Ask a Lakes Urgent Care Doctor

Aside from good hand hygiene, adequate sleep, proper diet and regular exercise, vaccinations are the best way to protect our children from potentially devastating and lethal diseases. From early childhood to the teen years, there are 16 vaccines which can help prevent unnecessary illness or hospitalization. Staying current with the right vaccines is even more important if your child has any underlying chronic health conditions which may expose them to a greater risk of contracting these vaccine preventable diseases. Because of the large number of vaccines that are available, it is best that you speak about this very important issue with your child’s pediatrician or primary care physician who can be your best resource and helped guide appropriate vaccination.

In recent years, there has been a significant amount of opinion and even misinformation shared in public about potential complications from receiving vaccines. It’s critically important to understand the true evidence-based science, but for brevity here, I would reassure everyone that vaccines are absolutely safe and have not been proven to cause autism or other genetic anomalies. Most importantly, the best way you can protect your own child from those who are not vaccinated, is give them the appropriate vaccines. Once a child or adult has been vaccinated, their risk of contracting a disease from an unvaccinated individual is essentially eradicated. Vaccines assist our body’s incredible immune system to develop immunities and antibodies that prevent specific infections.

There are highly effective vaccines capable of preventing meningitis, which is a severe and potentially lethal infection of the brain and spinal cord. There is an increased incidence of risk associated with meningitis and college-aged young adults due to a variety of risk factors in this age group. In addition to this vaccine, be aware that several childhood vaccines have the potential to wear off over time and may require a booster vaccine to assure continued immunity. Your primary care physician can be an excellent source of information for the correct vaccinations at each stage of our lives. In addition there are some excellent resources at the Centers for Disease Control website. Lakes Urgent Care also provides many adult vaccines and can be an additional resource for adults to obtain vaccines in a cost effective, friendly environment.