Spring is upon us, and there’s work to be done. I’ve already been cutting back the overgrown Mountain Laurel on our drive, and my wife has taken her beloved riding lawnmower for its inaugural spin.
Both activities, and many more typical of summer life, have the potential for creating cuts, scrapes and holes in the human body. While we understand when we need stitches and we know to clean the wounds out, it’s all too easy to forget that pesky tetanus immunization.
We get them at regular intervals through our school days. And those of us who served in the armed forces also had plenty of updates to our tetanus immunizations.
The thing is, tetanus is dangerous. The disease, commonly called “lockjaw,” comes from spores of a bacterium (clostridium tetani). This wee microorganism lives in dirt, stool and saliva. Wounds contaminated with these things are obviously what we call “tetanus prone.”
However, tetanus-prone wounds can also be puncture wounds, crush wounds, burns and wounds with already dead tissue that hasn’t been removed. A variety of types of wounds, including surgical wounds or tooth extractions, can result in tetanus. In fact, almost any kind of break in the skin has the potential to cause tetanus.
Once inside the body, tetanus spores become active and the bacteria create a toxin. The toxin then causes fever and painful spasms of the victim’s muscles (the jaw muscles, for instance) — making it difficult to swallow, talk or even breathe, and leading to great discomfort.
There are about 30 cases of tetanus every year in the U.S., with a death rate of about 10-11 percent. However, prior to the 1930s and 1940s, the rate of tetanus and the death rate of tetanus was much higher. Cases and deaths dropped by some 99 percent with the advent of vaccination and use of what is called “immune globulin” in concerning wounds.
Vaccines against tetanus are combined with either vaccines against diphtheria (which can cause a dangerous throat infection and other complications), or against diphtheria and pertussis (or whooping cough) — which is also dangerous as well as miserable, with persistent, violent cough for weeks. Both diseases had high mortality rates, especially in children, before the era of vaccines.
So consider having your tetanus immunization updated as you venture forth into summer activities. You know you’re going to get some kind of injury this summer, whether it’s from walking in the lake or working around the yard. But thanks to vaccinations, there’s no reason it has to be any more than an annoyance.