I was bitten by my cat. My finger has a few holes and it hurts, but it doesn’t seem that bad. Do I need a tetanus shot now?
If your last tetanus shot was more than ten years ago, an injection is needed. But I would have the doctor take a look at it anyway. The annoying thing about bite wounds is that they are always infected and that the tissue around them is ‘crushed’: the supply and drainage blood vessels and lymphatic vessels are damaged. As a result, the antibodies cannot reach them properly. A cat also has sharp and thin teeth that inject the bacteria deeply, as it were. GPs are therefore more likely to give antibiotics for cat bites than for dog bites.
