Spacing 1 Yr Vaccines???

An interesting item on the Lyme vaccine.  Basically it says that some people (and perhaps dogs) have a body protein very similar to a protein on the surface of Lyme bacteria.  As a result the Lyme disease and the Lyme vaccine produce antibodies that attack both the Lyme bacteria and the normal cells that carry this protein.  This produces persistent arthritis even after the Lyme disease is gone - or, in the case of the vaccine, if no Lyme disease was ever present!

http://www.labbies.com/immun.htm#Hazards%20Associated%20With%20Vaccines

"Recent research exploring the cause for persistent arthritic symptoms in human patients previously diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease has linked recurrent arthritic symptoms to autoimmunity triggered by a protein carried by the Lyme disease organism, Borrelia burgdorferi. Put more simply, it has been found that some people have inherited a protein on their normal cells that is very similar to an antigen on the surface of the Lyme bacteria. When these people contract Lyme disease, their bodies launch an immune defense directed at the Lyme bacteria by targeting this particular antigen. As a result, their immune system will attack both the bacteria carrying this protein as well as their own normal cells that also carry this protein. Therefore, even after the infectious microorganisms are eradicated, symptoms of arthritis persist because the immune system continues to attack their own normal cells. This condition is known as "molecular mimicry," and these findings are of particular relevance to immunologists, especially to those who have developed vaccines against Lyme disease. Immune response derived from Lyme vaccines currently undergoing testing in clinical trials are directed at this protein antigen, therefore, it is anticipated that a small population of individuals may have a genetic predisposition for developing autoimmune symptoms after immunization with these vaccines. Interestingly, the observation that some dogs develop arthritic symptoms following vaccination with Lyme vaccine, despite the absence of clinical Lyme disease, suggests that an autoimmune reaction to the Lyme vaccine may develop in canines as well as humans. To date, however, "molecular mimicry" has not yet been demonstrated in the canine host."

If you guys were me, how would you do vaccines?  Both my dogs are young and healthy, both have had the combo shot once a year, rabies every three years, and bordetella either once a year or every six months.  The club I belong to, daycare, and boarding facilities I use all require a min. of bordetella within 6 months (so I do it once a year and if I know they need to be in boarding coming up I'll do it at six months as well),current rabies, and the combo.  Rabies is also required by law, as we do have animals with rabies in our state.  When I re-applied for Kenya's license they did not have a problem with a three year rabies (their terminology says "current" and my certificate says it's good 7/27/07-7/27/10).  I have volunteered at shelters and rescues where many dogs are sick and/or not yet vaccinated.  I've also had dogs with unknown histories in my house and yard.  I use monthly wormer/heartworm Interceptor and do fecal tests at least once a year (required by our training club and so far my dogs have had some poopy issues so I've had to do them regardless).  My breeder believes in doing puppy shots and then rabies every three years.  I don't have a problem with this, but the training club, boarding, pet therapy club, etc all require the bordetella and combo as well.  So for me it's not as easy as just not vaccinating.  I'm not arguing that there is not some level of risk associated with vaccines (my cat had a sarcoma from rabies vax), but I've never known anyone with a dog that had any sort of negative reaction from a vaccine (or worm preventative, or flea/tick preventative).  If my dogs showed ANY signs of an autoimmune problem I would not vaccinate them, but so far they haven't even acted a little down after their vet appointments.  So am I wrong by doing a combo shot once a year (and I will switch to every three years if the clubs and other facilities would allow), rabies every three, and bordetella as needed?

Liesje

So am I wrong by doing a combo shot once a year (and I will switch to every three years if the clubs and other facilities would allow), rabies every three, and bordetella as needed? 

There are so many opinions on doing vaccines that no one can say you are "wrong".

However, I would ask the the clubs and other facilities two questions:

1. Do they accept titers?
2. Why do they require more vaccinations that the AAHA recommends?

• http://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/VaccineGuidelines06Revised.pdf
• http://www.wsava.org/PDF/Misc/VGG_09_2007.pdf

janet_rose

Liesje

So am I wrong by doing a combo shot once a year (and I will switch to every three years if the clubs and other facilities would allow), rabies every three, and bordetella as needed? 

There are so many opinions on doing vaccines that no one can say you are "wrong".

