coverage or pay out of pocket I would guess. Of course I’m assuming she’s away at school given your comment.
aside from the thread - the spam verification you’re using is awfully hard on anywone visually impaired.
From the same AP story:
“A second HPV vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix, is under FDA review and could become available in 2008. Complaints of injection pain have not surfaced in clinical trials, said Liad Diamond, a company spokeswoman.”
I saw this story last night. Gonna wait until a bit more info comes out- if this second vaccine can be done in one injection vs 3 and not as painful, I’m going with that for my daughters.
I cannot imagine the hell of telling my autistic child that the pain she just endured is something she has to do twice more! Not just that, but she will then react badly to even driving by that building, from the association. Have gone through similar experiences with her and do NOT want to create another! (Dental trips are HELL…)
Right after I got a tetanus shot, I went to work. Turned out I was scheduled to be Bugs Bunny that day (I loved that job). Nothing is more awesome than having innocent children barrel into your tender shoulder to hug you and trying not to make any noise.
If it does hurt as much as that, that sucks, but yeah … it’s not that unusual, and the trade off is, of course, totally worth it.
Thanks for the reminder — I need to put the HPV vaccine on the list of things to discuss with my doctor, now that I have health insurance and can see one.
There is a faction in the homeschooling movement NOT to vaccinate their children. It is one of their arguments FOR homeschooling against insitutional school. And I have more experiecne of it from the Christian fundie side.
That’s not to say I didn’t delay getting come vaccines for my kids. I delayed the chicken pox vaccine because I felt (and still feel) there are problems with giving it early - and I have had a hunch that the raise in autism may be inpart due to the preservatives in some vaccines. Don’t know, it’s just my hunch.
I think it would be interesting to see if these children got the desease their parents refused to vaccinate them from (and not be JW) if there would be any suits flying around, prehaps citing “reckless endangerment.”
But to describe the HPV vaccine as the most painful ever, as Ms Kate pointed out, never got the small pox vaccine. (Or lined up in the school gym along with your classmates to get vaccinated. After stepping up to get the shot the next “station” was a place to sit down if you felt woozy.
I did get vaccinated once the day before my family and I went camping up by Vail, CO. For some reason I had not only an injection site reaction (bruising, pain for days, trouble walking), but also light headedness and vertigo (at times) and nausea.
Try hiking the Colorado high country feeling that way. I spent most of the time sitting by the camper enjoying the sounds of the stream we were by and looking at the aspen as it began to change.
Would my parents have stopped the doctor from giving me the shot had they known what my reaction would be? No. They may have postponed it until after the weekend, but I still would have gotten the vaccination.
Do I wish my 23 year old daughter would have had the HPV vaccine years ago? Yes, because it is my responsibility as a parent - and stupid to think that she would either stay a virgin until marriage OR that being rapped was out of teh realm of possibility.
GAH. of course i click through, mosey around the rest of their “sexploration” (??) links, and find the following:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18039615/
She moves in mysterious ways
Theories on why women orgasm, secretly ovulate and have big breasts
the breast section (near the end) is really the most ridiculous part. for what it’s worth, most of the absurdity seems to be less the author’s fault and more the quoted ‘expert’ that keeps naming ideas stuff like “the goldilocks hypothesis” and “the keep-’em-close phenomenon” (”that way he’ll have to stick around and take out the trash, mow the lawn in order to ensure it’s his progeny”) in a perfect caricature of the evolutionary psychologist that believes men are monkeys in clothes.
anyway, i though y’all might have fun with it.
As somebody with a fully filled-out WHO Yellow Card, I’d have to say that the tetanus shot is the worst I’ve ever had. My arm felt like it was going to fall off for about a week.
I’m suspecting(I’m a guy, this formulation is not for me so I won’t know) that while the HPV shot may hurt as much, it probably doesn’t hurt for as long.
Interestingly, my university clinic is vaccinating both males and females and the vaccine is available at a discount at the uni pharmacy.
Umm… so I’m logged in and my last comment keeps refusing to work.. . this is going to be really embarassing if it triple posts but here goes again…
Interestingly, my university clinic is vaccinating both males and females and the vaccine is available at a discount at the uni pharmacy.
hm, LindaH, i tried to get gardasil from my new doctor over the summer and was told the same thing - i could pay for it as a prescription at the pharmacy then take it back to the doctor to administer it.
(a) they didn’t tell me til the end of my appointment (so would have had to schedule a whole new appointment, and i’d already had to take half a day off work to get to this one) AND (b) this was no private practice office or remote location or anything like that — it was a huge urban clinic/hospital complex and part of the largest healthcare group in the state.
so i felt this was a huge load of crap but i couldn’t really do a lot about it. not too long after that i started making plans to move cities, so i couldn’t count on my insurance lasting long enough to cover 3 shots, so i still haven’t gotten it. and i’m 24 and frankly getting nervous that (with my job + insurance luck of late) i’ll run up against my 26th birthday still unvaccinated and be denied coverage because i’m past the Official Window where Everybody sluts around enough to have gotten all their hpv already. grr.
hm, LindaH, i tried to get gardasil from my new doctor over the summer and was told the same thing - i could pay for it as a prescription at the pharmacy then take it back to the doctor to administer it.
(a) they didn’t tell me til the end of my appointment (so would have had to schedule a whole new appointment, and i’d already had to take half a day off work to get to this one) AND (b) this was no private practice office or remote location or anything like that — it was a huge urban clinic/hospital complex and part of the largest healthcare group in the state.
so i felt this was a huge load of crap but i couldn’t really do a lot about it. not too long after that i started making plans to move cities, so i couldn’t count on my insurance lasting long enough to cover 3 shots, so i still haven’t gotten it. and i’m 24 and frankly getting nervous that (with my job + insurance luck of late) i’ll run up against my 26th birthday still unvaccinated and be denied coverage for being past the Official Window where Everybody has already gotten all their promiscuous sex out of the way and picked up all the hpv they’re gonna get. grr.
