# Making a Vaccine Lecture



## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Look at this! A veterinary professional wanting info from those that make up clientele! 

I am doing a continuing ed this December for local vet personnel in the area. We haven't done a CE on this subject. I work not only in specialty medicine but in a standard practice. I know about vaccines and I have fielded questions to explain what and why of vaccines and protocols. 

I found an article talking about a rise in lepto seen in animals and people, which is a hot button topic. However I am hoping to make a section talking about client concerns, and I am hoping to have one talking about titer testing because outside of clients leaving the country, the knowledge about titer testing is minimal. I know of it but I know I need to dip in further. 

So I am hoping to have some input and references from the community so that I can get many different sources of information.  I know that I don't know everything and I love learning new things. 

So spam me!


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

I think too many vets "assume" clients won't stagger the vax schedule, out of convenience (e.g., if rabies, 5/1, bordatella and lepto are all due, don't assume I want to do them all in one appointment "for my convenience" -- I don't!). 

When I raised the issue of wanting to wait 2-3 weeks between vaccines, my vet's eyes opened wide and he was surprised -- but he was delighted I mentioned it, as he prefers doing it that way. He stopped suggesting that b/c too many clients thought it was inconvenient to keep coming back. I strongly prefer it, but I was surprised that I had to be the one to bring it up and have a notation added to the file to never give my dogs a load of vax all at once. Everyone knows it's better for the dogs, so why isn't it the standard of care? 

From the client perspective, not enough info is given to people about why rabies needs to be done as required by law. Once people know that for a minor, even accidental, nip, the dog can be euthanized and have its head cut off in the jurisdiction where I live, they get serious about not letting rabies lapse. I'm surprised vets aren't getting that information out about theconsequences for unvaccinated dogs in the event of even an unfounded accusation of a bite. 

The cost of titer testing probably needs to be addressed. It can be very, very expensive.


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Honestly, most people wouldn't want to come in more than one visit.  Half the time it is hard to get them to go along with what you say is good for their pet's health. Exercise properly, food restriction. We have some who truly think its inconvenient to have to come in even once a year! I know that we'd love it if people were willing and wanted to stagger them out. It is easier at times to convince people to with smaller pets, but not as often with larger ones. End of the day, we have to go with your wishes. 

And actually the reason why rabies is legally required isn't because of the potential of an animal biting, but rather the mortality rate with the disease itself. It is easily transmitted through a bite from an infected animal into a new one, and it has a VERY sneaky incubation period that lasts usually around a month but can go even longer than that (the record was 3 years on a young girl - based on the type of rabies). Once clinical signs show up, generally speaking you're dead. End game. Like maybe two people have ever survived it if I remember right. 

So the reason its a law is to protect the public more than to protect your dog. Any bite requires the quarantine without proof of an up to date (based on your state's laws) rabies vaccine given by a veterinarian because if they are in fact rabid, they should progress in the disease during that time. Generally speaking nowadays it isn't so easy to get any longer, however since the mortality rate is basically 99.9% once signs show... yeah lol.

And titer testing is very expensive. Rabies is only done in one lab in the whole country (I heard from a friend in Canada, they even ship their rabies titers to Kansas State!). The others I think only certain places do. However a co-worker of mine said that someone came up with a table side titer test for Distemper, Parvo and Herpes. So it is a step in a direction. Not certain how expensive or complicated that one is. But it shows that people see the interest in them increasing.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

holistic treatments as in Nosodes won't be addressed?


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

Colie CVT said:


> Any bite requires the quarantine without proof of an up to date (based on your state's laws) rabies vaccine given by a veterinarian because if they are in fact rabid, they should progress in the disease during that time.


FALSE! In some states, you only get the right to quarantine IF you have proof of vax -- without proof of vax, the dog dies -- PERIOD. Instead of a quarantine, in my state an unvaxed dog goes off with the ACO to be euthanized in the shelter, it's head cut off by an electric saw from its corpse, to be shipped off to the state university to examine the brain tissue to look for rabies. States that have the old-school laws also often don't recognize titers. 

