For people taking immune suppressants which COVID vaccine is best?

Twice a week for PTAnd OT. I’m shooting for 3 for a while but it’s difficult. Just had cancer removed from inside my ear It required a skin graft. No PT this week. Where are you headed in Florida. I live in Boynton Beach on the east coast.

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Oh, I hope you’re able to get to the 3 times per week if it’s been helping. I’m sure that’s slow going. A femur must be a tough bone to heal! All weight bearing and I bet it’s hard to get around.
I hope your skin cancer is a once and done! I had some areas checked out this week and fortunately they’re all ok. But I’m still not sure about one spot. Going to wait a couple months and see a dermatologist instead of my PCP just to make sure.
You’re a lot farther south than we are and opposite sides of the state. We have a place on the gulf in Panama City Beach. It’s not as warm as the peninsula but for us, being from Northern Wisconsin, it’s a treat for us in the winter! 😊

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Hi @marilynredder2367 I just had to pop into this conversation to let you know a little more about antibody tests for the Covid Virus and the Covid vaccines.

The reason physicians hesitate to order covid antibody tests is because the test can’t tell you if you’re protected against the disease. It can show that you’ve had the virus and/or it can show you’ve had an immune response to the vaccination.
But the tests don’t tell the whole story in terms of the immune cells and a person’s overall ability to respond to infection. Even if our antibody count is low we could still be having an immune response from our B and T cells. But it’s not known the amount of antibodies needed for protection against COVID-19 so these tests are of limited help.

I found a good article which explains the different types of Covid testing in greater detail.
https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2021/08/can-antibody-test-tell-me-if-my-vaccine-worked

I know we’re all tired of having to be wary of Covid. But it’s going to be around for a while yet, whether we’re protected or not. What are you doing to stay safe?

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Thank you for the information. Why would my doctor tell me to 250 is what they are looking for and I only have 130? I will however go to the website you sent me. To protect myself at the tender age of 80 is difficult but I do wear a KN 95 mask and stay out of crowds. I live in Florida I can eat outdoors. I do not go to the activities of the community. Most have been shut down. However I do go to physical therapy because of a broken femur that never healed and I won’t give that up. Thank you for responding.

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The reason doctors are reluctant to order antibody tests is a fear of FDA reprisal. The FDA strongly discourages release of quantitative test results to individuals requesting them.

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Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles is doing a large longterm study with Abbott Labs which checks antibodies in the blood of patients and staff there up to once monthly. Feedback is provided. I’ve received six months of results and find that just a few months after my third (Moderna bivalent omicron) booster, my antibodies were lower than they were even before that booster. Discouraging!

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I wish they had such a study up here in the SF Bay area. I had my one and only J&J vaccine in Feb. 2021. My antibodies were > 250 in Feb. 2022 and "positive" in 2023. J&J vaccine starts out lower, but lasts longer than the others. FDA doesn't want to let the world know just how much longer. My antibody level could still be > 250, but the Kaiser test, done by Stanford Healthcare, doesn't report quantitative results for the general public, even though their machine has that information.

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