My daughter passed out from the first HPV shot and is begging not to get the other two because it hurts so much. We’re mean, though, so we’re making her get them. I’m guessing the fainting is partly just being a 12-year-old hurtling through the draining changes of puberty. She also briefly lost consciousness when she got her ears pierced.
also, re: boys/men and gardasil — i’m pretty sure the last time this came up here, we went researchin’ and discovered that despite prior claims in such articles, gardasil does work for boys — or at least, well enough for the uk to be recommending it for all students, not just the girl ones. interesting.
Last year I got the Gardasil shot along with a DTP booster, Hep A and meningococcal shots. I have to say, the Gardasil wasn’t exceptionally painful for me. Definitely not “the most painful shot ever.”
If I didn’t have several other vaccines to compare it with I might have noticed the pain of the Gardasil shot a little bit more but hey.. vaccines involve needles! They hurt! Whodathunkit?
Yeesh…
I get a flu shot every year, and that hurts like heck for a couple of days. The last time I got a tetanus shot I was woozy and concentrating more on the huge split/stitches in my mouth, so I wasn’t paying much attention. But heck, I also get allergy shots twice a week, and those hurt like hell most of the time. Shots hurt. Waaa. That’s kind of standard.
For innoculation pain, try the military. Line you up, shoot both arms with numerous drugs and back to duty for you!
Having lost very young women to the big C, I am very much hopeful that this vaccine proves effective.
I hope the fundies don’t have the troubles the Amish have had. In PA some Amish have declined vaccinations. Since they are Separatist, few English get to observe the results of disease among a sensitive population. Not pretty. There’s a reason for all those tales about the attic and the relative.
Interestingly, my university clinic is vaccinating both males and females and the vaccine is available at a discount at the uni pharmacy.
I had my MMR shot when I was in my early teens, I think I was 12. I remember it hurt like hell, and later that day I fainted in public. My mom freaked out and I came to with a cute paramedic guy hovering over me. Sleeping on that arm was completely impossible for a few days because of soreness, and I was light headed for a while. (I probably remember all this so vividly because of the cute paramedic.)
Nobody was really alarmed, certainly nobody ever advocated that we shouldn’t rush to vaccinate kids against rubella. *eyeroll*
ok now that i’m officially registered i’m gonna post this one more time then give up:
LindaH, i tried to get gardasil from my new doctor over the summer and was told the same thing, that i could pay for it as a prescription at the pharmacy then take it back to the doctor to administer it.
this was no private practice office or remote location or anything like that — it was a huge clinic/hospital complex in downtown atlanta and part of GA’s largest healthcare group. and (because of it being so huge) it was hard to get appointments there, i’d already had to take half a day off work for this one, and they didn’t tell me all this til the end of it.
so i felt this was a huge load of crap but i couldn’t really do a lot about it. not too long after that i started making plans to move cities, so i couldn’t count on my insurance lasting long enough to cover 3 shots, so i still haven’t gotten it.
and i’m 24 and frankly getting nervous that (with my shitty job + insurance luck of late) i’ll run up against my 26th birthday still unvaccinated and be denied coverage because i’m past the Official Window where Everybody sluts around enough to have gotten all their hpv already. grr.
Well, at least you can tell one thing about a girl who thinks the HPV shot is really, really painful.
There’s no way she ever went out and got a tattoo.
She also probably doesn’t have any piercings she doesn’t want you to know about.
Seriously, ever since my tat, shots (even the particularly ouchy ones like tetanus) are child’s play.
I haven’t had Gardasil, as I’m 33 and outside the most useful window. Plus as a lesbian, I’m in a lower-risk (though not no-risk) group for HPV. But I have had tetanus shots, allergy shots, my ears pierced, flu shots, a cartilage piercing, and three tattoos. I’ll put the tetanus shot pretty low on the list. Obviously, different people react differently to various kinds of needles.
The flu shot is the one I won’t get again, because I get sick half the winter each time. I feel like I have the flu for about three weeks, and I’d rather take the chance of really getting it than definitely being out of work for a week and being miserable for two more, and having a lingering cough half the winter. If I really get the flu, I’m probably down for a week and weak for another week. I’ll take that risk every time considering I’m still relatively young, in decent health, and in no danger of getting pregnant, so I’m probably not going to die unless we see a super-bug, in which case I’ll suck it up and get the shot.
We’re mean, though, so we’re making her get them.
Way to go!
My parents made me get a lot of elective vaccinations as a teenager (boosters on a lot of childhood stuff, the Hepatitis B series, meningitis etc) and now that I’m traveling to countries where you often need shots, I’m really happy I went through with it. Shots I got in high school mean fewer copays for shots to go backpacking around Asia!
Tell her that when she’s 25 and gets the backpacker jones, she’ll thank you.
When I was in the Canadian Forces, one of the rights of passage for new recruits at the military colleges was the Needle Parade: the day we all lined up to to get the multiple vaccinations that were a standard requirement. I forget which ones, exactly, but I know I was poked at least three times.
Marching away, practically no one could move the arm that received the injections. Some people were hurting for days. And these were routine injections, nothing new or experimental.
Obviously vaccinations must be less common these days or else that idiot doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Hell, I certainly can’t remember it, but the scar on my arm indicates that my smallpox vaccination must have hurt like hell at the time.
Some of the pain from shots is also due to the person administering them. There’s a physician’s assistant at my doctor’s office who just has a good way with a needle–not that shots ever feel *good*, but she has a light touch–and a nurse, who gives injections with all the subtlety of sticking a meat thermometer into a pot roast. I’ve learned to request the PA.
Oh, come on.
The TB vaccination, now that’s a pain. Gives you a horrible oozy scab that aches for days, and hurts something rotten when they put it in, too, because of how they have to do it. This doesn’t sound any worse than your usual kind of vaccine - quick jab, bit of an ache. Certainly nothing at all compared to cancer.
This whole HPV row is astonishing. You’d think that preventing all cancer, any cancer, would be considered good. But oooh, no, not if it leads to girls having sex! Because goodness knows, having one’s reproductive organs eaten away isn’t nearly as bad as the idea of a young woman fucking for fun. This arse-backwards logic depresses me.
