primitives discuss getting shot

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11427929

Oh my.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:29 PM

Any older nurses here? We have a bit of a family mystery-

My sister and I both recall that when we were about ages 2-7, maybe a year or so younger, c.1960, my Mom took all five of us down to the doctor's to get a shot. The injection site was our buttocks, not our arms. It doesn't seem likely to have been a standard immunization. My sister thinks we'd been exposed to something - strep? rubella? Any ideas what this could have been all about? We don't recall being sick, but I recall having a terrible headache afterward - possibly a migraine! To this day, I can have blood drawn or donate blood, but the thought of an injection makes me queasy!

CaliforniaPeggy (102,979 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:32 PM

1. The only thing I can think of would be a penicillin shot.

Those are given in the buttocks. You might well have been exposed to scarlet fever or some other such infectious disease.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:49 PM

8. Peggy - would you have any idea if penicillin would have been given pre-emptively back then? ( I hope I'm not accidentally aging you!)

CaliforniaPeggy (102,979 posts)   Thu Mar 28, 2013, 08:02 PM

10. Not to worry, my dear hedgehog!

You cannot age me any more than I already am, LOL!

I've never heard of PCN being given pre-emptively. NO idea.

silverweb (12,787 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:34 PM

2. Tetanus?

Tetanus is still sometimes given in the buttock. It's an injection that requires a bit of time to absorb and in children, it could well have been considered less painful in the buttock.
 
Now tetanus vaccine is given in combination with diphtheria and pertussis, but it's still an intramuscular injection. Kids have more muscle bulk in the buttock than any other injection site.

<<<just looked it up; have had plenty of shots in life.

But the greatest plurality of them have been for tetanus.  Those shots used to be good for three years, but the last one I had (2012), I was told it's now good for ten years.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:39 PM

3. I'm more inclined to penicillin - whatever it was, it involved all five of us and we would have been up-to-date on polio and DPT shots because Mom was good about well baby visits. She's had rheumatic fever as a child and had life long heart damage as a result. it makes sense she would have been concerned about scarlet fever.

silverweb (12,787 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 07:05 PM

9. That makes sense.

I remember getting a couple of shots in the butt when I was a kid; no idea what they were. The only one as an adult was gamma globulin after an exposure in the hospital I worked at.

Squinch (2,481 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:41 PM

4. My family was exposed to Hepatitis A and we all had to go get Gamma Globulin shots in the butt. That was late 60's.

There was a local epidemic that originated in a petting zoo.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:44 PM

5. That was my sister's second guess - but she wasn't sure if gamma globulin was given in 1960.

Ugly finally shows up, although her presence really isn't necessary:

Warpy (67,808 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:44 PM

6. Things that were given in the butt were generally antibiotics

Immunizations are typically low volume and can be given in a child's tiny deltoid.
 
Before they came up with oral and IV antibiotics, the butt was it. You were likely traumatized because the old penicillin, especially, was the consistency of that brown glue they make out of old horses and the high viscosity required a large bore needle.
 
They sucked. I had 'em too.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 06:48 PM

7. If the shot wasn't enough - the migraine later did the job!

stopwastingmymoney (182 posts)    Thu Mar 28, 2013, 09:12 PM

11. I had a terrible migraine the day after my last flu shot

I did some reading and I believe that the culprit was probably a preservative in the shot.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Fri Mar 29, 2013, 02:09 PM

13. It used to be a requirement to prove a small pox vaccination to enter the US - a friend of my grandmother's was returning to Ireland for a visit and went to her doctor to get a small pox vaccination. She asked to have it on the hip to avoid having a scar on her arm - the doctor asked "what if the immigration official wants to see the scar?"
 
......she got it in the arm.

FWIW - I had several small pox vaccinations and I get queasy just thinking about it!
 
(oddly enough, i don't think any of them scarred - maybe none of them took!)

SheilaT (12,171 posts)    Fri Mar 29, 2013, 03:07 PM

14. My mother was a nurse.

She graduated from nursing school in 1937, I think. Back in the day, 1950's and early '60's, she had ready access to penicillin and I recall her somewhat routinely giving us kids penicillin shots in the butt.
 
It's also important to know that back then the dosage (I believe the measure was simply called units) was incredibly low, compared to what it became over time. I don't even know if regular penicillin is ever given anymore.

hedgehog (30,022 posts)    Fri Mar 29, 2013, 03:41 PM

15. Now i'm wondering if the lower dosages were more effective back then because most bacteria were not yet resistant.

SheilaT (12,171 posts)    Fri Mar 29, 2013, 04:26 PM

16. Yes, that's exactly right.

I can recall being aware by the early '60's that the effective dose of penicillin had already grown significantly from when it had first been introduced. And there wasn't the overusage of anti-biotics back then that's occurred in recent decades.

