CDC Hepatitis B Schedule and Catch Up Schedule

Hematocrit13 · May 21, 2017

Hi everyone,

The CDC guidelines for "catch up hepatitis b vaccines" state:

Give dose #2 at least 4 wks after #1; then, give dose #3 at least 8 wks after dose #2 and at least 16 wks after dose #1.

Under what circumstance would you not be giving the 3rd hep b dose 16 weeks after the first? Why even write that? I guess what I am trying to suggest is that it would be helpful for the CDC to give a sample scenario because I am having a hard time applying their schedule, especially when they also say you do not need to re-start the series!

Playing catch-up: Let's say I got Dose 1 March 21. Today is May 21, so technically I am one month overdue since according to the 'normal' hep b schedule (0, 1, 6 months), I should have gotten dose 2 on April 21 (April 18 to be precise). So let's say I get dose 2 today, May 21. Does that mean instead of waiting until September for dose 3, which I would have had to do had I been on time, I can now get dose 3 on July 21 because that is 16 weeks after dose 1?

If so, then playing catch up is the way to go if you want to compress your hep B shots into a tighter time frame!

(I really wanted to start a new topic, but I'm fairly sure I am not doing it correctly. I've been searching way too long on allnurses to figure out how. What instructions I have seen say to click on the green Start New Topic button inside the appropriate topic, but such a button does not exist! So apologies if posting in the wrong place.)

H13