I received a tetanus vaccination in September 2006 in my left upper arm. I was told to expect soreness for 24 hours. I experienced severe pain in the first 24 hours and then since I have had moderate pain to movement and have actually been unable to regain full range of motion secondary to severe pain. I think I have suffered an injury to my brachial nerve, either inflammatory or traumatic. I received a medrol dose pack from my family doctor which helped temporarily. Has anyone else experienced a reaction to the tetanus toxoid similar to this and what did you do for it? I doubt that I would ever take the tetanus vaccine again.

Doctor Joshua’s Answer:

If the vaccine was accidentally injected into a nerve, it is conceivable that nerve damage could occur, and you should consult your physician about taking measures to restore your arm function with the aid of medication and physical therapy, and also possibly start a course of medication such as Lyrica or Neurontin for a time in order to minimize the pain and also to reduce the risk of developing chronic pain.

Before taking it at face value that this is indeed due to nerve damage, other causes should be carefully ruled out, such as infection/ abscess as a local complication of vaccine administration (physical examination, blood tests, ultrasound…) and also other possible causes.

Let this not deter you from keeping your tetanus vaccination up-to-date - it’s a very important vaccination and tetanus can be fatal. Complications such as this are very, very rare, but of course they do unfortunately sometimes happen and you were very unlucky.