[Music] when you think of immunizations you might associate them with a child's vaccine schedule but did you know there's several important vaccinations adults should get to in this episode of being well I'll sit down with hshs St Anthony's Memorial Hospital CMO Dr Ryan Jennings to talk about how to make sure you're up to date on all your shots when Sarah Bush Lincoln opened in 1977 it was with the pre to serve the community's healthare needs it has grown into a two hospital system with nearly 60 clinics that provide trusted Compassionate Care for over 50 years Horizon Health has been keeping you and your family healthy and although some things have changed Horizon Health's commitment to meet the Ever Changing needs of our community has remain the same Horizon Health 50 years strong Carl is redefining Health Care around you innovating new Solutions and offering all levels of care when and where you need it investing in technology and research to optimize Healthcare Carl with Health Alliance is always at the Forefront to help you thrive [Music] thank you for joining us for another episode of being well I'm your host Lacy Spence and today we are welcoming back a dear friend of the show today we've got Dr Jennings with us welcome back to being well so good to see you oh it's great to see you guys thanks for having me again of course for our friends at home who maybe haven't got to meet you yet got to see an episode featuring you can you give us a little introduction to uh the many hats that you wear I do have a few I do have a few I'm privileged to serve as the chief medical officer for hshs in several of their facilities including uh our hospitals in litfield Greenville Shelbyville Effingham and dear so uh in my spare time I'm a doc so uh I also still practice a little bit I'm an internist and a pediatrician both by train uh by training and uh so when I can I work a little bit clinically so I stay close to the patients at the same time uh get the privilege of serving the communities awesome so you definitely get the best of both worlds there which is great uh today we're going to be talking about vaccinations which I think a lot of people probably think just kiddos just kids with their vaccine schedules and making sure they're up to on their shots for school but we're actually going to be talking about uh some for adults so just to kind of introduce though um what are vaccines how do they work you know the vaccines are are really pretty amazing and when you think about the Advan advances in um Public Health there's really only been two things public sanitation and vaccines I mean they really changed the world completely and so you're right you know the children vaccine series everybody's pretty familiar with the adult vaccine Series has changed tremendously but the concepts haven't changed so really the idea of a vaccine is that that they take some part of a bacteria or a virus and kind of weaken it or even kill it completely and then administer it to the person either through shots what you think of most commonly but there are some vaccines that you do through your nose or orally or uh things like that but most of the time we think about it as an injection and it basically triggers the body's immune system to respond to it and so the the immune system revs up kills it off and then it creates a memory so the the amazing thing about your immune system is that once it's been exposed to something then it remembers it so the next time that it comes in it'll attack it much more quickly and that's part of why you have boosters and things like that is to really get the immune system revved up so you know so when I give you a measles vaccine and and uh you know you've never seen measles before uh you don't particularly get sick but then then if you ever out and about and you run into measles the body immediately attacks it and then prevents you from becoming ill so uh it's really a very clever clever mechanism to help your body to recognize when something's intruding from the outside attack it and get rid of it gotcha so you're giving the body some sort of um evidence hey here look out for this be on watch for this and now you can attack it more properly quickly yeah quick gotcha so I think some people may be kind of concerned or curious do they work how effective are they uh you know they do vary a little bit you know the flu shots always the one gets a lot of every year cuz it does vary a lot from year to year some years uh because of the way that the flu shots manufactured it's changed every year to match up with what's circulating around the globe you know so they're they're really changing That vaccine every year some years you get a really great match and they're wildly 80 90% effective other years not so hot they're only 56% effective but some of the other vaccines like the measles Ms rebella vaccine are well into the upper 90s they're incredibly effective so um there is some variation the live vaccines are the ones that are that are done with what we call an attenuated virus where we kind of weaken the virus tend to cause a bigger response and be more effective and not have to have so many boosters um when you use a killed vaccine that's when you usually have to have some boosters and things like that but uh although there's some variability they're they're overall extremely effective and certainly uh more effective than uh some of the other options which as you know for for viruses we really don't have treatment uh so prevention is the the answer to viral illness right otherwise you got to just fight it out alone and that uh that can be one heck of a trial on your immune system there um but kind of speaking of that sometimes folks will get a vaccine and then they might experience illness shortly after uh what's that about what's happening there so there's two things one is kind of that immediate your body revs up to fight all you know cuz you introduced this this uh Intruder into the body and if the vaccine's a good vaccine then your body gets mad at it and attacks it and so a lot of people just in the first day or two will get kind of flu like symptoms they'll get soreness at the injection site they may run some low grade fevers but usually usually only last a couple of days and is more take some Tylenol and