Pneumonia Shots

I am writing this blog post as a public service. I have information on pneumonia shots that was not exactly easy to acquire. So I want to share it. If you don’t care about pneumonia shots, you’re welcome to read any of the previous 1,369 articles I’ve published here.

A few weeks ago I went for a routine visit to my doctor. During my visit, she asked me if I had gotten a pneumonia shot. I told her I had. I had gotten a Prevnar 13 shot a few years ago. It protects against 13 strains of bacteria. Then she asked if I had gotten the follow-up shot. I said, “There’s a follow-up shot?” That was news to me.

But indeed, there is a follow-up shot and it’s called Pneumovax 23. It protects against 23 types of pneumococcal bacteria. You’re supposed to get the second shot at least one year after the first shot.

The first thing I wanted to do was to verify that I had gotten the first shot. My memory can be flakey about medical issues. I called my primary insurance and asked them if a pneumonia shot was in my records. I was told it was not but, at that time of the evening, they didn’t have access to all my records. So I called again the next morning. I was able to verify that I had gotten the first pneumonia shot four years and one month ago.

I went to my pharmacy to get the follow-up shot, and the pharmacist told me that since the Prevnar 13 shot was so long ago, I needed to get it again, then wait a year before I got the second shot. That information just defied logic to me. Both shots are good for life. Why would I have to get another Prevnar 13?

I called my doctor’s office and I was told the same thing. Get another “first shot” and wait a year. Although the doctor and the pharmacist agreed that I should start over, it still defied logic to me. I didn’t believe it.

I went to another pharmacy and explained the situation. This pharmacist told me she didn’t think another Prevnar 13 shot was needed. I agreed. We discussed it and she finally took out her phone and went to the CDC website for prescribing information. She probably spent 10 or 15 minutes reading about the two shots before she found the relevant information. You’re supposed to wait a minimum of one year after the first shot, not wait exactly one year. In fact, the data collected by the CDC showed that the longer one waits before getting the second shot, the more effective the first shot becomes. So waiting 2 years is better than waiting 1 year, and waiting 3 years is better than waiting 2 years, and waiting 4 years is better than waiting 3 years. That’s as far as their data went. So I told the pharmacist, “Let’s go with the Pneumovax 23.”

And that’s what we did.