***** I found out what a Titer test is..
I used my "smart brain" and found a link in the sticky above.. duh.. lol
This particular one didn't think Titer Tests were very helpful.. thoughts?
Scientifically, a pet can have a zero titer and still resist infection. It can have a high titer and still become infected. So what does the "titer" number really mean? Titers are a measure of the number of antibodies per volume of blood, and that's all. They do not reflect immunity to disease. (Remember back to the page on humoral and cell-mediated immunity. An animal can have lots of antibiodies but lack cell-mediated immunity and become infected. An animal can also have no antibodies but lots of cell-mediated immunity, and be resistant to infection. It depends on the organism and its particular weaknesses.)
Titers are a valuable tool in one circumstance - when we are trying to determine whether an animal has been vaccinated before (as in the case of a stray animal with an unknown vaccine history). I will also do titers in some cases in pets that have had appropriate vaccinations previously, but where we want to have some reassurance that the animal probably has mounted an adequate immune response. This might include cases where puppies were vaccinated at a very young age, or in a pet that might have been immunosuppressed at the time of vaccination. Sometimes we will titer test new patients when we want to change from an annual schedule that the previous vet had advocated to a three-year protocol, and the owner needs some reassurance that "protection" is there.
In most cases, though, titers give a false sense of security. There is absolutely no consensus as to when to revaccinate an animal based on titer tests. Do you revaccinate if the titer gets under 1:50? 1:20? 1:5? Zero? Since there is no way to correlate the number with actual protection, there is no "magic" titer number at which we vaccinate.
If it doesn't tell us whether the dog is protected, and doesn't tell us whether he needs a booster vaccination, a titer test is pretty much a waste of money. We get a result, but the result is of little practical or scientific value.
Titers