However, I would ask the the clubs and other facilities two questions:

1. Do they accept titers?
2. Why do they require more vaccinations that the AAHA recommends?

• http://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/VaccineGuidelines06Revised.pdf
• http://www.wsava.org/PDF/Misc/VGG_09_2007.pdf

Good questions, I don't know about #2, but I'm guessing for #1 they just want blanket rules to protect themselves, the dogs, and the owners.  I'm sure I could get my training club to budge on titres or three year protocol, but the boarding facilities and daycares I use.....probably not.  I think around here it is still the norm to do ALL vaccinations once a year.  I don't know of anyone else that even does rabies every three years.  A co-worker pulled me aside last week all worried b/c her 14 year old dog's license expired and his health has been failing.  She was really worried about not going by the book, but I told her absolutely not to vaccinate him anymore.  He is old and has some on-going health problems.  Going to the vet will be too much stress for him.  He can barely walk out of the house, so it's not like he's going to doggy day care or the dog park.  She seemed surprised and relieved that I would suggest not vaccinating him again.  She said she had stopped calling her vet back because they had all these things they were pushing her to do.  Instead she put him on some supplements which did improve his mobility for a while.  She doesn't think he will live to Christmas so they just want him to be comfortable.  Even one of the vets at the hospital I use looked at me funny when I mentioned doing the combo only every three years.  She said there is no such thing as a combo for three years.  I said "yeah, it's the SAME vaccination, you just only do it every three years...."
 

Liesje

I think around here it is still the norm to do ALL vaccinations once a year. 

I think I would start handing out copies of the AAHA recommendations and asking why that is not acceptable. 

Maybe you will get people thinking and talking about changes.  That would at least be a step in the right direction. 

Liesje

If my dogs showed ANY signs of an autoimmune problem I would not vaccinate them, but so far they haven't even acted a little down after their vet appointments. 

Willow had platelets to a level of almost needing a transfusion and was showing NO signs of illness at all--her platelets were 12,000 at one point and she was walking around like she was fine.  I had a second opinion done because I couldn't believe it myself.  They don't feel sick from low platelets like they do red blood cells.  We found her problem completely by accident because I asked for blood to be drawn for a Lyme test and decided to do everything since they were taking blood anyway.  We would of never known until she started bleeding that she had a platelet problem otherwise.

Also, I think it's important for people to realize that a reaction to a vaccine and an auto immune disease that may be caused by a vaccine are different.  Auto immune disease could come on any time after being vaccinated--a long time after--you might not even correlate it with a vaccine at first.  For example, Willow's last vaccine was her rabies in June of 2007--I didn't vaccinate her with boosters this year at all.  And, she was diagnosed in July of 2008. 

Not sure I can say this 'properly' -- but each state tends to have it's own tendency towards how conservative they are, how much 'risk' they are willing to take in a variety of situations.  Some states will minimize human risk at the expense of the animals, some just don't address it. 

i know years ago when I was first doing demodex stuff, Ohio and Michigan *both*, at that time, made it patently illegal to have a vet dispense amitraz (Mitaban) to an owner for the owner to 'dip' the dog which resulted in treatments (at that time it was the "only" treatment used for demodex) that were incredibly expensive and out of the reach of many owners.  Why?  Because amitraz is very toxic and if handled wrongly can endanger the health of the person doing the 'dipping'. 

Other states had no such reaction - my point is that different states are going to react in different ways simply because of how certain things are viewed.

Michigan, being a 1 year rabies state, is very very ... let's use the word "conservative"  because I believe the majority of states at this point have either gone to 3 year rabies or at least a county-decided situation (Florida is a 3 year state, but individual counties can mandate annuals if they decide to).  But again -- they are using pharmaceutical methods to -- at least give the impression that the emphasis is on perceived protection from risk, rather than the overall health of the individual animal. 

I'm not saying that's bad or good -- I'm saying that's why the laws are steered in that direction, and then the owners themselves have to evaluate that.

I've heard you say before you have never seen any autoimmune reaction in your dogs, and I would only tell you (as an owner who has 'been there';) -- you *don't*. 

Auto-immune disease is something that comes on fast, hard and often silently.  It tends not to be something common, it tends not to be something easy or simple. 

 "auto-immune" or "immune-mediated" is simply where the body turns against itself -- and it tends to perhaps lend itself to the fact that dogs can't talk and say "boy, I don't feel good".  It goes to the point that we owners have to "see" it.  Because it's often something like the body destroying a component in it's own blood (like platelets as with Willow or red blood cells as with Billy), or sudden infections or swellings or things where the body just "allows" or "encourages" something to happen that shouldn't -- it's weird.  But it's almost always -- at least in dogs because we have to go by outward "signs" as our own means of diagnosis -- something pretty bad, and often deadly.

I'm not trying to 'drown' you Lies -- not at all.  In all the sick dog experience *I* have had, Billy's IMHA blew me off the chart.  It's only because I'm so darned completely a*al-retentive and obsessive about watching them that I caught it (cos Buffy cockers just plain don't survive it -- other breeds do, but not cockers, and particularly not buffys for some unknown reason).

