It’s Time to Catch Up on Vaccinations

Is it time for your adolescent to have their annual check-up? Did you miss your well visit because of the pandemic? Now is the time to schedule an appointment with your healthcare provider and catch up on any missing immunizations. This post was sponsored by Unity™ Consortium as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

When the pandemic caused everything to shut down last March, that included healthcare providers. Doctors were no longer able to see patients for well visits and yearly check-ups. My youngest should have received immunizations when he turned 4 in April last year.

As soon as everything started opening back up and healthcare providers were beginning to see patients for well visits, I got a call from my pediatricians office. They wanted to schedule Elon’s 4-year well visit to do his immunizations. We made the appointment and attended the visit. I was confident that my doctor’s office was taking precautions to ensure patient safety during the pandemic. Be sure to talk with your healthcare provider if you have any concerns about the safety measures that exist.

Let’s not forget about our adolescents and young adults. They receive time-sensitive screening and immunizations at their well visits, too. Throughout the pandemic, well visit and vaccination rates have dropped. People are starting to make appointments again, but the gap remains for the adolescent and young adult age group.

Fast-forward to December 2020 and it was time for my oldest to go to his yearly check-up. As an 11-year-old, Aiden needed a few immunizations.

Of my three children, he is the only one that has a hard time with immunizations. He is my worrier and thinks about all the ways it will hurt. He is also my questioner and wants to have all the facts.

We talked about the importance of vaccinations and how they help prevent us from getting really sick. He asked questions about the diseases that the vaccinations covered. We looked up information about the diseases and learned about how they affected people in the past.

We talked about how we don’t see these diseases much any more because of the vaccines. The vaccines teach our immune system how to respond when they see the virus or bacteria. The next time our immune system sees the virus or bacteria, it will be able to respond quickly and keep us from getting sick.

Aiden asked why we have to get the same vaccination more than once. (Why do we have to get booster immunizations or yearly flu vaccinations.) We discussed the reasons for this. For some vaccines, more than one dose helps us have better immunity. For other vaccines, our immunity starts to wear off after a while, so a booster is needed to keep us protected.

Vaccinations for the flu are a little more complicated. We need two doses the first year to help build our immunity. Then, we need one flu vaccination each year to keep our immunity (it wears off after a while) and to protect us against different strains of the flu. The flu viruses change quite often, so the vaccines change with it.

After answering all of his questions, Aiden seemed to feel better about getting his immunizations. He still doesn’t enjoy the process (who does?), but he knows it is beneficial and worthwhile.

Visit Unity™ Consortium to find resources about vaccinating your adolescents. At the top of the page, click on Learn> Parents. You’ll find tons of helpful answers to questions you might have about vaccines or how to talk to your healthcare provider about vaccinations. Unity is a non-profit organization that aims to unite different groups with their common passion – to protect adolescents and young adults against all vaccine-preventable diseases.

Don’t wait. Vaccinate. Be sure to schedule your adolescent’s well visit and immunizations now.