Pre-Nursing school immunization catastrophe!

DisneyNurseGal, BSN, RN · Jul 15, 2012

How much are titers nowadays? My work has always paid for mine so I never get a copy

Sounds like they differ in price depending in where you are. The town where i live for ALL of the immunizations I need would have been over $2000 - but I have seen on this thread some people who said they paid less than $100.

tothepointeLVN, LVN · Jul 15, 2012

I never had the chicken pox (and had a negative titer), so I had to get the 2 vaccines. However, I was told (not sure how true it is) that there is no point in getting the titer again because it would still be negative ... apparently, only people who had the disease would have positive titers. Anyway, my school accepted the record of two recent varicella vaccines in lieu of the titer.

This is probably true since the last time I had employment titers my boss called to.find out if I had just had the chickenpox (I had it again at 21) because my titers were positive

tenjuna, MSN · Jul 16, 2012

that's really odd, just last week I did mmr, tetorifice, diptheria, varicella, hep b, and a tb test all at the same time. Not sure why you had to have multiple courses, the only one I had to do was hep b.

maybe just go somewhere else for the tb test?

varicella is $100+, hep b is $200+, cheaper to get the shots than getting the titers and getting shots for immunity you already have is not going to harm you.

I want other people to know what happened to me, so the same does not happen for them!
When I received my nursing school admission, [of course] there was a long list of immunizations that I had to obtain before school started. I am 38 years old, so who knows where my shot records are from when I was a child, and I wasn't going to pay for the titers so I went to my local health department and sat down with a nurse, showed her my list of shots, and we came up with a plan to get them all done.
I couldn't get all the shots at once because of cost and because some of the shots had to have multiple shots spread out over 28 days. The first day I received some of my shots and left with a calendar of when I was to get the rest of them.
Long story short is the nurse messed up. I went to get my (first) TB test yesterday and a different nurse told me that it was too close to my recent MMR. In to get the two TB tests and my second MMR, I would have taken me past the deadline to have everything done. My school has a zero tolerance for late items. The advisor at my school told me I would have to give up my spot in the program .
We came up with an alternative, for me to get a chest X-ray (ILO the TB test itself). I don't have insurance so this is an expensive option, but I don't have any other choice.
I should have been more educated about my program requirements - I don't blame anyone but myself; hopefully, I can share my knowledge so other people know as well.

caliotter3 · Jul 16, 2012

I wanted to get titers done for a nursing program requirement, and my doctor told me it would cost about $1100. For once in my life I thought of something quickly, and asked him if he could run it by my insurance, just in case. He contacted my insurance company and surprise, surprise! They paid for the titers! I think one should always start the process of getting documentation or actions done early so that one can accommodate the problems that are certain to occur.

DisneyNurseGal, BSN, RN · Jul 16, 2012

You can get the TB on the SAME day as your MMR or 28 days later. She never told me that when I had the MMR. She even scheduled the appointment for me for two weeks for the TB test.

JenRN1028 · Jul 16, 2012

I know this may be "too little, too late" but would you be able to use money from a student loan to pay for admission medical testing? I'm not sure if that is possible or not. Just asking....

Tigs · Jul 17, 2012

Don't know if this will help, but I'm 44 and when I needed to get my shot record , I wrote to my old high school. They had a copy and sent it to me...

jme123 · Jul 17, 2012

In Pittsburgh at the local health dept. the titers

are only $15 a piece. (I checked with my insurance company first and they would not cover them at the doctors office)

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Jul 17, 2012

Texas is now requiring vaccines AND titers. Without titers you don't know if the vaccine was effective.

snickers21 · Jul 17, 2012

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/vac-admin/downloads/contraindications-guide-508.pdf
Thanks to all who have taken the time to put their two-cents in. My chest X-ray is scheduled for Monday and all of this nonsense will be behind me! the bright side is, in the state that I live in, a chest X-ray is good for 5 years while you have to go yearly for TB tests, so in the long run, this will save me money.

So glad that it all works out for you, and even better than expected! :)

I got my shot records from my high school, but they really didn't help me. Apparently I had a MR shot instead of a MMR, so I ended up getting a MMR booster anyway. My Dr's office said that the titers where much more expensive than necessary and my insurance covers my vaxes, so they were the better route. I did my 2-step TB first, then went for my physical and 1st round of vaxes. I did have a mild case of chicken pox as a child, but wasn't sure of immunity so my Dr wanted to give me shots as a booster so I went ahead with that one as well. I also needed a tetorifice (I know my last one was much longer than 10 years prior) and I started the Hep B series. I have enough time to get the 2nd chicken pox and 2nd Hep B shot before school starts. I too had a minor freak out over the vaccinations, but it all worked out.

What a pain this all was! :lol I don't think it is really as bad as I took it, I think school starting nerves are out in full force and I still have over a month before classes begin. lol!

BabyCatchr, ADN, ASN, RN · Jul 17, 2012

Yes, allow plenty of time - at least 6 months - before admission to get your vaccinations. The Hep-B series takes at least 4 months. I had to do my TB test 3 times: once before I anticipated starting school, again right before I actually got accepted, then again a week later because there had been less than a year between the first 2 tests, so it had to be redone.

SBJustBreathe, ASN, RN · Jul 17, 2012

My schools wants proof of vaccines AND titers (I guess to "prove" that the vaccines worked?) for the Hep B and Varicella. It seems kind of overkill, but I was able to get my titers done for about $20 per test at my local health clinic. Not sure what state you're in or anything, but around here (GA) the public health clinics are always a good place to start. When I was comparing MMR vaccine prices (I ended up not needing it because I apparently already had it, but anyway) the private clinic was $130 and the public health clinic was only $15!

Your school wants proof of vaccines AND titers???? If you get a titer and have the antibody obviously you've had the vaccine, or some other form of exposure (in the case of chicken pox). To have both doesn't make sense, am I missing something?

What about the people who didn't have a varicella vaccine, they were exposed and have antibodies now? Or like me, I got antibodies through my mother because she had the chicken pox while pregnant with me (awful, I know..poor woman). My titers show I have those antibodies, so I don't need a vaccine.

Do they make exceptions for things like that? It just doesn't make sense to me.