I haven’t read all the comments yet.
Does anyone know if they’ve tested the vaccine on men? I’d like to have my son get it (not right away, he’s still young). After all, most women get HPV from men. Why should it be solely women’s responsibility to prevent it? Why should boys get HPV if it can be prevented?
Cara-
I just did a little quick google search and it seems that early tests indicate the vaccine is also good for boys. It prevents them spreading HPV to women as well as protecting them from certain penile and anal cancers and genital warts.
You’re finding a new doctor for both of you, right? And letting this assberet know why, I hope.
That doc’s an ass who has a strange idea about what practicing medicine means.
“Do you guys in the US not get TB vaccines as standard?”
Nope. In the US, you have to have a pretty good reason to think you’d be at risk before you get vaccinated against TB.
This year I got Gardasil, a tetanus booster, and a flu shot. All three Gardasil shots and the flu shot were on par–the site felt odd when the fluid was injected, there was a dime-sized area with redness and mild swelling for a day, then a barely-noticeable amount of tenderness in that spot for a second day. As I recall, it was about the same as when I was vaccinated against Hep B when I was 16 and against meningitis when I was 19.
The tetanus shot? Sweet baby Jesus, that fucker hurt. The shot and the injection weren’t bad in and of themselves; the weird sensation with the injection was much more pronounced than with the flu shot or Gardasil. Within about half an hour afterwards, though, my arm was killing me, and I couldn’t move it without intense pain. That lasted for a full week without much in the way of abatement until days six and seven. I am deeply grateful I won’t need that one again for a decade.
FWIW I usually find the tetanus shots memorably painful.
This last time I don’t remember it being an issue - not because the shot was bad, mind you, but because I tumbled in the day after a bike wreck with my broken finger, broken hand, hot pavement burns and road rash all up and down my right side and said “I need a tetanus shot”.
It had been ten years, and I knew I really needed one. They gave me one, then slathered me with antibiotic goop, and sent me off to xray …
Cara, I was wondering about that myself. My sons are unmutilated and men do carry the virus and pass it along to women, as well as see health effects themselves.
One is turning 12 in a couple of weeks, so I’d like to see some parity soon. Then again, acknowledging male health effects and transmission means that insurance companies would have to carry it and physicians would have to stock it, rather than blather about owwwie arms and sluts and trollips and God’s Wrath for Teh Sex and all of that. fundies might also have to acknowledge that being a virgin bride isn’t enough if your partner has been around.
1. tetnus hurts. bet its nowhere near tetnus as far as pain.
2. if hpv is gotten from men, why arent they being vacc to PREVENT passing it on?
i mean, if men are so much more promiscuous, etc, bs, et al –then they are INFECTING at a higher level. Go to the source. wheres their fucking shot??
oops i meant TB, not tetnus.hurt immediately & for like a week.
“just did a little quick google search and it seems that early tests indicate the vaccine is also good for boys. It prevents them spreading HPV to women as well as protecting them from certain penile and anal cancers and genital warts. ”
WHY ARENT WE HEARING THIS ???!?
WHY is it that all we hear about re this vacc is how it needs to be DONE TO GIRLS??
that is fantastic, about the boys–helps them out immensely & teaches them sex. responsibility & how to protect women, instead of ignoring or exploiting them!!!
“One is turning 12 in a couple of weeks, so I’d like to see some parity soon. Then again, acknowledging male health effects and transmission means that insurance companies would have to carry it and physicians would have to stock it, rather than blather about owwwie arms and sluts and trollips and God’s Wrath for Teh Sex and all of that.”
I was really hoping that Cervarix would be doing male clinical tests as well as female. Theirs is supposedly going to be demonstratedly effective for a higher age range, which would be awesome for women whose insurance won’t pay for Gardasil past 26 or whose health-care providers won’t administer it in a way that’s technically off-label. If they’d done trials for boys and men as well, they could have expanded coverage to way more folks. The potential for cancer and whatnot aside, I’d have to assume most men really aren’t down with the unnecessary possibility of getting dick-warts.
“WHY is it that all we hear about re this vacc is how it needs to be DONE TO GIRLS??”
Because the benefits for males aren’t nearly as compelling–penile cancers are rare and generally detected early enough to be treated easily without substantial disfigurement. Cervical cancer? Not so much, especially in women too poor to afford yearly pap smears. You also see herd immunity if enough people are vaccinated, so it’s quite possible that males will see a dramatic benefit even if it’s only females receiving the vaccine. Kind of like how children whose parents refuse to vaccinate against measles or chickenpox still don’t have to worry about catching it so long as everyone else is vaccinated.
Does anyone get through this life in the US without any painful shots?
I got a cortisone shot yesterday in what the nurse referred to as my “hip” but I would consider high on my ass. It hurt like hell all night last night, and I’m still sitting kind of gingerly. But I consider that worth it for getting several weeks’ relief from my horrible back pain — so that’s not even for a life threatening thing.
I did get a tetanus shot before making my first post-Katrina venture to my New Orleans house to start cleaning up - but honestly I don’t remember that one as exceptionally painful like people are saying here. Perhaps it was but I just had a lot of other things on my mind so don’t remember. Or maybe it just didn’t compare to the cortisone+lidocaine shots I’d been getting in my elbows, that take something like 5 minutes (moving the needle around!) to fully unload.
And every year I get a flu shot that leaves my arm tender for a day or so. Big deal, better than the flu.
Shots are just part of the basic medical care you’re going to get. A painful shot vs. CANCER? I just don’t see how that could even be a reasonable question.
Because the “OMG SLUT VACCINE” flipside of the story only works if it’s about girls. After all, if a guy has a lot of sex, he’s an ultra-manly super-stud, but if a woman has a lot of sex, she’s a filthy, untrustworthy, evil slut.