and you'll be okay uh but because they're not all 100% effective uh it's not unusual for somebody to say Hey you know I got my flu shot but I still got flu and uh but the good news is and we experienced a lot of this with co uh the you tend to not get nearly as ill when you do get it because your your immune system's already attacking it and kind of slowing it down right from the get-go and for many many diseases especially some of the ones we'll talk about today they usually keep you out of the hospital which is obviously a good place to avoid unless you're there as an administrator then then it's fine uh and prevent mortality which is is really the endgame is is you become extremely unlikely that some of these diseases that are traditionally very very dangerous if you've been vaccinated even if you get the disease it's not likely to be fatal so it's almost kind of like a a tear system of experiencing these symptoms um as you weaken it it might not be as severe you might still get the uh like you said the fever and the not so great feelings right after the shot but if you were to still contract the flu you're saying it's not as intense cuz it's already had that first round correct you're better off and especially folks that maybe are predisposed with some type of weak and IM immune function where they might really get sick if they get the disease um you know some of the vaccines then can help them to kind of have their immune system ready to go uh when they are exposed and and lessen the chances of of severe illness so we kind of hit on that we usually think of the child's uh vaccine schedule but when it comes to adults what types of vaccines should we be considering well this is kind of crazy to me because you know I brought my I brought a prop this time I brought a propely and and then I and then I had to to bring glasses since the last time you saw me because suddenly I got old oh I we in contacts I couldn't see the camera without mine no but no truthfully you know this list used to be kind of the flu shot a pneumonia vaccine and a tetanus booster periodically you know that was about all that was on the list well now then with some of the advances that list looks dramatically different we already kind of talked about the flu shot uh the pneumonia vaccines actually change dramatically and covers a bigger spectrum of pneumonia strains because all one pneumonia is not all the same there's different strains of of pneumonia and so the newer vaccines one are more protective they do a better job at triggering the immune system and they have a broader number of of strains that they cover so that's one that that folks really should consider of course the flu shots every year uh the pneumonia vaccine is just a couple of times in your lifetime uh but you need to talk to your docor because there's two or three different versions of the pneumonia vaccine and it depends on which ones you've had in the past and I mean there's a there's a lot that goes into uh picking and choosing so one of the main things to point out today is uh now that we've we're talking about uh adult vaccination get in with your doctor and go what am I supposed to be doing here you know cuz cuz the the choices are are huge some of the the biggest advances uh is for the first time ever we have RSV vaccination respiratory sensial virus which is a huge deal you know we always thought of itting kids and and that's one that about 90% of kids will have by the time they're two years old so very very common in children and and a leading cause of hospitalization and in kids we finally got some some decent vaccination strategies for them but now we have one for adults as well uh and even including one that you administer to pregnant women that then passes Immunity on to the baby when the baby's born to hopefully keep them from getting RSV during that critical first few months of life when that's when it's that's when it's really crummy I mean we used to always think in an adult RSV was just a snotty nose well then we got better at testing and it sure turns out that RSV is a lot more common in elderly folks than what we realized and we'd have these you know horrible looking pneumonias on the chest x-ray and we're just thinking it's just a pneumonia and then now with testing we we're finding out more and more that that was RSV uh and is absolutely uh you know terribly difficult because again treatments are pretty much give you some oxygen and and uh you know hold hold out until you're over it so being able to prevent it with a vaccine is an enormous Advance advancement especially for elderly people so that's one to definitely get on your your list to talk to your doc about a couple other big ones one that's that's it's absolutely fascinating and this isn't necessarily an elderly vaccine but uh but an adult vaccine and that's the human papala virus vaccine the HPV vaccine and you're seeing that on television now you can start to administer it as early as age uh seven I believe don't don't quote me I might be off just a tad but but I believe you can start as early as age seven but all the way up to age 45 uh for folks that are at risk what's really fascinating about HPV is that it's the first vaccine we've ever had that actually prevents cancer so we know that a lot of rectal cancer cervical cancer uh some of the head and neck cancers are actually caused by uh this particular virus and with administration of this vaccine it actually prevents a cancer so that's a huge break yeah I mean that's a huge breakthrough in medical science that uh is exciting uh and then the other one that's that's really been a a great success in the elderly population because it's so miserable is the shangel vaccine yeah shangel is miserable so shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox um and after you've had chickenpox which most of us have or even for those that haven't those that are vaccinated uh you still have the opportunity to potentially get shingles and the virus goes and lives in the nerves in your back and then will reactivate and then put a patch of of just incredibly painful skin and blisters kind of like a shingle AC you know because it stays in one little patch but depending upon where that is uh you know the amount of pain that people go through are is