Tetanus worry

[zeldohs]

I recently found out that I missed my final booster against tetanus as a teenager (the last one I had was when I was 3 years old, almost 20 years ago now). I’m due to catch up on it in 4 days, but this morning I noticed a small red dot on my finger. I’ve squeezed it to see if any blood would surface and none did. I cleaned and disinfected it as soon as I saw it, but it’s possible it had been there for a while.

I broke a glass in my room a few days ago, so I’m worried that I might have missed a small shard that may have punctured my skin slightly. I’m also worried that some dirt may have gotten onto the shard beforehand from my shoes (which I’ve been wearing in my room since I broke the glass because of my anxiety. Funny how that’s come back to bite me!)

I’ve been struggling a lot with my anxiety lately and would appreciate some opinions. Am I worrying over nothing?

Thank you!

[MagpieWitch]

Tetanus would require a lot of blood and a deep wpund because it develops in the blood from the absence of oxygen. There's a reason why nost commonly bullet wounds gave tetanus to people during the world wars. Also nails and such. Not small red dots. You have nothing to worry about!

[zeldohs]

Thank you for your reply! I made the mistake of using google which didn't help my anxiety by listing a bunch of trivial ways to contract tetanus (including something as small as a pin prick!) but I suppose getting it in those ways is extremely unlikely. I'll try to keep my mind off it until I get my booster on Tuesday. Thank you for your reassurance :)

[Cuckoo8]

Here they’ve recently began to recommend that adults don’t even get a tetanus booster more often than every 20 years. You probably have some kind of immunity left even though it’s been so long.