How soon after stepping on a rusty nail do you need to get a tetanus shot? Can you wait a couple of weeks?
Question:
Answers:
Tetanus is rare in the U.S. The offending toxin can live for years in animal feces and soil.
If the nail did not break the skin, there is usually no treatment required. There needs to be a puncture of some sort or even a superficial wound.
Symptoms of tetanus infection can begin within 2 days, but usually appear within 5-10 days. The most common symptom is stiffness in the jaw. Other symptoms include restlessness, difficulty in swallowing, irritability, headache, fever, sore throat, chills, and muscle spasms and stiffness in the neck, arrms, and legs.
Other Answers:
I believe you have to get one asap for it to work. Good luck.
ASAP!!
teatnus can set in right away,
How long ago since her last tetanus shot? I wouldn't wait if I was her. Better to be safe than sorry. DO NOT WAIT
No wait till the tetanus spreads all over her leg.
If the nail didnt puncture the skin, then you probably have little to worry about. Rust causes infection, and can be pretty bad, but only if skin is broken.
However, it's always best to play it safe.
I would say if it didn't penetrate her skin, she wouldn't need a shot. She could also call the doctor's office and ask to speak to a nurse. You have to get it in 24 hours. Tetanus is a bacteria that lives almost everywhere in the dirt, but is for some reason famous for being on rusty nails. When you get the tetanus bacteria put in your foot from a nail the bacteria do not move all over the body and infect it, they merely infect the local area where they were implanted and put their toxin into the blood. The toxin goes to the nervous system and blocks inhibitory neurotransmitters, so the excitatory neurotransmitters are more powerful, leading to severe contractions, lockjaw, etc. When you have a tetanus shot you are injecting a toxoid, which is a mimic of the toxin, but without the bad effects. The reason you need a shot after stepping on a nail is to force your immune system to ramp up the anti-toxin antibodies that it already knows how to make. The bacteria take about 3 days to start making the toxin, but the immune system takes about 2 days to respond to the toxin (even if you have been immunized in the past, it takes 10 days if you have not been immunized at all), and by then the toxin would have done its job and possibly killed your wife. So to keep that from happening you get a tetanus shot that then forces your immune system to get to work before the toxin is present, so that when the toxin is made by the bacteria it will be neutralized before it can hurt your wife. I hope this helps.
If there is no piercing it is not so bad. Obviously blood would have oozed out. Otherwise, if it is just a mark it is not that serious. Still, it is good to get it checked.
On the flip side, if there has been any type of the rusty nail's contact with blood in anyway, tetanus shot should be administered almost immediately. The agony of the poison in her blood stream and the aftermath of the shock is not worth the wait.
If she has not had a tetnus shot in the last 10 years then she needs to get a shot ASAP, even if the nail did not break the skin or cause any bleeding.If I were her I wouldn't wait until I came home, I'd go to the nearest hospital triage dept. for an evaluation and a shot. Better safe than sorry!! I stepped on a rusty nail when I was about 10 years old and because my tetanus shot was still current I did not need a new one. So if her shot is recent enough she would not need a new one if she hasn't had one since she was a child she should go to the hospital, but you said it didn't break the skin in which case she probably doesn't need one at all.
she needs get it (now).
Better safe than sorry. Get the shot.
Well, actually you need a tetanus shot prior to the injury. There's two types of medications used to give you immunity to tetanus. Tetanus immune globulin is given to sensitize you to the bacteria, clostridium tetani. That shot needs to be prior to exposure (injury)
Boosters (tetanus toxoid) are given every 5 years in the event of of a dirty wound and every ten years in the event of a dirty wound.
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