Do you find yourself asking “Can immunization protect me from infectious diseases?” The answer is yes. Vaccination is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your family from infectious diseases. Not only that, but it also prevents the spread of infectious diseases to others. Learn why vaccines are important to protect yourself from infectious diseases and questions to ask your doctor. Log on to www.doralhw.org for a consultation.
What are vaccines and how do they work?
A vaccine is a medical intervention used to build your body’s natural immunity to a specific disease before you get sick. This helps you to prevent yourself from getting infected and spreading the disease to others.
For some vaccines, a weakened form of the disease germ is injected into the body, where your immune system detects those germs as invading pathogens and produces antibodies to fight them. These antibodies can take some time to build and may make you sick before the antibodies build up. Those antibodies can stay in your body for a long time and keep you safe from actual infectious diseases. In many cases, it stays in your body for the rest of your life. So, whenever you get exposed to the disease again, your body will fight the disease off before it starts causing symptoms.
Some illnesses, like strains of cold viruses, are fairly mild. But some like COVID-19, smallpox, or polio, can cause life-altering changes or are life-threatening. That’s why preventing these diseases is essential.
Why should you consider taking vaccinations to protect yourself from infectious diseases?
There are many reasons you should consider vaccinations to protect yourself from infectious diseases, including:
- Vaccination can create the difference between life and death:
Vaccination-preventable infections can be deadly, which means not getting proper immunization can cost your life. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic kills around 50,000 adults in the US each year, which is preventable with COVID vaccine.
- Vaccine-preventable diseases are expensive to treat:
While common diseases do affect individual and family expenses, vaccine-preventable diseases are extremely expensive to treat with an elevated risk of lifetime complications or even death. For instance, an average flu illness can last up to 2 weeks, which easily delays your work or may even lead to cuts in your salary. Adults who get hepatitis A will lose an average of 1 month of work.
- Vaccines protect you from diseases:
Certain vaccines have become mandatory for school, work, travel, and more. Students, military personnel, and residents of rehabilitation or care centers need to be vaccinated against those diseases because they live in close quarters with others. Healthcare workers and others whose jobs put them at risk of catching and spreading these preventable diseases need to be vaccinated against them. And of course, vaccination is mandatory for people before traveling to different places around the world because vaccination protects you and those around you, vaccines are required for everyday activities as well as extraordinary situations. That’s why you should stay up to date with recommended vaccinations.
Important considerations
Before taking vaccines, you need to understand there are many misunderstandings created around vaccines. These myths and misconceptions are spread on the internet and social media platforms about vaccines. Here are 5 most common myths about vaccines, including:
- Vaccines cause autism.
This rumor has been discredited because many studies show there’s no link between autism and vaccines.
- Vaccines are too much for an infant to handle.
Infants’ immune systems can handle much more than what vaccines give them because they get exposed to hundreds of bacteria and viruses every day. Adding a few more with a vaccine doesn’t make their immune systems incapable of handling the dose.
- Vaccines contain harmful toxins.
Some vaccines contain some trace amounts of substances that could harm you only if you take a large dose. These are formaldehyde, aluminum, and mercury. As the amount used in the vaccines is very little, that makes the vaccines completely safe to use. For example, all vaccinations by the age of 2 only make 4 mg of aluminum, whereas a breastfed baby takes 10 mg in 6 months. The soy-based formula delivers 120 mg for 6 months. In addition, infants have 10 times more formaldehyde naturally occurring in their bodies than what is contained by a vaccine. Toxic forms of these substances have never been used in vaccines.
- Vaccines cause the diseases they are meant to prevent.
This is a very big misconception, especially about the Flu vaccine. Many people get sick after getting a flu shot because of the mild symptoms it triggers due to the immune system’s response. Even vaccines use weakened live viruses, which is why you may experience mild symptoms similar to the illness. But it doesn’t mean you have the disease.
- We don’t need vaccines in the U.S. because infection rates are low.
Many diseases are uncommon in the U.S. because of the high vaccination rate but it doesn’t mean the disease is eliminated from other areas of the world. So, if a traveler from another country brings a disease to the U.S., then anyone without a vaccine is at a great risk of getting that disease. The only way to keep the infection rate low is to stay vaccinated.
You can clear all your doubts about vaccine benefits and risks with your doctor and learn what vaccines you should take.
Questions to ask your doctor
Here are some questions about vaccinations you should ask your doctor, including:
- Does my child also need to be vaccinated?
- What side effects should I expect after the vaccination?
- What should I do if my child experiences a side effect from the vaccine?
- Is it necessary for my child to get all doses of the recommended vaccines? Will my child be able to go to daycare or school?
- If we miss a vaccination, will my child be able to get it late?
- Are there new vaccines that haven’t come on immunization schedules for kids?
- What should I do if my health insurance doesn’t cover vaccinations, or I don’t have health insurance?
- What recommended vaccinations do I need as an adult?
- Why do some people get sick after getting certain vaccines?
Immunization is very important in preventing infectious diseases and keeping everyone safe. Vaccinations not only keep you safe but also protect others around you. It boosts your immunity and protects you for a long time. It also stops the spread to others and helps to eliminate the infection. That’s why you should keep yourself and your family immunizations up to date.
If you need help with immunization, visit our infectious disease clinic in Brooklyn for professional medical help. Doral Health and Wellness has several urgent care clinics around New York that can cater to your family’s medical needs. We also have the best medical providers, physicians and staff that are highly trained in their respective specialties. To know more about the locations of our urgent care clinics, you can visit us at Doral Health and Wellness. If you are looking for urgent care near you, you can visit Doral Health and Wellness Urgent Care. We provide urgent care for common illnesses and injuries. Additionally, we also provide comprehensive care for any related injuries and health problems. We also offer other services, such as vaccinations, immunizations, and blood testing. For more info, visit us or call 1-347-384-5690.
