My parents did not believe in vaccinations because their beliefs in some ways were similar to Christian Scientists in the 1950s. So, my very first vaccination in my life was for Tetanus when I was 15 because a dog bit my hand on an Electrical job when I worked for my father as an electrician's helper summers. The dog was old and couldn't see very well so I was trying to introduce myself and the dog bit my hand because it was old and couldn't see very well so I was required to get a shot.
So, in school while everyone else was crying and carrying on in hysterics about not wanting shots I didn't have to get any of them.
Was this a good thing?
Yes. Except for whooping cough which I got and almost died from at age 2. Also, because I didn't have my own 2 year old son a shot for whooping cough he got it too. I made sure after this that my two biological daughters both had the shot to prevent whooping cough.
After my very first shot being for tetanus at age 15 I had no other shots until I was 37 when I was going to travel to India and Nepal and Thailand and Japan and possibly Hong Kong with my family and son and two step children a boy and a girl in 1985.
Then I had gamma globulin, a shot for Cholera, a polio shot (which I later found out might have given people polio to wherever I traveled to) which I was really pissed off a year or two later when I found this out. Because I took an oral polio vaccine as well as a shot I believe which made my feces a carrier for polio which could have been a problem because of the nature of sanitation in Asia at that time.
Also, our doctor at that time gave us Fansodar which was 4 dollars a tablet which we were told to take every day to prevent malaria. However, then we learned later that you are Only supposed to take this medicine if you have been exposed to malaria in a complete emergency because it can destroy your liver. So, we were pretty upset to find this out after our return. Also, in India we found that it was 4 dollars a pill in the U.S. but only 4 Cents a pill in India which also upset us there at the time.
Then while we were in India 4 of the 5 of us got Giardia. You are unlikely to die from giardia as long as you are relatively healthy and eat enough food. In fact, it is endemic and why most people are thin in Asia. However, when first exposed to it it is very awful with uncontrollable explosive diarrhea and throwing up which eventually settles down to losing a whole bunch of weight to where you might look like you were in a concentration camp in Germany during World War II (I did). But when we saw our foreign disease specialist she said the medicines to cure it would destroy our livers once we got back to the U.S. So she said we should just let it sluff off which we did which saves all of our livers.
So, outside of a flu shot or two since I turned 65 and a few other things here and there I had no shots at all until I was 15. However, I didn't like Whooping cough at all and almost died which wasn't fun at all when I was 2.
If you want to know more about giardia which you can get from food, water or feces dust blowing in the breeze anywhere on earth that you then breathe in, here is more about it:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia CachedGiardia is a genus of anaerobic flagellated protozoan parasites of the phylum Sarcomastigophora that colonise and reproduce in the small intestines of several ...
- Mar 08, 2011 · Giardia is a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal illness known as giardiasis. Giardia (also known as Giardia intestinalis, Giardia lamblia, or ...
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