If you visit a doctor or general practitioner on a regular basis, then you should have received a tetanus vaccination within the past ten years. However, you may not know what tetanus is, what causes this type of infection, and how to treat it. Since this illness can be quite deadly if no medical attention is sought, it is important for people to be aware of how tetanus is spread and what its symptoms are.

Tetanus can be a very serious sequel to an injury with broken skin or a puncture wound. But, getting it also means that your immune system is badly compromised.When you injure yourself and break the skin, there is always a possibility of getting an infection or worse, tetanus. If you take Arnica immediately and feel relief from the pain, then it is unlikely you will get either an infection or anything more serious.Infection typically comes after an unclean object has penetrated your skin. Such as barbed wire, a rusty nail. That sort of thing. This is known as a puncture or stab wound.

Tetanus is caused by a very potent toxin produced by the anaerobic bacterium, Clostridium tetani. This spores of this organism is are very resistant to environmental factors and are found widely distributed in soil and in the intestines and feces of horses, sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, rats, guinea pigs, and chickens. Manure-treated soil may contain large numbers of spores. In agricultural areas, a significant number of human adults may harbor the organism.

These spores are usually introduced into the body through a puncture wound contaminated with soil, street dust, animal bites or animal or human feces, through lacerations, burns or trivial unnoticed wounds or by injecting contaminated drugs. So many times you hear about concern over stepping on a rusty nail, however the rust has nothing to do with tetanus. At this point the spores germinate into the bacteria which multiply and produce toxin.

A form of tetanus found in newborns called neonatal tetanus occurs in infants born without protective passive immunity, because the mother is not immune. It usually occurs through infection of the unhealed umbilical stump, particularly when the stump is cut with an unsterile instrument. Though rare in this country, it causes about a quarter of a million deaths worldwide
Tetanus is caused by a bacterium called Clostridium tetani. It produces spores, which are very resistant and can survive treatment with many disinfectants. In its active form, the organism thrives in conditions with little oxygen. So damaged tissue buried underneath the skin is an ideal habitat.

The best prevention against tetanus is proper immunisation as tetanus occurs almost exclusively in people who are unvaccinated or inadequately immunised. In the UK the vaccination is included in children's vaccination programmes and is part of the combined diphtheria/tetanus/polio/haemophilus influenza b vaccine. For adults and teenagers it is included in the tetanus/diphtheria/polio vaccine. The vaccination course involves 5 doses of vaccinations: the primary course is given as 3 separate doses each a month apart, normally it is given to babies, starting when they are two months old, but it can be given to adults as well. In children the fourth dose is given three years after their primary course, in adults it is administered ten years after the primary course. Finally the fifth dose is given ten years after the fourth. The primary course provides protection for a number of years while the fourth and fifth doses maintain this protection and should last a life-time. Vaccinations inject a small amount of dead or harmless bacteria into the blood, which the body recognises as foreign.

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