Plus, I’m pretty sure they’re still only testing it on male subjects. Testing always comes first.
can any of you answer this question for me?
i am very phobic of needles (i legitimately thing that needles hurt more than almost any pain i’ve felt before). the only shot i could ever get done again is actually the tetanus shot, because i never felt the needle, it lasted a second, and the after-pain with the arm feeling funky is a pain i can deal with, as opposed to feeling the needle.
do you feel the needle when they give you the gardasil or the new HPV vaccine? i’m trying to figure out if the pain everyone is referring to is after-pain or needle pain. how long does the vaccine last? i remember some of my childhood vaccines took ‘longer’ because they had to inject slowly. is it like that?
sorry for the weird question, i’m just hoping/wondering someone can answer…
The needle they used for Gardasil was, in my case, the same type of needle they used for the tetanus booster. If you didn’t feel the needle for the tetanus shot, you probably won’t feel it for the HPV vaccine. The volume of the vaccine was also fairly low, so I don’t think they’d feel a need to inject it slowly. The only problem I’d expect with a needle-phobe is that it takes three separate shots, so you’d have to be willing to sit through it three times for full immunity.
I inject myself with interferon every other day for my MS, so I am pretty inured to injection site reactions.
I do get swelling and other unpleasant side effects sometimes, but you know what? I haven’t died from it yet.
Unlike, say, preventable cancer, which CAN kill you. Scare coverage like this of Gardasil can have devastating consequences. I wish reporters and editors would think before they do stupid crap like this.
BTW, because of my level of generalized klutziness, I have had tetanus shots and boosters so often I would have to check the card in my wallet to say how many.
I don’t remember them as being especially painful, but since I was probably in the ER for treatment and/or stitching of yet another accidentally self-inflicted wound I may have been distracted.
I was going to ask if you had forwarded the URL of this post to the author of the story, but then I saw that it HAD no author, being a miraculous conception of the AP.
the benefits for males aren’t nearly as compelling–penile cancers are rare and generally detected early enough to be treated easily without substantial disfigurement.
While I’m no medical expert, it seems to me as a matter of common sense that the vaccine would be particularly indicated for gay or bi men.
re: shot pain: as someone who once spent two damn years selling blood plasma (hey, $180/month is nothing to sneeze at) I can expertly testify that it makes a WHOLE LOT of difference WHO is administering the needle.
Aside from the chemical reactions, some folk are just a lot better at sliding that steel into you than others. {cough}
Anyone who thinks that the HPV shot hurts really needs to get a DTAP. I couldn’t use my arm right for a week.
There is no scientific evidence for your “hunch” and there have been comprehensive studies of the question.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/science/iso/concerns/mmr_autism_factsheet.htm
I’ll join the crowds of people that say it probably isn’t anything near the tetanus booster. I grayed out (didn’t completely faint) when I got it for HS, I grayed out when I got it for cutting my finger open on a knife as a 25 year old. It’s not the shot that hurts: it’s the spreading, burning, stabbing pain in your muscle.
Having been a teenage girl myself, I read the article and thought, “Someone thought it was worth writing a whole article about teenage girls getting themselves so worked up about a shot that they faint?” Heck, my friends and I got ourselves so worked up at the thought that a statue was going to come to life during an overnight trip that we managed to wake the whole dormitory. And surprise surprise, we were just about 12 years old at the time.
I’m sure the shot is not a fun time at the doctor’s, but I suspect normal teenage behavior is the root of the fainting, not some horrible side effect of Gardasil.
I was 5 during the smallpox epidemic in Yugoslavia. Both of my shoulders are patchworks of scars from multiple vaccines. They hurt like hell.
Flu shot: hurt. Tetanus: barely felt it (although having a big-ass nail hole in my foot at the time might have taken my mind off a 22-gauge needle).
Gamma G: yow. As bad as a really bad tooth..
Of course, once the meme is out there, it’s pretty much impossible to do any kind of decent study. (Anecdotally here I see that pain with HPV is strongly correlated with injection pain in general.)
You can add me to the tally of those who had no problem with the Gardasil shot. I’ve only had the first one, but it was nothing, and I’m needle-phobic myself. (Some things are too important to let fear stop me.)
I was very pleased with my doctor’s handling of the whole thing. I went in for my annual physical and she brought it up before I could (although it was definitely on my list). I asked about the age, because all I’d heard was that it was recommended for women up to 26, and I wanted to be sure it was still effective for me at age 30. As soon as she reassured me that it was, I told her I wanted it, and that it didn’t matter that insurance wouldn’t pay, since I didn’t have any anyway.
Totally off-topic: I just started reading this blog on a regular basis, but I want to thank Pandagon at large for starting the fight that caused my last breakup. That guy was a wart, and I’m glad to be rid of him.
Don’t they give shots in the ass anymore?
I haven’t gotten the HPV vaccine yet, but I suspect that the people most bothered by it have been bothered by other vaccines as well.
The most painful shots I’ve most recently had to receive were Novocaine shots for some minor foot surgery. I will admit I was definitely feeling light headed after the first!(of three.)
(Sorry if this doubleposts. I got an error..)
somewhat off topic, but, people keep posting about a chickenpox vaccine. when did this vaccine come about? does this mean kids dont get chickenpox anymore? a childhood without chickenpox is a mindblower.
“While I’m no medical expert, it seems to me as a matter of common sense that the vaccine would be particularly indicated for gay or bi men.”
Probably.* Unfortunately, the general public has an extremely hard time getting too excited about non-straight medical problems, with a portion of them considering problems specific to gay men to be a good thing, so it’s going to focus on the known problems faced by straight men on account of HPV. On the medical side, even if there was a precise correspondence between the vaccines’ expected reduction of cervical cancer and the vaccines’ expected reduction of anal/rectal cancer, the companies themselves can’t really do much marketing based on it in the US since neither has yet been clinically proven a) effective in males and b) safe for males to take.
On the crazy-people side, the vaccines’ manufacturers might actually not tout the benefits to gay and bi men outside the gay and medical communities. The fundies’ “It will turn your daughters into whores” campaign was bad enough; wait until some fundie starts the “It will turn your sons into homos” campaign.
