So, you want to take a round the world trip. Is it possible you’ve overlooked the task of being properly vaccinated prior to your departure? If so, no doubt you’ll want to visit your local vaccine clinic for a consultation, volunteering your arms (and wallet) up for a little abuse. “How much could this really all cost?”, you ask. Take a guess now and we’ll come back to it a bit later.
A consultation basically works like this: you tell them the countries and/or regions you plan to visit and they, in return, will recommend vaccinations to keep you from catching something you’d rather not. These may include yellow fever, tetanus, hepatits A and B, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, typhoid fever… you get the point.
If, for example, you are planning a 10-day vacation to western Europe, you may need nothing more than boosters of childhood inoculations. No biggie, right? However, when we started sharing our 18-month travel plans and rattled off the countries we aimed to visit, our consultant stopped taking notes and said, “we are just going to go over all of the vaccines”. As I settled in for a longer visit than anticipated, imagine the joy that washed over me as I zoned in on the candy jar full of over-sized tootsie rolls that would become my dinner. Sah-wheet!
I discovered it takes a bit of planning based on which vaccines you elect to receive. Some vaccines are easy – just a single shot that will protect for 5-10 years, such as yellow fever or tetanus. Others, may last a lifetime. However, some vaccines require more than one inoculation over a period of several months. For example, the hepatitis A/B combo vaccine requires three shots, with the last given a minimum of 6 months from the first.
After discussing our options and recommendations, we came to the conclusion it would be 5 shots for Laura and 6 for myself. I would be receiving 3 shots per arm in a single sitting – a new personal record, not to mention bragging rights for the most shots between us.
Once you’ve decided which vaccines to receive endure, be prepared for multiple injections to be given the same day. Not having a medical background, I was a little surprised it was okay to have so many shots back to back. In fact, our nurse practitioner mentioned it is desirable to have multiple vaccines at once to stimulate a more “robust” immune response. I’m all for robustness, so the next step was what I’d been waiting for since arrival… bring on the pain.
I was called back to a corner of the room with a privacy curtain blocking the main waiting area. Once the curtain was closed behind me, it was just the nurse, myself and 6 syringes, each hand labeled using a Sharpie with the name of the vaccine. Lucky for me, we had a seasoned pro administering the shots. She was smiling, confident and extremely friendly – traits you definitely look for when multiple injections are imminent. We’ve all had that nurse in training – you know, the one that just graduated from practicing on a baked potato. They typically stare at the floor as they walk over to you – trembling a bit – being careful not to make eye contact. Ah, but I digress.
It took less than 3 or 4 minutes to receive all six shots. Only one injection had a real bite (which I was warned about in advance) and I didn’t even feel the last injection at all. The outcome was about as good as I could have hoped for, though breaking a few needles off in my arm would have made for a much more interesting story.
The only thing left now was to pay. Let’s see how close you came to guessing the damage:
- Tetanus/diphtheria – $74
- Polio booster – $75
- Meningococcal – $139
- Yellow fever – $129
- Hepatitis A/B combo – $139 (x3)
- Oral typhoid – $89
- MMR – $89
- Tetanus/diphtheria – $74
- Polio booster – $75
- Meningococcal – $139
- Yellow Fever – $129
- Hepatitis A (already had B) – $84 (x2)
- Oral typhoid – $89
Total Cost: $1,689
This was the only part of the budgeting (to date) we had overlooked. Looks like we may need to sell a few more things to get the budget back on track.
Travel Vaccination Tips
- Check with your insurance provider to see which, if any, vaccines they may cover. It is common for an insurance company to exclude coverage for vaccinations required for travel.
- Schedule your initial consultation well in advance (six months or more) of your departure date to allow completion of vaccines required in series.
- When you make your initial consultation appointment, mention you will be seeing many parts of the world on an extended trip. This should clue them in that your consultation may take longer than the average appointment and schedule the appointment time accordingly.
- Prepare to deal with sore arms after the appointment. Request vaccines having the most discomfort be administered in your non-dominant arm. Though I had no reaction to my vaccinations, Laura’s tetanus shot resulted in a pretty uncomfortable shoulder for 4-5 days post injection.
Do you have more tips or interesting bits regarding travel vaccinations? Share them with us.