[JohnnyReb]

It was an anti-stupid vaccine for potential DUmmies.......but it didn't work.

[98ZJUSMC]

I've never heard of PCN being given pre-emptively

Join the Marine Corps, (D)Umbass.  One in first phase, one in third phase.

In. The. Buttocks.  Pre-emptively.

Drill, on the grinder that afternoon, sucked immensely.    50 odd years later and you're getting the vapors over a shot in the ass?     Quick!  Go apply for disability!!!!

[RightNow]

Aren't these liberals fighting for the right to get injections in their buttocks? 

[98ZJUSMC]

Aren't these liberals fighting for the right to get injections in their buttocks? 

....and I would love to acquiesce them with multiple .45Cal, single-serving doses.

[BlueStateSaint]

....and I would love to acquiesce them with multiple .45Cal, single-serving doses.

You're too kind.

A 12 gauge, 00 Buck load.  But, put a condom over the muzzle first.

[seahorse513]

Suck it up beeyatch. I got an injection in my butt  every other day from the ages of 6 to 13.

[Evil_Conservative]

6. Things that were given in the butt were generally antibiotics

[seahorse513]

No pun intended(well maybe) DUmmies talk out of their ass!!!

[Airwolf]

Damn to be that stupid has to be like waking up every morning with no memory of what happened the previous years of their miserable lives intact.

[Carl]

I remember getting one in the posterior as well,it was a standard vaccination and am pretty sure it was the one called DTP which stands for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus.

FWIW - I had several small pox vaccinations and I get queasy just thinking about it!

WTF is this person talking about,smallpox is a one and done for life vaccination.

[JohnnyReb]

I remember getting one in the posterior as well,it was a standard vaccination and am pretty sure it was the one called DTP which stands for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus.

WTF is this person talking about,smallpox is a one and done for life vaccination.

I took the smallpox vaccination 3 or 4 times before it "took". That was in the early 1950's. Finally got a little white scar and they quit giving me those.

Years later I read that the milk maids of old didn't get smallpox because they had been exposed to cow pox. I guess living on the farm, being around cows and drinking fresh whole milk that I myself had milked from the cows had done the same for me.

[AprilRazz]

I took the smallpox vaccination 3 or 4 times before it "took". That was in the early 1950's. Finally got a little white scar and they quit giving me those.

Years later I read that the milk maids of old didn't get smallpox because they had been exposed to cow pox. I guess living on the farm, being around cows and drinking fresh whole milk that I myself had milked from the cows had done the same for me.

Actually the smallpox vaccine is derived from the cowpox virus.

[Carl]

I took the smallpox vaccination 3 or 4 times before it "took". That was in the early 1950's. Finally got a little white scar and they quit giving me those.

Years later I read that the milk maids of old didn't get smallpox because they had been exposed to cow pox. I guess living on the farm, being around cows and drinking fresh whole milk that I myself had milked from the cows had done the same for me.

Okay,gotcha...I took it that the DUmmy meant getting several as if one wore out after a while so maybe was the same with them.

[Vagabond]

I remember getting one in the posterior as well,it was a standard vaccination and am pretty sure it was the one called DTP which stands for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus.

WTF is this person talking about,smallpox is a one and done for life vaccination.

No, it is good for a number of years, but it does stop after a while.  After undergoing a worldwide immunization program to eliminate smallpox, they didn't need widespread routine immunization of smallpox anymore because the virus had basically been eleminated in the wild.  Effectively, no one on Earth who hasn't been vaccinated in the last five years has any significant resistance to smallpox.  That's why weaponized smallpox is such a concern.

My smallpox scar is a result of going to Iraq to work.

[dixierose]

No, it is good for a number of years, but it does stop after a while.  After undergoing a worldwide immunization program to eliminate smallpox, they didn't need widespread routine immunization of smallpox anymore because the virus had basically been eleminated in the wild.  Effectively, no one on Earth who hasn't been vaccinated in the last five years has any significant resistance to smallpox.  That's why weaponized smallpox is such a concern.

My smallpox scar is a result of going to Iraq to work.

I was born in 70 and have a smallpox vaccination scar on my arm. My sister was born in 71 and never got the vaccination. That must be when they quit requiring it.