*Particularly if HPV-related anal/rectal dysplasias give rise to a substantial percentage of overall anal/rectal neoplasms, since you have the same problem as you do with cervical dysplasias plus the compounding problems of general ignorance (how many gay/bi men are out to their doctors and how many doctors would know to recommend pap smears to their gay/bi male patients even if the men were out them?) and difficulty obtaining/funding the service without an initial complaint, by which time it may be too late. I don’t know that gay/bi men would be much more at risk for penile cancer, given the prevalence of HPV in the overall populace, but they might be at greater risk for HPV-related throat cancer than straight men if that link turns out to be solid.
“when did this vaccine come about? does this mean kids dont get chickenpox anymore?”
I think it was approved in the US like ten years ago. I don’t think many places require it to register for school or anything, but given how inconvenient chickenpox can be for caretakers and how miserable even a mild case can be for the sufferers, it’s pretty popular.
My daughter had all three shots; she didn’t say anything about it being unusually painful.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the evidence against Gardasil’s safety, namely that within the first year of its use (June 2006 to May 2007), it had 371 serious adverse reactions reported including 3 deaths to the FDA (serious reactions as in “paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures”.)
http://judicialwatch.org/6299.shtml
From May 2007 to September 2007, there were 347 more serious reactions reported, including 8 more deaths.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_6428.shtml
The former director of the FDA has estimated that according to research, only about 1% of serious adverse reactions to vaccines are actually reported to the FDA (Dr. David Kessler, MD, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, June 1993). If his estimation is correct, that would mean that there may actually have been something like 37,000 serious adverse reactions from June 2006 to May 2007, and 34,000 serious reactions from May 2007 to September 2007.
This is a sobering thought considering that there are less than 12,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed every year, there is no evidence that Gardasil even prevents cervical cancer, and it does not necessarily confer immunity to HPV:
“Merck acknowledges that it doesn’t know yet whether an initial vaccination will offer lifetime protection or whether patients will need booster shots. So far, the company has shown only that the vaccine lasts five years.”–WSJ, Feb 7, 2007
I’m just sayin’.
I”ve had my first two shots of gardasil (in Australia it’s free for women up to and including the age of 26), and I’d say that they are comparable in pain to a tetanus or flu shot– for me that means my arm will feel a little sore for 24 hours, but nothing that will put me out of action.
My trick for reducing the pain of shots: let my arm hang limp, and then don’t look when the doctor is aiming a big-ass pointy thing at my tender skin.
You may cry. You may even faint…
This brings back some weird memories.
I’m Canadian and 55 years old. In the late 50’s and early 60’s we used to get shots for various things. I can vaguely remember an announcement over the the school intercom that the nurses were here to give us our shots. They were for smallpox, polio…etc.
They used to line us up in a very military style. The order we sat in the classroom was the order in which we got our shots. Like most of the kids I did not enjoy this experience, but with a little grimace I got through it o.k.
One year, there was this red headed girl who sat in front of me. She had an obvious phobia about needles and fainted just as she was about to get her shot. It set off this chain reaction and kids started fainting all over the place. I’ve never fainted, but I came close that day.
Mass hysteria is still alive and well.
I’ve had all three shots of the HPV vaccine, and they didn’t hurt nearly as much as tetanus or hepatitis.
I find it interesting that the discomfort level for inoculations seems to vary so much from person to person. I’m not physically brave, and have a pretty low pain threshold (translation: I’m a huge wimp about pain). But I’ve never had a bad reaction from needles. Not when I was a kid, not when I had to get my “kid” shots again as an adult returning to college (the mumps/rubella/whatever combo), not when I’ve gotten tetanus boosters as an adult. I did get a typhoid shot that made my arm sore for a couple of days, but it wasn’t anything extreme. Yet I’m the kind of person who almost weeps when I stub my toe on something. What’s up with that? It’s got to be more than just mind over matter. Anyway, to veer back towards the topic, this vaccine is probably the same: it might suck more for some patients than others. So what’s the point of the article? That shots are unpleasant? That’s real newsworthy.
I’m too old to have the shot. However, I did have part of my cervix removed when I was in my twenties due to cellular dysplasia.
I’d rather have the shot.
I’m new, so this may not come out of moderation before someone else responds, but Phinky, my doctor assures me that it’s not a matter of being too old to get it, but of being too old for insurance to pay for it. She said that it was effective enough that she got it, and she’s in her mid 50s, and she didn’t say anything about an upper limit for actual effectiveness.
re: one jewish dyke
I thought that being a lesbian is actually a higher risk for HPV? For the longest time I thought girlsex was safe, very little need to worry about stuff like HIV, and while gay sex was mentioned during health class, I think, I don’t recall the lesbian part. Until several months ago, in a post at toronto feminist or torontoqueers, branching on from a rant about how HPV for adults aren’t covered by OHIP, I found out that lesbian sex is actually very high risk. Since girls are wetter than guys. So I have to do like, the gloves, AND the saran-wrap.
There’s an actual phenomenon called “needle shock” (some people call it “stick shock”) that can cause people to faint from having injections. I have a milder form of needle shock — I don’t faint, but I do get light-headed, and about 10 minutes after I have a shot, my metabolism crashes. Any time I have to have a shot these days, I take a can of Coke, some candy, and a sandwich with me to eat in that critical in-between time after I get stuck and before my metabolism crashes. Those of you who have similar problems might want to try it; it makes the experience a lot more pleasant.
I’ve never found tetanus shots to be particularly bad, personally. I think the worst one I ever had was local anasthetic under the skin on my back, but my doctor also says the skin on my back is unusually thick, so that might have something to do with it.
For the longest time I thought girlsex was safe…
Nothing is completely safe. Living is not safe. There is always risk.
The virus needs to be injected directly into the bloodstream. If you have an open sore or inflammation in your mouth or genitals it gives the virus a path.
Be safe and for gawd’s sake have some fun.
Considering the age cutoff (26-ish?), I’m wondering if the reason LindaH’s daughter’s doctor didn’t carry the vaccine is that most of his patients are older? If LindaH’s daughter is one of his few patients who would even be a viable candidate for Gardasil, it’s unlikely he would carry it — most doctors don’t keep vaccines on hand that their patients are unlikely to need.
