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As long as our animals have the core vaccines they should do a titer check before we administer any more except for the rabies vaccine, which is required by law. Is this the correct way of thinking?
Dover had tested positive for Lyme years ago. That's why I was asking the vet if we should vaccinate him. Well, a few days after the vet visit he was seizing for over three hours. We couldn't even get him into the car it was so bad. When they finally slowed down we took him to the emergency vet and they said he was blind by then. They doped him up and he was still seizing. We made the hardest decision of our life to put him down. I still cry over him. I swore it was the vaccine and the emergency vet said no- just coincidence. I don't believe it nor will I ever.
Thanks for the advice and listening to me vent. I so appreciate it.
As long as our animals have the core vaccines they should do a titer check before we administer any more except for the rabies vaccine, which is required by law. Is this the correct way of thinking?
Dover had tested positive for Lyme years ago. That's why I was asking the vet if we should vaccinate him. Well, a few days after the vet visit he was seizing for over three hours. We couldn't even get him into the car it was so bad. When they finally slowed down we took him to the emergency vet and they said he was blind by then. They doped him up and he was still seizing. We made the hardest decision of our life to put him down. I still cry over him. I swore it was the vaccine and the emergency vet said no- just coincidence. I don't believe it nor will I ever.
Thanks for the advice and listening to me vent. I so appreciate it.
I am so sorry about your dog. That's such a cruel experience to have to endure. I just got off the phone from the vet's. I live in the area on that map that's black=worst places for Lyme. My dog comes in with many ticks on him and had Lyme a few years ago. He got the vaccine at that time. We treat him with Advantix but it isn't doing any good this year.
This year he got a another dose of the vaccine but when we took him in for the booster, we ended up rushing him to an all night emergency animal hospital in the middle of the night. He looked like he was dead, couldn't lift his head, just lay there crouching and motionless. They gave him a shot of something and told us to keep him very quiet for the next few days. He seems to be okay now.
As long as our animals have the core vaccines they should do a titer check before we administer any more except for the rabies vaccine, which is required by law. Is this the correct way of thinking?
Dover had tested positive for Lyme years ago. That's why I was asking the vet if we should vaccinate him. Well, a few days after the vet visit he was seizing for over three hours. We couldn't even get him into the car it was so bad. When they finally slowed down we took him to the emergency vet and they said he was blind by then. They doped him up and he was still seizing. We made the hardest decision of our life to put him down. I still cry over him. I swore it was the vaccine and the emergency vet said no- just coincidence. I don't believe it nor will I ever.
Thanks for the advice and listening to me vent. I so appreciate it.
You are correct. Please do not vaccinate your dog for DAP (Distemper/Adeno/Parvo) until you first get a titer test. And if your vet is charging you more than $60-70 for that D/P titer test (office call and blood draw are usually charged separately) then just ask them to draw one 1-3 ml rd top tube (not a serum separator tube, just a plain red top tube) and send it to Dr. Schultz's lab yourself. The tube does not have to be centrifuged nor the plasma removed per Dr. Schultz even though the form indicates that. He charges $50 for the D/P titers and will send the results to you and to your vet with instruction on whether to re-vaccinate or not. I posted a link to his order form in a previous post on this thread.
When the titer results come back, your dog will most likely not need to be re-vaccinated now. Or ever. According to Dr. Schultz a dog does not need to be re-vaccinated for Distemper if their D titer is 4 or greater and does not need to be re-vaccinated for Parvo if their P titer is 20 or greater. The vast, vast majority of dogs titer above those levels every single time they are titered. According to Dr. Schultz, canine antibody levels to D and P remain fairly stable throughout the life of the dog. So titering for D/P every three years...the current AVMA/AAHA recommendation...is also overkill. But at least it's not potentially harmful. Re-vaccination is potentially harmful. Dogs can develop sensitivities to the adjuvants in vaccine preparations and react to them in varying degrees. And some people feel that the constant atypical (artificially injected versus naturally inhaled in the environment) stimulation of the immune system can lead to autoimmune disease in genetically predisposed animals.
BTW, I have not titered my dogs in seven years. I will titer them this year because they qualify for a current UW Vet School study since they have not been vaccinated for DAP since April 2009 and because Dr. Schultz will do their titers at no cost as part of the study. Otherwise I would not titer them. But I have a solid background in immunology and thus am very comfy with these principles.