People aren't going to be moved by the zoonotic risk of rabies IMHO. I'm well aware of it (I'm the one who posted the book review of _Rabid_ here). Most people don't believe it still exists, so I don't think you'll get people to vax dogs due to the risk -- they won't even vax their own kids to protect them from deadly disease anymore. However, people freak out when you tell them (in my state) that a nip = your dog being dead and it's severed head sent to the state university (no quarantine; AC takes your dog and euthanizes it--period). Asking to quarantine at the vet's office here is only allowed IF you can prove vax (titers don't count legally). 

The laws are very, very old school and unforgiving in some states -- and for those of us who like to travel with dogs, you can't easily plan on avoiding those states. 

In my state, rabies vaxing absolutely protects my dog -- it protects them from AC taking them to be euthanized if there's ever an unexpected incident.


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## mspiker03 (Dec 7, 2006)

Colie CVT said:


> And titer testing is very expensive. Rabies is only done in one lab in the whole country (I heard from a friend in Canada, they even ship their rabies titers to Kansas State!). The others I think only certain places do. However a co-worker of mine said that someone came up with a table side titer test for Distemper, Parvo and Herpes. So it is a step in a direction. Not certain how expensive or complicated that one is. But it shows that people see the interest in them increasing.



My vet does in house testing. She tested TJ after his puppy series (forget how long after). I think it was $70. She said cheaper than sending it out. It is fairly new to her since she didn't have that ability last year after Paisleys puppy shots and said it would be too costly and didn't recommend (or even suggest) it to clients.


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

I was not aware of Nosodes, onyx, however I certainly will look into it! Truth be told, I do believe that there is a place for holistic medicine in veterinary medicine, though I am a believer of a mix of both types of medicine, since some things you can't really treat without something like surgery (say foreign body or splenic mass). But it definitely has a place. I may mention it, but without being well versed enough I may not go into too much depth. I try hard not to seem like I know all. 

And I do forget some states do have their laws in certain ways. That would definitely be terrifying to think they have -THAT- much okay to just take your dog and euthanize without giving a quarantine. Where do you live, if you don't mind me asking? In Idaho, whether or not they are vaccinated, they are quarantined for 10 days. Only if they show signs of rabies or die suddenly in this time do they have to be submitted for testing. With unvaccinated, they have to be examined before quarantine and then at the end by a vet, then vaccinated at the end of the quarantine. The main type of rabies we have is bat rabies. We do see rabid bats brought into the state lab every year, and that is the sneaky rabies. You don't always know if they bit you. 

Could just be me freaking out about that whole thing and how much it kills lol. Not to mention 7 abdominal shots post potential infection is NOT my idea of a fun time. Though I think overall education about rabies in general isn't a bad idea. It has not been removed, we simply see less trouble generally due to separation of species that carry it (mostly since the bats that are found to be rabid are brought in by people cuz it was in their house.)

Do you know what kind of in house testing it is? It is not a very common thing here in my area. Rabies or lepto titer testing to leave the country tends to be what we see. It could be that new table top test that my co-worker was talking about.


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## blackshep (Aug 3, 2012)

www.vaccicheck.com Vets can buy the kit and do testing in house, WAY cheaper. I asked my vet about it and got NO response.

If you google Dr Becker and Dr Schultz, there's an hour long vid with GREAT info on what vaccines to do and when/why. Dr Schultz does the research/challenge studies for pet vaccines and is one of the top brains in pathobiology in the world.

I can understand the challenge of getting clients in for staggering the vaccines, but not all are like that. It should at least be offered/recommended, same with titer tests. Most vets don't even offer it, I had to find out about these things on the internet, I have literally never had a vet tell me titer testing was an option or that staggering vaccines is recommended.


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## mspiker03 (Dec 7, 2006)

Colie CVT said:


> Do you know what kind of in house testing it is? It is not a very common thing here in my area. Rabies or lepto titer testing to leave the country tends to be what we see. It could be that new table top test that my co-worker was talking about.


I am sure it is the same one that keeps getting mentioned. It was just for the core vaccines (I believe she only does 3-way - paperwork not here to triple confirm). I am very lucky - she encourages people to space out the vaccines.