Of course, he should be more helpful in finding her a way to get a vaccine he doesn’t carry… Maybe he’s worried about losing a patient?
The most painful part about Gardasil? My insurance doesn’t cover it. $150 a shot is a LOT of money.
Same here, but my insurance doesn’t cover ANY vaccintions (how fracked up is that?). The injection site didn’t hurt as much as a tetanus shot.
After a couple of years on Depo Provera, I’ve found that the painfulness of the actual injection depends on the technique of the person administering it. I had this awesome nurse one time who gave my hip a sharp little slap just before inserting the needle, so I didn’t feel the shot at all. Wish all shots were like that! Same with giving blood: the amount of pain depends on the skill of the person handling the needle(s).
The rabies pre-exposure shot hurt so bad, I could barely move my arm for 2 days afterwards. And I had to go through that 3 times (it’s a series of three shots). Somehow, I survived despite the pain. I think the fear of what I would have to go through if I were bitten by an infected animal made the vaccination worthwhile.
Same case here: you think young girls can’t handle the ouchie? I’m sure cervical cancer is hardly a picnic.
huh. my doctor “found something” last month, and I get to have a colposcopy next month. he said that it was too bad that the cutoff for the vaccine is 28. I was 30 at that time.
of course, I’m now really regretting the vaccine trials at KU; that I passed on as an undergrad. that, and I was knowledgeable enough at the time, to know better.
kickin’ myself…
maybe the age thing varies state to state? he made no mention of it being an insurance issue.
Em: Depo Provera is still a shot in the ass (well, kinda high up, but you have to unbutton your pants for it.
Strangely, the nurses that looked like they were throwing a dart in my butt instead of a hypodermic caused the least amount of pain. The ones that babied me through it, hurt a lot worse. That’s been true of most of my injections, oddly. Anyone have any idea why?
Probably b/c they just got the insertion over with more quickly. I think the trick is to give it exactly the right amount of forward momentum to get quickly to the proper depth in all one motion. The more sustained the push, the more your nerves and brain freak out.
None of my shots hurt badly enough to remember except for my Hep B series, which I got years before they were recommending it b/c I have a family member who is a carrier. That was in my butt, and that HURT. But, I was 4 years old at the time, and subsequent butt shots were nothing to speak of.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the evidence against Gardasil’s safety, namely that within the first year of its use (June 2006 to May 2007), it had 371 serious adverse reactions reported including 3 deaths to the FDA (serious reactions as in “paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures”.)
Cervical cancer killed 3,850 women in 2004.
Hmm. Three deaths in a single year versus 3,850 deaths in a single year. Which seems like a better bargain?
And I know we’re all supposed to be shocked — shocked! — that a vaccine doesn’t give lifetime protection, but most of us have had tetanus shots and flu shots, you know. The notion that a vaccine doesn’t always offer lifetime protection isn’t that odd. They now think that the smallpox vaccine doesn’t give lifetime protection, so even if you were vaccinated, we could all still be completely fucked if smallpox makes a comeback.
Three deaths versus three thousand. You can cry about the three, we’ll rage about the three thousand.
This is an example of the common problem with all anti-vaccination people - they fail to take into account how horrible the diseases vaccinations prevent were. We can debate whether or Gardasil hurts too much or even kills a handful of people each year, or if the MMR vaccine causes Autism (which all studies suggest it doesn’t, see upthread). However, it is clear that cervial cancer kills thousands and measles, mumps and rubella would maim and kill still more if left unchceked. We are so fortunate that our children dying of measles, mumps, rebella, polio, whooping cough, complications relate to chicken pox, and so on is unthinkable that it is easy to forget that if it weren’t for vaccinations most of us would undobtably be watching our children die of or be maimed by these diseases.
“The former director of the FDA has estimated that according to research, only about 1% of serious adverse reactions to vaccines are actually reported to the FDA”
This vaccine is new, and it’s been the subject of a damn near unprecedented level of controversy. I suspect that given those two things, a lot more than 1% of serious adverse reactions were actually reported.
there has been testing of the HPV vaccine at least since 1993.
Since I was diagnosed with cervical cancer not that long ago, both my husband and I wanted our daughter to have that vaccine. And she’s getting the series.
It’s not just sex that increases the odds of the cancer, it’s also having kids. And I want my daughter protected. I was lucky that mine was caught in time, too many are not that lucky.
Which is why I labeled it a hunch.
There is no scientific evidence that women who’ve had mono as a pre-teen are more likely to have fibromyalgia either. . . but in every support group I’ve been in for fibro many of us, if not the majority of us had mono when we were pre-teens.
But then again until recently medicine thought fibro pain was all in our heads too.
Having had a strong allergy to bee stings, I was fortunate enough to undergo weekly shots of bee venom for a year, biweekly shots for six months and another six monthly shots. It was certainly less painful when the doctor did it, in a single fluid, almost ballistic motion. The nurses would carefully insert the needle, slowly depress the plunger, and carefully withdraw it, which hurt more. You get used to it.
I’ve had a lot of tetanus shots, but I don’t remember any particular tenderness afterwards. That may be because I generally got them after stepping on a nail or a rake, and my foot’s pain was more memorable.
For a few years I was a frequent blood donor, and the needle they used to use hurt a bit. Around 2001 they switched to a retractable needle and that hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. The same year, though, in preparation for a trip to Brazil, I was vaccinated for hepatitis A and yellow fever, both administered with smaller retractable needles, and they were nearly painless.
*sigh*
Which is why I labeled it a hunch.
The is also no scientific evidence that women who have had mono while they were pre-teens are more likely to have fibromyalgia when they get older. But every fibro support group I’ve been in many, if not the majority of women in
the group had mono as a pre-teen.
Also for a long time there was no scientific evidence for the chronic pain those with fibro suffer. We were told it was all in our heads and sent to a shrink.
There is also no scientific evidence that says that full moons adversely effect people. But everyone who’s ever worked in a nursing home will tell you that the residents are restless and a little nuts during full moons.