BTW, it's a complete waste of money to re-vaccinate your dog if the titers are at or above the levels noted above (4 for D and 20 for P) since the dog's circulating antibodies immediately inactivate the vaccine. Vaccines are made of viral antigen components which is why they are able to stimulate the immune system to produce protective circulating antibody. But that same circulating antibody sees the viral antigen components of the vaccine in subsequent vaccinations and attacks them just as it attacks virus in the environment. That's why re-vaccinating is a waste when the dog already has circulating antibody as evidenced by titer.
You are correct. We have no legal choice on Rabies so we must follow our state/municipality guidelines unless we get an exemption from our vet and even at that, not all municipalities accept those. But it's worth a try.
So sorry about your poor Dover. That had to have been so awful for so many reasons. Hugs to you, LuckyLady.
BTW, our dogs have all tested positive for the Lyme's antibody over the years and more than once. None of them have ever been vaccinated against Lyme's. Detectable antibody means the animal was infected but infection is not the same as disease...that is a key point that is not understood by most people and even by some vets. Most dogs infected with Lyme's never develop the disease. So we just keep a sharp eye out for symptoms. If symptoms would develop then off to the vet we would go for treatment with Doxycycline. Our vet has even prophylactically treated our dogs with Doxy if their previous year's Lyme's test was negative on the assumption that the new positive represents a new infection. Just to be on the safe side.
I am so sorry about your dog. That's such a cruel experience to have to endure. I just got off the phone from the vet's. I live in the area on that map that's black=worst places for Lyme. My dog comes in with many ticks on him and had Lyme a few years ago. He got the vaccine at that time. We treat him with Advantix but it isn't doing any good this year.
This year he got a another dose of the vaccine but when we took him in for the booster, we ended up rushing him to an all night emergency animal hospital in the middle of the night. He looked like he was dead, couldn't lift his head, just lay there crouching and motionless. They gave him a shot of something and told us to keep him very quiet for the next few days. He seems to be okay now.
Whew! Glad he's doing OK. Please don't vaccinate him against Lyme's again...he may be reacting to an adjuvant in the vaccine preparation. His reaction could be worse next time.
It's so hard to fight the tick battle. I use a holistic approach successfully on our tick infested property in WI that is approved by my holistic vet. For her clients who desire a stronger approach she suggests Nexgard. It's the only commercially available traditional tick prevention product she recommends. They all have reported side effects and deaths but she feels the Nexgard reports are most likely unrelated to the product. But it still feels like a crapshoot. I am so relieved my holistic approach is still working for our dogs...it's comparable to the Frontline Plus I used three years ago. And we are in a banner year for ticks. Ugh.
Tick borne disease is awful but it is treatable if caught early. And some of the side effects of the preventive chemicals and the vaccine seem worse. So an important part of my TBD prevention program is keeping a sharp eye on our dogs and a vet visit if anything seems off kilter for longer than a day or two. Sometimes I think we as a culture are too quick to jump on the traditional medical approach (drugs and chemicals) bandwagon...as directed by our veterinary and medical doctors.
Some vets or vet tech uses vague questions to convince the owner to consent to unnecessary vaccinations. I had this happened to me years ago and this hasn't changed as recent as my friend's experience with her vet.
My friend loves her little dog and is very trusting of strangers. She has a lot of emotional issues so she tries to avoid conflict rather than face it. On a routine check up, her intentions were to get only the exam and rabies shot. She advised this to the vet tech. Instead of doing what she wanted, the vet tech started asking her questions like, "does your dog have any contact with other dogs in your neighborhood?". Of course, my friend replied, it is a dog friendly neighborhood. Then the vet tech tells her that she needs the bordatella shots. That's for kennel cough.
My friend's dog also received the lepto shot because there is a pond nearby. A pond that no one, not even their dogs, goes into. The pound is at least 500 feet away from where her dog is and her little pup lives primarily indoors and never goes to the dog park.
