You
have options while you're waiting
by Stephanie
Thurrott | May 20, 2019
A couple of years
ago, a friend of mine contracted shingles. The intense, lasting pain she
described sounded horrific.
So earlier this year,
when my doctor recommended that I get the two-dose Shingrix vaccine to help protect me against the disease, I
quickly rolled up my sleeve.
Two months later it
was time for my second shot. But I discovered that my doctor’s office was out
of the vaccine. And, it wasn’t clear when more would be shipped.
I wasn’t alone.
There’s a nationwide shortage of the vaccine, thanks to higher-than-anticipated
demand.
“It takes six months
or so to produce the vaccine, so they can’t just scale it up and have it ready
the next week,” says Catherine Troisi, an associate professor of epidemiology at
the UT Health School of Public Health in Houston and a member of the American
Public Health Association.
She says it may take
another six to 12 months for supply to catch up with demand.
1. Give it some time
Troisi has a few
recommendations for people who want the vaccine.
First, if you’re in
your 50s, and you haven’t started the two-dose series, consider waiting. Troisi
cites a couple of reasons.
“One, to be
altruistic,” she says. “Let older people get it, because the chances that
you’ll get [shingles] increase as you age.”
There’s also a more
self-serving reason to postpone it.
“If you get it
earlier on, the protection may end sooner,” she says.
So, you might choose
to wait until you’re 60 or older before getting vaccinated. You can talk
to your doctor about the pros and cons of waiting.
2. Keep up the search
It’s a Shingrix
shortage—not an outage. The vaccine is getting shipped, but supplies are
limited. You can try vaccinefinder.org
to find places in your area that have it.
That search didn’t
work for me, though. In the Allentown, Penn. area, it only brought up places
that have Zostavax—an
older shingles vaccine.
Remember: It’s a
Shingrix shortage—not an outage.
You can also add your
name to the waiting list for Shingrix at your doctor’s office or pharmacy. And
it doesn’t hurt to call occasionally to ask where you are on the list, or when
they expect to get more vaccines. “Checking in might get you to the top,”
Troisi says.
If, like me, you’ve
had the first dose but can’t find the second, you also might get priority
treatment.
Troisi says that some
pharmacies are giving preference to people who are getting their second dose.
“Some require that
you got your first dose there, and others will give it if you have proof that
you had the first dose,” she says.
It’s recommended that
you get the second dose two to six months after the first. But even if you miss
that window, you should still get your second dose as soon as possible. You
don’t have to start the series over, according to the Centers for Disease
Control.
3. Try the older
vaccine
There’s no shortage
of Zostavax, the older vaccine that helps protect against shingles. Shingrix is
preferred—it’s more than 90% effective at preventing both shingles and post-herpetic
neuralgia, a painful complication that can stem from shingles.
But Zostavax may
still be an option. A large study found that Zostavax reduced the risk of
shingles by 51% and the risk of post-herpetic neuralgia by 67%.
And you can get
Zostavax now, and still get the Shingrix vaccine later, as long as you wait at
least eight weeks after getting Zostavax before getting Shingrix.
4. Skip it?
While most people are
clamoring for the vaccine, Troisi points out that some are hesitant because of
side effects like a sore arm or a low-grade fever.
“That’s not pleasant,
but that’s a good thing,” she says. “It shows that your immune system is reacting
to [the vaccine] and ramping up.”
Later, if your immune
system encounters the shingles virus, it will know what to do.
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