absolutely devastating or it can actually affect the face and it can take your vision uh you know it can cause some very very serious illnesses and so the shingles vaccine is is another one that you want to spend a little time with your doc to find out if you're the right candidate for it and um and get that one so so lots of new adult vaccines and that didn't even touch all of these uh the of course the tetanus boost are still out there so you want to think about that but part of what we've learned about it is um we normally in kids and stuff you think about tetnus go and pressus are in a combined vaccine uh as we got old and smart and realized that pressus was back uh then we've started to boost people's protestas when we give them uh a tetanus booster now too so when women are pregnant and get AE a tetanus booster they get boosted for pusis with the idea that then that PR prevents them from getting sick that well hopefully prevent their child from acquiring the disease after uh the delivery so it's a two for one so so lots of uh lots of stuff it's definitely a it's definitely a an appointment worthy conversation with the doc because there's just a lot to it no and you want them uh keeping track of it because if it's a lot I mean hey please you all keep great medical records you let me know whether I have had this um can you ever accidentally get it too many times uh there's very little risk of of either too close of doses or too many times okay uh very very little risk of that once in a while somebody that gets tetanus boosters really close together can kind of get a funky uh reaction but the rest of it the biggest problem with with too frequent or too close is the body what you want the body to do is react to the the the the vaccine start to kind of lose that immunity a little bit and come back down and then get reexposed to it so that then it reacts in a in a more robust way so that's why you know children's vaccines are spaced out over a period of time adult vaccines are spaced out over a period of time to purposely re-trigger that immune system and and each time you do that then when you're exposed to the native disease the natural disease uh it's a more robust response to it and more likely to keep you safe so um same is true of combination vaccines you know folks often ask hey can I get uh of course when the covid vaccine was was a big deal can I get my flu shot and my covid vaccine at the same time can I get my vaccine at the same time absolutely the body is absolutely brilliant at figuring out that you got more than one vaccine and responds appropriately to all of them so no problems with receiving uh either combined uh vaccines Andor um you know more than one dose of or more than one type of vaccine at the same time so you we've already kind of hit on it but what what makes these diseases so dangerous when it comes to adults so the the majority the ones that that uh we're talking about with the exception of of the shingles when they cause terrible respiratory illnesses primarily and you know pneumonia is the old man's friend it moves a lot of people on and and uh so anything that can prevent the possibility of either getting a secondary pneumonia or just a severe respiratory disease like RSV uh Co Etc uh you know improve survival and of course anything we can do to to keep you out of the hospital keep you healthy is is a good thing um they're es again especially dangerous for folks uh the diseases are that have something else they've got an immune system issue they've got diabetes they've had heart failure they've got liver problems so their body's not in tiptop condition to begin with and a minor illness can really tip them into a big problem where you know you would think well you're just going to get a cold but it turns out because you've already got lung disease from COPD and smoking and that type of stuff you get really really sick uh and so so really the the game is always to improve survival that's that's really what it's all about right and watching those comorbidities you know just to really really cement why you should be making sure you're up to Snuff on your shots yeah um so I think you had mentioned measles why are we seeing more measles and then some of the other diseases that we thought we'd kind of eradicate it yeah so measles is a fascinating disease um uh knock on wood you know we we officially said it was eliminated from the United States in 2000 uh and when the World Health Organization says something's eliminated that doesn't mean it's gone from the earth that just means that we haven't seen it naturally transmitted in the United States for over a year Well a few things kind of come together all at once one is that it's a wildly transmissible virus so uh you know when I I remember when we talked about Co and all that fun stuff that are not valued that says okay if you walk in the room with somebody that has uh Co the chance of spreading it was you'd spread it to four people uh out of a hundred if you walk into a room with measles and there's 10 people in the room and they're not vaccinated nine out of the 10 are going to get measles I mean it is is wildly contagious so when it does break out and it gets around anybody that's not vaccinated the likelihood of that person getting it causes spread uh two's Global Travel so you know you you you have diseases that maybe we don't have that much prevalence of but they have an incubation period so measles can incubate up to 21 days well shoot I can be around the world in 21 days and multiple countries and you know so if I'm if I'm out there carrying around with some meas with measles and not even sick yet to my knowledge uh you know it can be a really big problem and then three was we had some weaning in the percentage of people that were being vaccinated uh a couple of things led to that one was people got off cycle because of Co I mean the children vacc V ination program uh had a lot of problems because appointments got delayed and and uh you know a lot of of reasons why it happened and then there was also concerns about vaccine uh that circulate at the same time so we went from having a you know upper 90s for a vaccination rate for measles down into the low 90s and with something that is that contagious that's all it takes uh so you know