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

I will have to look that stuff up. I know the in house testing just came out very recently, and it was for DHP. Which is the large part of the base core. I cannot see Rabies going to table top, though it would be nice. I can't think of anyone who will make you do it all at once if you don't want to. The combos were made for convenience more than anything else. 

Hopefully it will become more commonly seen! Titers are something that can be ever changing too since you won't hopefully see clinical signs if the body has strong immunity toward it.


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## levous (May 19, 2014)

Magwart said:


> I think too many vets "assume" clients won't stagger the vax schedule, out of convenience (e.g., if rabies, 5/1, bordatella and lepto are all due, don't assume I want to do them all in one appointment "for my convenience" -- I don't!).
> 
> When I raised the issue of wanting to wait 2-3 weeks between vaccines, my vet's eyes opened wide and he was surprised -- but he was delighted I mentioned it, as he prefers doing it that way. He stopped suggesting that b/c too many clients thought it was inconvenient to keep coming back. I strongly prefer it, but I was surprised that I had to be the one to bring it up and have a notation added to the file to never give my dogs a load of vax all at once. Everyone knows it's better for the dogs, so why isn't it the standard of care?
> 
> ...


I had no idea! My vet does all the vaccines together. I live walking distance from my vet. I would have been fine with staggering the vax. No harm done, as far as I can tell. As far as vaccination goes, living in the city, I encounter many animals of unknown health. I vaccinate my dogs, kids and myself against anything that is recommended. I have yet to hear a legitimate argument against. On the other hand, I have a close friend who was vaccinated in the UK against Malaria (I think) and suffered psychosis for at least two years. However, in trying to find what, exactly, it was... he's deleted all those posts on Facebook and he is completely back to his old, cranky, far too smart self. I digress...


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Most vets don't bring up separating them, since the majority of people don't like having to come back. But you can always ask for that if you would rather do that. I can't think of vets who wouldn't be okay with that. 

Vaccines and reactions tend to be on an individual basis. Many people and animals never have an issue, others have mild or severe reactions. I've seen many different kinds of reactions, most of the time they get a little hives, but not much otherwise. And honestly since they started to change what is within vaccines as far as an adjuvent, we have seen far less vaccine reactions than we once had. I have only ever seen one truly anaphylactic reaction in an animal. 

I myself experienced an anaphylactic reaction. Even so, I have gotten other important vaccines as a child and adult. Only haven't had more than one MMR. So it is pretty rare for something to happen. And all the long term things, from what I have heard, have not truly been proven, or were proven false. You can link one thing to another with almost everything that there is honestly lol.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

I jut thought of something. If rabies has an incubation of a month then why is the quarantine for only 10 days?


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## gsdsar (May 21, 2002)

lalachka said:


> I jut thought of something. If rabies has an incubation of a month then why is the quarantine for only 10 days?



Rabies incubation period is variable. The longest recorded was a few years I think. The quarantine is based on transmissible time. It's difficult to explain. 

An animal may be infected with Rabies, but they cannot transmit it until a very certain stage in the disease, the very final stage, which generally lasts 10 days. Hence the quarantine time.


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## lalachka (Aug 13, 2013)

gsdsar said:


> Rabies incubation period is variable. The longest recorded was a few years I think. The quarantine is based on transmissible time. It's difficult to explain.
> 
> An animal may be infected with Rabies, but they cannot transmit it until a very certain stage in the disease, the very final stage, which generally lasts 10 days. Hence the quarantine time.


Oh i didn't know they couldn't transmit until a certain stage. Makes sense


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Yep, the longest recorded was in a 10 year old girl in Australia which lasted 3 years. They knew that it was that long because the type of rabies that she had was not something found there, and her family had moved there from I believe it was China. 

gsdsar explained it. It is only actively transmissible within the time of clinical signs. Generally aggression is the second of the three stages of the virus when its active, and they should end up falling into the final stage within 10 days if they're rabid.


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Bumping this on up.


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## Colie CVT (Nov 10, 2013)

Bumping up.

Anyone else?


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