How Does a Tetanus Shot Affect Your Diabetes?

Johnathan, type 1 from Louisiana, asks: Do tetanus shots cause blood sugars to spike or fluctuate?

Wil@Ask D’Mine answers: From all the research I could find, they don’t seem to. Which is odd, because the most common side effect of tetanus shots is pain at the injection site. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says as many as two-thirds of all adults will experience pain, which can apparently last several days. And, as we all know, pain tends to raise blood sugar, at least for a time.

Darn. My arm is starting to throb just writing about it.

On top of that, about 1 percent of people develop a fever following the tetanus immunization, although no one is really sure why. It may be a productive part of the immune process, or it may simply be a side effect. Either way, any fever tends to raise blood sugar. Now, granted, that’s a small percentage of people, but given that everyone in the nation is supposed to get a tetanus shot every 10 years, that’s still a heck of a lot of people. Millions each year. So why aren’t more people whining about elevated BGs (blood glucose levels) following tetanus boosters?

Thanks to mail-order mice, I think I might have an answer to that. But first, a word from our sponsor: Lock jaw.

“Lock jaw” is the colloquial name for tetanus, because full-blown tetanus affects the nerves and causes severe (and painful) muscle contractions — particularly in the jaw and neck. How severe? Like, choke off your ability to breathe, severe.

Tetanus is caused by the bacteria Clostridium tetani, which is somewhat unique among bacteria. It is not communicable. In other words, you can’t catch it from someone else. Instead, it gets into your body through breaks in the skin in spore form, the dormant stage of the bacteria. You can think of the spores sorta like seeds: They can last pretty much forever, but just water them and Boom! you have a plant. Only in this case, the water is your blood and the plant is a disease.

Oh, and one other weird thing about Clostridium tetani: Our bodies don’t develop immunity from exposure, like they do with many other pathogens. Since tetanus is as likely to kill you as not if you get it, the best policy is to avoid getting it in the first place. And the only way to do that is to get vaccinated against it, and get a booster shot — some say every decade, others every three decades — to keep the original shot working.

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