I have a hunch, an opinion. I’m not stating it as fact or playing doctor. I just know from personal experience that science doesn’t connect all the dots as quickly as we would like.
The chicken pox virus is varicella-zoster. It is the same virus that causes Shingles. The virus stays in the body even after getting over chicken pox.
Singles is a painful rash that occurs most often in people over 50. When i was in my late teens and 20s and worked in nursing homes, many residents I took care of had it.
The chicken pox vaccine isn’t just to take care of what is now mostly a childhood annoyance disease but also to keep someone from possibly having shingles when they get older.
(I also have a comment in moderation)
hello . does this show up?
nothing I’me posting is showing up
I read an article that said the shot hurts an extra lot because it “contains virus particles.” Oh?? I thought all vaccines contained “virus particles. Because if not, how exactly do they work?? The Media can be stupefyingly stupid at times.
On the general subject of shots hurting, I think a lot of it does depend on the tech administering the shot. One of my babies was screaming with pain after her first installment of DPT and had a huge bruise besides, and the other two (different guy on the other end of the needle) went in like butter, with hardly a squeak from the kid.
I haven’t had the HPV shot, but I got to the gyn this month for my yearly, so I’ll talk to my nurse then. I guess I’ll find out if it’s painful.
I know the tetanus shot didn’t hurt too much, and my doc even said it was the most painful for him, so he always dreaded it. As for the flu shot, well, the shot itself didn’t hurt me, although I had a tiny drop of blood run down my arm. But it was quite sore for the next 2 days.
Still, the minor pain/inconveniece of the shot far outweighs the major pain/inconvenience/dowright terror that can accompany a disease.
Tetanus shots have been no problem for me. And I went through allergy shots as a child and have absolutely no fear of shots.
But– DAMN!– flu a pneumonia shots I got one year were fucking agony. AND I came down with flu a few days afterwards, one of my worse bouts. Of course, I was told I must have caught the flu before I got the shot. Maybe. Didn’t seem likely, but of course, an undertreated batch of vaccine should be unlikely,too.
The end result, however, is I will risk flu, at least until an H1N5 (is that right for the killer avian flu) vaccine comes out. Even though my asthma makes me higher risk than most people (in theory), my immune system copes with most viruses well. And I hated those shots; I couldn’t sleep the night after getting them, and one arm was red and swollen for an area almost as large as my hand.
Strangely, the nurses that looked like they were throwing a dart in my butt instead of a hypodermic caused the least amount of pain. The ones that babied me through it, hurt a lot worse. That’s been true of most of my injections, oddly. Anyone have any idea why?
I’m just wondering how much of this, if any, is psychosomatic - whatever that means in terms of pain.
I know I used to be needle-phobic after an incident in childhood where they required six goes to get a large-bore IV tube in. I was still phobic up to about 30 or so, when I started giving blood - and I learned to just ignore the pain.
I don’t recall ever having a bad reaction to immunisations, and I’ve had two as an adolescent and one set as an adult - before going to China.
People do, of course, and it’s fair to let them know so they don’t worry if it happens, but I’ve been a regular blood donor and had more pain from the needle at the blood bank than I’ve ever had from a shot.
When we got our rubella immunisations, it was one by one in the nurse’s office, because once in a while one girl would faint (one did, in my class) and the point was not to have one fainter setting everyone else off or panicking the others. Practical, but I think it should have been one-on-one anyway - children also deserve medical privacy.
I had the HPV vaccine almost as soon as it was released and I remember it hurting like hell. I think the first shot I got she hit a freaking nerve or something, and my whole arm went painfully numb. And the second one hurt pretty bad too, but the third not at all.
But it hurts less than cervical cancer and genital warts, I’m sure.
I’m always so puzzled by people opposing the HPV vaccine, it’s not the first STD people have been being vaccinated for. Hepatitis anyone? I’ve heard nary a peep!
“The end result, however, is I will risk flu, at least until an H1N5 (is that right for the killer avian flu) vaccine comes out. Even though my asthma makes me higher risk than most people (in theory), my immune system copes with most viruses well.”*
Even those with a strong enough immune system to handle the flu should consider getting the shot if they have much contact with those who are at risk i.e. children, the elderly & the infirm just to lessen the risk of passing it on to them.
* i don’t mean to single you out i think several other people said the same thing.
I am currently living in Australia, where they are giving the vaccine to all women under 27 - if they have had normal pap smears.
I did not find the shot painful, my Hep A and B’s were 100 times worse. In fact I was not told that it would be particularly painful, nor had I heard in the media that the shot was supposed to be especially painful.
But I suppose if you hype something up enough, you can create any kind of hysteria you want.
Unvaccinated children do not have lower rates of autism. Vaccinated children do not have higher rates of autism. Autistic children do not have higher vaccination rates. Your “hunch” that the MMR vaccine causes autism has been thoroughly investigated and no correlation between autism and vaccination for MMR has been found. However, people continue to have these “hunches,” refuse to have their children immunized and in many places we now face the danger of outbreaks of measles, mumps and rubella. These outbreaks kill. We argue over possible side effects that might effect a group of people so small that it can’t be measured. There would be no controversy over the thousands killed without these vaccines. Yours is not a harmless hunch. It is a dangerous superstition.
My first gardasil shot was three weeks ago- I didn’t think the shot itself hurt at all, although my arm was pretty sore for about 6 hours after, but that was the extent of it. I thought I would have to be tested for HPV before it, because I’ve been sexually active for about 8 years, but my doctor told me that even if it came up positive, this would still protect me from the other strains, so she went ahead and administered it the same day. I just made the cut-off though- I’ll get the third shot about three weeks before my 27th birthday.
an anonymous kate
I do not object to the vaccine, just what they use to preserve it - like mercury. Actually I object to mercury in fillings and we don’t use the “eco friendly” light bulbs either because I haven’t heard anyone address the problem of mercury switches.
The fact that ALL my children (and I have 4) have ALL their vaccinations and they are all update, and some have actually have more vaccinations than others for their globe trotting [one son has been vaccinated for rabies - I wish all my kids could get that vaccine] means that I actually believe in vaccines.
