Connecticut Vaccinations & Immunizations

When a disease enters your body, it begins to reproduce itself and spread throughout. Your immune system recognizes this as foreign invaders and will attempt to combat the infection by making antibodies. The antibodies are responsible for destroying the germs. Unfortunately, they don’t act fast enough to prevent you from becoming sick, but by attacking the germs, the antibodies help you get well faster.

The secondary job of antibodies is to protect your body from future infections of the same disease. The created antibodies will remain in your bloodstream and will fight off the same germs if they try to infect you again––even after many years. Now that the antibodies have fought these germs before, they will destroy them before they have the chance to make you sick. This is known as immunity, which is exactly what vaccines are used for. Immunity is why the majority of people experience diseases like measles or chickenpox only once, even if you become exposed again.

Vaccines help your body go straight to the second step. Instead of experiencing the illness once, vaccines help you develop immunity without getting sick. Vaccines are made from the same germs that cause common diseases. For example, the flu vaccine is made from the flu virus. However, the germs in vaccines are either killed or greatly weakened so you won’t feel the effects of the illness.

Vaccines are introduced to your body through injection. The immune system reacts to the germs in the vaccine in a similar way to how it would if it were being invaded by the actual disease––by making antibodies. The antibodies destroy the germs inside the vaccine just as they would with the disease germs. Think of it as a training exercise. The antibodies then stay in your body, which gives you immunity. If you ever become exposed to the disease, the antibodies created from the vaccine will be there to protect you.