In other words -- the point that Lori and I keep making is, if you 'see' auto-immune it's too late to THEN not do vaccines.  In fact, as Lori has pointed out (and is my experience also with Billy) these two dogs may have had immune-mediated stuff brought on by over-vaxing, but it was over-vaxing done when they were *young* dogs.  Billy was 4-5 when we got him -- and he hasn't been over vax'd since he's been with me. 

There's nothing concrete.  I wish I could just categorically say to you "in this case it's ok, but in that it's not".  But there is no line recognizable like that.

 AND part of it is that you're involved in sports, clubs and training that is utilizing vax as a legal safety-net to reassure insurance companies and facilities that they've taken EVERY precaution to have only healthy dogs involved and so the 'risk' then is minimal.

The real reason why vax are so popular isn't because anyone is trying to make dogs sick -- it's simply an EASY method for insurance companies, doctors, and large governing bodies to legislate 'protection' -- and their whole idea of "more is MORE" is trying to make risk *look* minimal.  But it's specific types of risk (usually trying to minimize the potential for litigation or human exposure to illness) -- and the actual risk of adverse health consequences to the animals is down played (because of the 'group at risk' they are trying to protect).

Does that make sense?  I'm not trying to be adversarial here -- just trying to make it make sense for some.

calliecritturs

I'm not trying to be adversarial here

Me either, I'm just trying like heck to tell Willow's story to help others.  It's been incredibly sad for me to watch her go thru this--you just can't imagine what this Prednisone does.  While it saves them, she's waking me up panting, feeling like she's starving with this helpless desperate face.  It's not something you'd want to see your dog go thru.  She's nowhere near the same dog as before. 

Callie, I actually feel better reading that your experience with Michigan has been the same as mine.  I wasn't sure if it's just the vets around HERE or what, but yes, they are very conservative as far as resisting changes to protocol and being in favor of more frequent vaccinations.

When I say I've never seen a dog with a medical problem caused by a vaccine, I don't mean seen literally, but I don't know anyone who's ever had a dog suffer from something like that.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen.  But, like Lori's experience with Willow has influenced her decisions about vaccines, the same is true for me, just in an opposite way.  I've just never seen of it or heard of it or met a dog that suffered from it (I'll consider myself lucky!).  On the other hand, our shelter just had a bad parvo outbreak, I know a dog that had lepto (and amazingly survived), and there have been cases of rabies in this state.  So my experience is that given what me and my animals are exposed to, they probably have a greater risk of getting sick from a dog illness than developing an autoimmune disease from a vaccine.

I understand your logic, however, the other thing I've thot of is that because of *your* background (shelters where you see the big diseases spread) you may also *not* see the aftermath of the vax-related things.  You tend to do a lot of training oriented, very intense dog-athletic stuff, but I'd have to wonder how many dogs may have simply dropped out  not due to lack of interest by the owner but because of health issues.  Dogs who simply don't 'go' anymore or aren't around.

I can tell you that in my regular work-related experience I only know of one woman with a dog with an auto-immune problem, but interestingly enough it was someone I had previously tried hard to talk to about her choice of breeders, and her choice of food, etc (and I was obviously, in her opinion, the one "way out there" as far as being too willing to be cautious) but once she experienced living with a dog with an auto-immune problem she's gotten incredibly vocal about it.

And her dog's situation is different in that Sydney doesn't just have one problem -- but rather her body will suddenly react violently to inflammation or pretty normal body reactions -- not one auto-immune problem like Billy's IMHA or Willow's platelets, but from sudden tempts of 108 to overnight horrific facial swelling or infections it bounces from one thing to another and this dog has lived on prednisone since she was about 12 weeks old and she's just over 2 now.  A littermate didn't make it past 6 months old.  (weims)

But I've always simply assumed her dog was the 'only' one I knew was simply because I'm not one to call everyone who dropped out of a class or quit going to this or that, or whatever  -- I've never tried to find out about auto-immune that way. 

But now that my dog has been *treated* my vet is much more forthcoming to share with me stories of other patients who have had auto-immune or the increased frequency he sees it (this is my 'regular' vet)  -- but it wasn't something he shared with me previously because he didn't want to worry me.  When Billy was diagnosed he was surprised I knew as much about it as I did.

Often, particularly if someone has lost an animal they just get quiet about it.  I'm not sure they'd vocalize it to just anyone because the guilt over not being able to financially treat immune-mediated stuff can be enormous. 

Some folks talk, some folks don't.  Not everyone becomes the "voice" that I tend to be.  I just need to get over this shyness thing I guess ....

But I truly *do* understand where you're coming from, but often it truly does come down to evaluating what your 'risk' really is and evaluating whether it's a true risk or simply a risk someone is trying to avoid to make litigation impossible.

