I'm Dr. Clayton Greenway with
healthcareforpets.com. What I'm going to talk
about now is reactions to vaccines and
this is something that I see every
client is concerned about. It's one of
the details that makes them not want to
over use vaccines. There are risks
associated with vaccination but they
are largely outweighed by the benefits
of vaccines. There are two types of
reactions that can occur.
They're called anaphylactic and
cell-mediated reactions. Anaphylactic
reactions occur instantly after
receiving a vaccine and in some cases
they can be deadly. Cell-mediated
reactions build over time upwards of
twenty four hours to even a couple days
later after vaccination. The most common
reactions you'll see with vaccinations
are short-term and not very serious such
as lethargy, fever, sluggishness and
reduced appetite.
These are things that we may experience
after vaccination and you may see them
in your pet. This is nothing to be
concerned about
they'll recover from that fairly easily.
More serious reactions would be things
like excessive pain or lethargy that
lasts more than 24 hours and I would
want you to contact your veterinarian if
you see anything like that. Reactions such as
rashes, itching all over the body, facial
swelling, vomiting, or diarrhea, difficulty
breathing or collapse. Those are clearly
much more serious and you should seek
help right away. As serious as these
vaccine reactions sound in my 13 years
of practice,
I've only seen one case of an
anaphylactic reaction
that occurred after I gave a vaccination.
It occurred with a very rare breed of
dog and it formed these raised welts all
over its body that I could literally see
spreading within seconds after giving
the vaccine. As dramatic as that sounds I
acted quickly gave a medication to
counteract the effect and it resolved
almost immediately. There are other
complications that you can run into with
vaccinations that you would want to
consider with your pet. If you've ever
had a diagnosis of an immune-mediated
condition, a disease that is caused by
the immune system of your pet. You may
want to reconsider vaccinating
altogether. Vaccines interact with the
immune system and stimulate it. So in those
cases where you've had one of those
diseases before you may have a
recurrence of it and you want to talk to
your veterinarian about the risk of
vaccination. There are also a couple key
reactions that you want to think about
for instance injection site tumors or
sarcomas that conform with particular
vaccines. For example in cats receiving a
rabies vaccination, there is a product
called an adjuvanted vaccine and that's a
three-year vaccine that is known to
cause sarcomas or tissue tumors at the
site of injection.
There is now an non-adjuvanted vaccine
that doesn't have that problem. So you'll
want to talk to your veterinarian about
that and you can take a look at our
vaccination program where I talk
specifically about the different
vaccines that you can select for your
pets and the side effects that they can
have. The best advice is to always tell
your veterinarian about any abnormality
you see after vaccination. You'll want
them to record it and put it on file so
that it can be used to decide about
future vaccines given to your pet you
can also watch our general video on
vaccinations and about vaccine boosters
and titer testing here at healthcareforpets.com