I was very upset for my friend. They took advantage of her because she trusted her vet and didn't believe that these people would lie to benefit financially from her dog's health. My sister did the same thing with a different vet, who told her that her 5 lb yorkies needed another round of shots every year. A lot of people like her, and I was once like her, used to think we can trust our vets and their staff 100%. Instead, I find myself correcting the vets and their staff when they insist my elderly cat needs another line of the same vaccinations that he already received when he was younger.
So frustrating. It's hard to find a vet who keeps current. It's even worse when they consider profit above the welfare of their clients. That's why, even though I very much like my traditional vet who is an excellent diagnostician/surgeon and who actually listens to my immunology speak, I set more store for stuff like this in my integrative combo holistic/traditional vet. If you can find one of those then you're prolly good. A good number of holistic vets are actually integrative. And they all graduated from veterinary school unlike human naturopathic doctors most of whom did not graduate from medical school. So that's a good place to start looking.
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for everything. So off to have a titer pulled UB on his vet visit. No more worthless immunizations.
I am so glad to meet you. My name is Trish, live in Falling Waters, WV right at the Md. line. Even though I work in research, it is not the same kind as what we are speaking about. I wish there was more done for our pets. There is millions wasted every day on research that has been done over and over by different companies looking for the forever elusive answer to this or that disease. It just blows your mind.
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for everything. So off to have a titer pulled UB on his vet visit. No more worthless immunizations.
I am so glad to meet you. My name is Trish, live in Falling Waters, WV right at the Md. line. Even though I work in research, it is not the same kind as what we are speaking about. I wish there was more done for our pets. There is millions wasted every day on research that has been done over and over by different companies looking for the forever elusive answer to this or that disease. It just blows your mind.
You're welcome, Trish. Being a research nerd, science brain dog lover with an immunology background, this is a hot button issue for me. Especially since we get so much misinformation on this issue from those we trust to care for our pets' health, our veterinarians. It's not totally their fault. They get very little immunology in vet school, most are operating on dated information...such as "there is no correlation between antibody levels and disease protection" when there clearly is as demonstrated by Dr. Schultz's challenge studies; and such as "antibody titers don't take into account cell mediated immunity" which they certainly do indirectly since cell mediated immunity is what produces antibody...and there is a very strong relationship between veterinary medicine and the vaccine companies.
I'm betting lots of that research you reference is funded by drug companies hoping to discover a new gold mine drug. Research done right is very costly and funding is often an issue. Unless a wealthy drug company steps in to help.
And just to be clear for those reading this post and not the entire thread...vaccines save lives. They are extremely important to use but they should be used wisely. And not overused.
I suggest everyone listen to the clip I posted of Dr. Schultz's talk along with the Q&A. It's much shorter than the seminar I attended on Saturday but still has tons of useful information. And then you can say you heard it from the master himself. Here it is again. Along with Dr. Schultz's bio.
Another bit of interesting information for those with enquiring minds. The immune system responds to virus (and viral vaccines like Distemper, Adeno, Parvo and Rabies) differently than it responds to bacteria (and bacterial vaccines like Bordetella, Lyme's and Lepto).
Viral antibodies persist for many years and likely for the life of the dog. Bacterial antibodies do not persist for any longer than a year, if even that. Thankfully, none of the bacterial diseases we vaccinate dogs against are very serious or common and most dogs who do develop disease recover either spontaneously or with treatment. But all of the viral diseases we vaccinate dogs against are very dangerous to nearly always fatal so it's a very good thing those antibodies persist and it is extremely important to vaccinate puppies against those viral diseases.
And remember, infection is not the same as disease. For example, many dogs are infected with the spirochete (bacteria) that causes Lyme's disease but most dogs do not develop the disease.
This is really great information! I am saving the link for reference- thank you!
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Being a research nerd, science brain dog lover with an immunology background, this is a hot button issue for me. Especially since we get so much misinformation on this issue from those we trust to care for our pets' health, our veterinarians. It's not totally their fault. They get very little immunology in vet school, most are operating on dated information...such as "there is no correlation between antibody levels and disease protection" when there clearly is as demonstrated by Dr. Schultz's challenge studies; and such as "antibody titers don't take into account cell mediated immunity" which they certainly do indirectly since cell mediated immunity is what produces antibody...and there is a very strong relationship between veterinary medicine and the vaccine companies.
Here it is again. Along with Dr. Schultz's bio.
