Travel vaccinations tomorrow - help!

[SecretWeapon]

Hello all,

I've got an appointment tomorrow to have Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Typhoid vaccinations, which have been recommended as I'm heading off to the Maldives in January.

Although I'm not on immunosuppressant medication at the moment (I haven't been for more than 6 months), I've had stricture pains over the past couple of weeks that are severe and last about 2 minutes at a time. On my worst days I've counted 16 separate episodes of this throughout the day.

In normal circumstances I would take prednisolone to get it under control and taper it off, but in this instance I don't think I can because I'd be on 30mg which I've read is a level that causes sufficient suppression of the immune system to make these vaccines unsafe.

From what I've read Typhoid is a live vaccine which I should be particularly concerned about, and if I was in need of steroids or any other immunosuppressant after the vaccine I'd have to wait at least three weeks - that's what worries me!

Does anyone have any advice here? What are my options? If I bring it up tomorrow and I'm told I have no alternative, what should I do?

If anyone has been through similar, or has some knowledge on the subject, it would be great to hear from you!

 

[MamiDoll]

Definitely discuss your concerns with your GI as you have here. It makes complete sense. No one wants to be stuck in another country sick. Either with a vaccine preventable disease or IBD complications. Well I took a quick look on the CDC site. Here in the USA the typhoid vaccine it looks like there are 2 options. One is the live vaccine, TY21a. The other is Parenteral Vi. The Cdc site, as you know, does not recommend the live attenuated TY21a vaccine to those who are immunocompromosed. Hep B & A are not live, as it seems you know. I'd be concerned as you are. It's nice to know you have prednisone available if needed while you are away. I'm not familiar with UK systems for public health. Maybe there is a govt dept similar to our Center for disease control? Here is the link to the info I found on the typhoid for you. Happy travels!
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6411a4.htm

 

[SecretWeapon]

It turned out to be OK. There were two separate injections they wanted to give, a combined Hep A and Hep B and Typhoid.

Thankfully, both were not live, and so shouldn't be a concern if I'm in need of prednisolone. Even better, I'm able to spread them out, so I just had the Hep A and B today, will have Typhoid in a couple of weeks, and then a second dose of Hep A and B in a month.

Fingers crossed it'll all go smoothly!