Unvaxed 3yo cut hand in city garden ...

[sarah04]

We are in the city and were digging up for a new garden. I've found plenty of trash under the surface. My DS is 3 and cut himself while digging in the dirt - I have no idea on what. It bled for a minute or two and seems like it's really surface. I washed it with soap and water. I know that if I call the Ped. I'll be told to go to the ER for a tetanus shot ... Should I be worried, or just let it go?

(BTW, my initial thought was not about tetanus, but Hep B, since I really don't know what cut him.)

[ma2two]

It's not that easy to get tetanus, which I'm sure you realize, or else you would have already vaccinated your child for tetanus.

There are about 30 tetanus cases annually in the United States, heavily represented by heroin users and people over 40.

If it were my child, the fact that it bled would make me have absolutely zero worries about tetanus.

It wouldn't even occur to me to call the doctor, unless I thought stitches might be necessary.

[*clementine*]

What do you mean "the fact that it bled" makes you not worry about tetanus? My dd recently cut her foot on a sliced up beer can in the garden and it bled like crazy. I took her for a shot because the can was old and rusty, so this is a situation I found myself in too. Is there something I'm missing? I'd rather not be rushing off to the ER if another one of my kids gets cut while barefoot outside, but I don't have anything to use as a safety gauge. I'm sure the beer can was ER worthy because she needed stitches too, but it did make me wonder about how to handle future situations like this and I'd love to hear more. I guess I sort of thought if you got cut on something rusty you dropped dead lol.

[Magali]

Originally Posted by *clementine* 

What do you mean "the fact that it bled" makes you not worry about tetanus? My dd recently cut her foot on a sliced up beer can in the garden and it bled like crazy. I took her for a shot because the can was old and rusty, so this is a situation I found myself in too. Is there something I'm missing? I'd rather not be rushing off to the ER if another one of my kids gets cut while barefoot outside, but I don't have anything to use as a safety gauge. I'm sure the beer can was ER worthy because she needed stitches too, but it did make me wonder about how to handle future situations like this and I'd love to hear more. I guess I sort of thought if you got cut on something rusty you dropped dead lol.

I don't vax for tetanus.  If anyone in my family had a wound that we were concerned was at risk for tetanus, we would not get the tetanus vaccine because it does not offer immediate protection.  It takes a while to build up an immune response with the vaccine alone.  So we would consider the tetanus immunoglobulin. 

[sarah04]

Originally Posted by *clementine* 

What do you mean "the fact that it bled" makes you not worry about tetanus? My dd recently cut her foot on a sliced up beer can in the garden and it bled like crazy. I took her for a shot because the can was old and rusty, so this is a situation I found myself in too. Is there something I'm missing? I'd rather not be rushing off to the ER if another one of my kids gets cut while barefoot outside, but I don't have anything to use as a safety gauge. I'm sure the beer can was ER worthy because she needed stitches too, but it did make me wonder about how to handle future situations like this and I'd love to hear more. I guess I sort of thought if you got cut on something rusty you dropped dead lol.

I'm in agreement with you that "I don't have anything to use as a safety gauge." My ds's cut was small and didn't need stitches, and it bled (tetanus bacteria can't live in oxygen), but still - I want to protect him (thus why we don't vaccinate), and in this case I really didn't know what the best thing to do was.

[Marnica]

I wouldn't have vaxed or taken my DS to the ER for a cut like you describe.

[ma2two]

Rust actually has nothing to do with tetanus. It's just a sign that something has been exposed to the elements for awhile, and may have had more time and opportunity to be contaminated with tetanus spores.

A wound that bleeds heavily is going to saturate the area with oxygen. Tetanus spores cannot survive in an oxygen rich environment.

On the other hand, a nail which may have gotten sheep poop on it at one point, (rusty or not), and goes deep in the foot, creating a deep puncture wound that does not bleed, could be a tetanus risk. If that happened to myself or my kids, I'd squeeze the wound trying to get it to bleed, and I'd go crazy with the hydrogen peroxide on the area. I might consider the TIG (tetanus immune globulin). But I would not vaccinate for tetanus, because vaccination after a wound is useless. The vaccine takes too long to be effective. If an emergency room doctor suggests the tetanus vaccine instead of the TIG, you can be assured they are not worried, and are just using this as an excuse to get you current on vaccines.

I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything, so I did a Google search and found this. http://beyondvaccination.com/showthread.php?2145-Tetanus-and-wound-cleaning.

Edited by ma2two - 3/22/11 at 3:11am