I just delayed the chicken pox vaccine - and since it is not a mandatory vaccine how can my hunch be dangerous?
Do know that vaccines are created for one immune response only. Just as the human condition varies, so do immune responses. In fact, there are over 150 various immune responses. Not everyone will have a “typical” response to a vaccine. Some will even get the disease they were vaccinated against, from the vaccine! Thus is the case with my daughter who was typically developing, but should have been contraindicated for the MMR and chicken pox vaccines. After receiving these vaccines she had a reaction including fever, seizures, and a bulls eye rash. Now she is severely autistic, and has pituitary damage.
INDIVIDUALS WITH PRIMARY IMMUNODEFICIENCY ARE CONTRAINDICATED FOR LIVE VIRUS VACCINES!!!! Learn the signs before you make the same mistake with your child!!!!!!
My daughter’s story is not unique, go to any autism support group and ask the parents how many visited the ER after their babies’ vaccination.
There have been no medical studies on the link between live virus vaccines and autism, only epidemiologic studies, the same science that had our nation convinced for a decade that cigarettes did not cause cancer. As a society, we need to demand accurate science, and justice for our children.
Btw, they Gardisil vaccine only protects against SOME strains of HPV. We still do not know how effective it is, or if the benefits outweigh the risks (which we also still do not know what they are because it is such a new vaccine).
Vaccines are great, and neccesary, for those with a properly responding immune system. EDUCATE BEFORE YOU VACCINATE!!!!!!!
i’d say the chicken pox vaccine is worthwhile. the older you get, the rougher enduring chicken pox is, and with more kids getting vaccinated, you might be setting your own kids up for a really unpleasant time if they ever pick up the virus. it’s not mandatory because it’s not deadly, at least not for young kids, but chicken pox as a teen or adult might be a different deal. people who catch it at a later age end up in hospital, often, plus there’s the risk of reyes syndrome if aspirin gets involved.
it doesn’t make sense to avoid the chicken pox vaccine for mercury-related reasons. you take in more mercury eating tuna on a regular basis.
clytemnestra - thimerisol (the mercury containing preservative you object to), has been phazed out of a lot of vaccines that used to contain it. My father has pretty much a full set of immunizations and he’s allergic (as in likely fatally allergic) to mercury.
May I note the difference between your hunch on thimerisol, which has been thoroughly investigated and nothing found, and your hunch about mono and fibromyalgia, which (as far as I’m aware) has not been studied extensively. There’s a big difference between believing something when the evidence is inconclusive or absent, and believing it in the face of opposing evidence.
I do not object to the vaccine, just what they use to preserve it - like mercury. Actually I object to mercury in fillings and we don’t use the “eco friendly” light bulbs either because I haven’t heard anyone address the problem of mercury switches.
Vaccines for children under age 6 have no mercury in them or only a trace amount (1 microgram or less).
Sorry, Cly, but you are acting out of superstition. I know it’s a superstition that gets promulgated by a lot of prominent people (Robert Kennedy Jr., I’m looking at you), but it is a superstition. Multiple studies have been done. The Netherlands has not had thimerosal in their vaccines for over a decade and their rate of autism has not budged an inch.
I’ve gotten a Depo shot every three months for three years, and I’ve gotten it in my upper right arm every time. What’s this “unbutton your pants” crap?
(Since we’re comparing pain, the shot itself is only a prick, but the muscle is sore for the next day or so.)
I had it, and it hurt for a few minutes and then itched for a day or two, but it wasn’t that bad. They asked for a recent pap..
so is gardasil worth it for the old and monogamous? i’m about to turn 26 and have been with the same partner for some years now, and i don’t expect insurance would cover it.
also, my comment re: chicken pox seems to have been eaten, but short version: clytemnestra, the vaccine really is worth it. it’s not mandatory because chicken pox isn’t particularly deadly, but a lot of kids are getting the shot, meaning that yours might not catch it now, but still easily could later. chicken pox as a teenager or adult sucks, and not infrequently puts people in the hospital. the complications can get real ugly. there’s no particularly good reason not to get them vaccinated.
Do know that vaccines are created for one immune response only. Just as the human condition varies, so do immune responses. In fact, there are over 150 various immune responses. Not everyone will have a “typical” response to a vaccine. Some will even get the disease they were vaccinated against, from the vaccine! Thus is the case with my daughter who was typically developing, but should have been contraindicated for the MMR and chicken pox vaccines. After receiving these vaccines she had a reaction including fever, seizures, and a bulls eye rash. Now she is severely autistic, and has pituitary damage.
INDIVIDUALS WITH PRIMARY IMMUNODEFICIENCY ARE CONTRAINDICATED FOR LIVE VIRUS VACCINES!!!! Learn the signs before you make the same mistake with your child!!!!!!
My daughter’s story is not unique, go to any autism support group and ask the parents how many visited the ER after their babies’ vaccination.
There have been no medical studies on the link between live virus vaccines and autism, only epidemiologic studies, the same science that had our nation convinced for a decade that cigarettes did not cause cancer. As a society, we need to demand accurate science, and justice for our children.
Btw, they Gardisil vaccine only protects against SOME strains of HPV. We still do not know how effective it is, or if the benefits outweigh the risks (which we also still do not know what they are because it is such a new vaccine).
Vaccines are great, and neccesary, for those with a properly responding immune system. EDUCATE BEFORE YOU VACCINATE!!!!!!!
RKMK: I had Depo over ten years ago and, depending on who administered the shot, it was either given in the arm or the ass (closer to the hip). Actually, there was less pain when it was done in the ass, so I preferred that.
On the thimerisol issue, there is also a lot of confusion equating ethyl and methyl mercury. Thimerisol is ethylmercury; the harmful organic mercury found in foods and pollutants is methylmercury. While the body initially absorbs both of these mercuries at similar rates, ethylmercury (thimerisol) is processed out of the body within about two weeks and does not accumulate in the brain like methylmercury. Given that there is a minimum of