You won't see outbreaks of auto immune disease like you see parvo and rabies.  I didn't know any dogs that had that type of illness either other than what I read about here--until out of nowhere my dog had one.  I thought just like you that she'd be more likely to catch something from another dog.  The other thing is short of rabies they have a much better chance of over coming other illness than the immune type.  We were lucky, some dogs don't respond to Prednisone and have to go on chemo type drugs.  And, it gets worse from there.  And, some respond then get worse again.  It's just a very guarded prognosis especially at first. 

I'm not saying vaccinate or don't.  But, I also wasn't too worried about these "rare" problems I read Billy had or even when Snickers had it.  I was concerned about the dogs but I didn't take in the info in the threads because I figured I'd never deal with it personally.  I still can't believe the summer we've had. 

Liesje

So my experience is that given what me and my animals are exposed to, they probably have a greater risk of getting sick from a dog illness than developing an autoimmune disease from a vaccine.

That assumes that your dogs' immunities drop if they don't get regular vaccines.  The Parvo and Distemper vaccines (and others) after the 1-yr shots have been shown to have a duration of immunity of at least 7 years and probably the life of the dog, so what benefit are your dogs getting from additional vaccines?

The vaccine companies saw no benefit for them in doing duration of immunity studies.  They proved a 1-yr duration and just stopped testing.  That is where the original "vaccinate every year" came from.  It is called corporate greed.

And, they could already have an immune disease when you vaccinate them but you just don't know it yet.  That's what almost happened to me.  I came very close to vaccinating Willow for Lyme without the blood test being back.  I'm not sure what would of happened it might have made her worse, it might not, but why chance it.

Auto immune disease could come on any time after being vaccinated--a long time after--you might not even correlate it with a vaccine at first.  For example, Willow's last vaccine was her rabies in June of 2007--I didn't vaccinate her with boosters this year at all.  And, she was diagnosed in July of 2008

so what on earth makes you think it was the vaccines? in humans autoimmune diseases are generally believed to be mostly genetic and are set off within a few days of a minor illness, or, for say lyme vaccine/autoimmune arthritis or flu vaccine/guillain-barre, specific types of autoimmune diseases within a few days of a specific type of vaccination. You could not vaccinate your genetically predisposed dog for anything and presuming he's lucky enough to not die from parvo or distemper, when he picks up kennel cough it could trigger the condition. Too bad you didn't vaccinate against kennel cough...

anyway, in dogs, not a single real fact exists to link vaccines and autoimmune diseases. Dogs sometimes get them and no one knows why, although there is a definite genetic link. I saw a study once that found hemolytic autoimmune disease had a strong trend for onset in the spring suggesting exposure to some organism was the trigger.

mudpuppy

anyway, in dogs, not a single real fact exists to link vaccines and autoimmune diseases. Dogs sometimes get them and no one knows why, although there is a definite genetic link. I saw a study once that found hemolytic autoimmune disease had a strong trend for onset in the spring suggesting exposure to some organism was the trigger.

That's my concern.  If dogs can get autoimmune diseases anyway and they are not caused by vaccines, but triggered by them or whatever, and you never really know if the dog even has one....to me it makes more sense to test my dogs for an autoimmune disease and then vaccinate them if they don't have it, rather than side with the tiniest risk that they could have an autoimmune disease and it may or may not be triggered by a vaccine and leave them susceptible to kennel cough, parvo, etc... I'm just very skeptical of assuming a direct causation.  Now again if I KNEW my dog had problems I would not vaccinate, so I'm not arguing that they can trigger reactions and cause complications, but I'm not sold on the causal link between a vaccine and developing an autoimmune disease.  I'm not one to blindly trust my vets either, but not a single person (trainer, vet tech, breeder, vet...) has ever suggested to me in person that I should not vaccinate because of autoimmune problems caused by vaccinations (I already accept that a one year vaccine is rarely necessary).  I actually prefer not to research on my own because the only studies I believe hold any weight with the veterinary community are studies I don't even know how to read and interpret. As Callie pointed out, I live in a conservative area as far as veterinary health and of course I keep that in mind when making medical decisions, but it just seems to me that as far as the rates of autoimmune problems proven to be caused by vaccines, my dogs have a far greater chance of other complications.  I mean, it seems more likely that the dogs could pick up an illness from another dog at the vet's and THATS why I should not take them in and vaccinate them.  There are probably hundreds of reasons not to vaccinate a dog;  I'm not eager to jump on the bandwagon of any specific one without considering the risks on both sides.

I have two autoimmune conditions myself and I'm assuming mine are genetic, considering they are present on both sides of my family.