once it started to kind of reemerge in the US uh when it gets in a population that doesn't have a high vaccination rate it spreads like wildfire but we can fix it I mean it's it's a it's a very easy accessible vaccine as I mentioned earlier really really effective vaccine so we just got to get back in the pattern and and get everybody caught back up on what they missed and uh hopefully uh we'll we'll see that one go away um you know we almost have polio gone I mean it is that close to being gone so uh really exciting to see that lots of credit to the rotarian of the world that have helped to to get us so close to the complete eradication of polio from the earth which is I mean huge I mean I I still have folks that you know suffer the consequences of polio that they had as a child with you know a limb that doesn't work or pain and things like that so wildly effective vaccine and one that I think we're going to get there so and of course we got there with small poox yeah so uh gone so there's there's a lot of great work that can be done with vaccination mhm MH and I know you've um encouraged people to be talking to their doctor about um getting these shots scheduled those sorts of things um is my primary the only place I can get those types of vaccinations or maybe a local Health Department actually Health departments pharmacies uh you know we now see uh a lot of the pharmacies now administer vaccination and one of the great things that the public health department has done especially in in Illinois is there is a central registry now so uh when they give you of of tose of whatever you're duee for you get your flu shot at at the pharmacy this year uh that goes into the central registry and then your doc can see it on his side when you go to see him and see that that that's been given the other thing the health departments especially are are really great about is they tend to be very low cost so if you happen to have an insurance plan that doesn't cover vaccination uh Medicare and things like that generally cover vaccines extremely well because they don't want you in the hospital it's the most expensive place on Earth you know so if they can keep you out of the hospital they want you out of the hospital so uh so generally speaking they're well covered but the health departments in particular do a great job but uh very lowcost uh vaccination in fact most the time free love that if it's for free it's for me um as we're in our last couple of minutes here is there anything about this topic that I haven't asked about that you think's important for people to know you know really one is reemphasizing it's so complicated it is a go see your provider conversation and and kind of weighed through it there's also occasionally a reason that somebody can't get a vaccine you know the most the most common things you see are live vaccines in someone that is immune compromised so you know we see all those great great drugs on TV now the what we call biologics or for Crohn's disease and psoriasis and things like that well those reduce your immune system and so in some folks then certain vaccines are not a good idea to administer so those are conversations you need to have with your provider to figure out what's what's the right dose for me or what's the right medication for me A lot of times there's options you know so just because you can't get this one you can still get a an RSV vaccine of a different brand and it's completely fine um the other topic of course always is pregnancy because although most vaccines that have ever been studied are seemingly safe in pregnancy it always makes people pause and so so you and rightly so so uh so you know so talking just to again make sure that you're not somebody that that shouldn't get a a vaccine at that particular moment in time um but mostly go just the ability to ask questions and and uh you know understand more about these diseases why they're important and what the vaccine can do to keep you safe and of course keep washing your hands that's that's the other thing that was my that was my next question because you know for those communities who um those types of folks who aren't able to get these vaccines um I know you're a big champion of handwashing is there anything else as far as trying to keep myself healthy in the cold and flu season well staying away from people that are sick and and yourself if you're sick not going out and spreading it to the you know to to the world so trying to to recognize illness I think we're better at that than what we used to be uh there's a lot more of you know I'm not feeling good I think I better stay home as opposed to go wiping out my entire co-workers you so so I think we've gotten better about that but uh but the the old handwashing and and those types of things are still what's tried and true when uh when there's not really a vaccine option very well put all right well Dr Jennings thank you so much for making time for us today and ironing out uh the adult vaccine type schedule we appreciate your time anytime glad to do it of course and we thank our viewers for joining us for this episode of being well we hope you learned a little something about when you should get your shots and maybe not and uh we hope to see you in the next episode Carl is redefining Healthcare around you innovating new Solutions and offering all levels of care when and where you need it investing in technology and research to optimize Healthcare Carl with Health Alliance is always at the Forefront to help you thrive for over 50 years Horizon Health has been keeping you and your family healthy and although some things have changed Horizon Health's commitment to meet the everchanging needs of our community has remained the same Horizon Health 50 years strong when Sarah Bush Lincoln opened in 1977 it was with the promise to serve the community's health care needs it has grown into a two hospital system with nearly 60 clinics that provide trusted Compassionate Care [Music] next time on being well the lock Zone commonly known as Naran is an over-the-counter treatment that can save a life in an opioid emergency in this episode of being well I'll speak with Horizon Health Sean Robinson and Adam Webb about how someone goes about getting and giving this life-saving treatment [Music]