Any Advice on the Varicella Immunization
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Any Advice on the Varicella Immunization
| Tue, 09-12-2006 - 11:43pm |
Hi Everyone, I am new here so Bear with me please. I hope I am asking the right group, if not maybe someone could direct me to the right place. Does anyone have any thoughts on the chicken pox vaccine? My children's pediatrician says he is not a big supporter of the vaccine I am confused and am not sure weather they should get it or not.....If anyone has any pros, cons, or advice I would be glad to hear it so I can clear this up in my mind thanks so much!

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Hi, I am new here too, nice to meet you. Anyway, the way we looked at it is this...
1) this is fairly new with unproven side effects and an unknown duration of protection.
2) VERY rarely is Chicken pox dangerous and unless you get them as an adult they arent particularly painfull either.
3) there is some research that shows that kids who are vaccinated are getting Shingles instead at 4 and 5 years old. (A severely painful version that usually seniors and older adults get if they had chicken pox as a kid are and re-exposed) Shingles is also caused by stress in adults. A couple of reports I read said that the incidence of shingles had increased up to 300%.
I should also add however that most of our friends and family think we are insane and paranoid - their children have had it.
I'm not sure that helped but that was our take on it and our two girls have not had it.
honestly, I'm not the greatest person to answer this. I have very little knowledge of it. However, my dd who is 3, did not have the chicken pox shot. Our main reason for not doing it was
#1 fear of unknown - it is a realativly new vaccine and I havent seen very
Can I add my 2 cents????
I can speak from knowledge having had a child who has had the chicken pox. I disagree with the other posters. First...chicken pox CAN be very dangerous. It can, and often does, lead to encephalopathy. This is when the virus settles on the nervous system. My ds got chicken pox when he was 4 yrs old. Not a horrible case so I thought no big deal. Wrong!!!! He ended up with encephalopathy and was almost hospitalized. The neurologist told me that he had seen 3 other children that week with the same thing and 2 were indeed hospitalized. So, it can be dangerous.....and it can kill.
I had my younger 2 children vaccinated. I dont' ever want to go through what I went through again and I figured it is worth it to protect them.
Hi there! I'm going to give my opinion too. I believe it's best to get the vaccine rather than the chicken pox. My main reason is simple common sense. I've known a lot of people who've had the chicken pox and a lot of people who've had the vaccine. I've know several people who've had complications with the chicken pox and none who've had problems with the vaccine. I don't have any statistics, but have a very hard time believing that a vaccine with side effects worse than a communicable disease would be approved. That's not to say I think it's perfect and no one ever has problems, it's just that weighing the two options I think it's the safest. I think of it like flying 500 miles rather than driving it. In our minds we know that flying is technically safer, you're WAY more likely to die in a car accident, but just how do those planes stay up there? And all the publicity that plane crashes recieve vs. car crashes also feeds that. For some I think that vaccines are the same way, worrying about the thing you don't understand and that certain publicity has blown out of proportion. Does that make sense?
I also have a medical background and a pretty good understanding of immunology. Unless your child becomes immunocompromised, he should maintain immunity. If he does get the disease, there should be enough of a response that it won't be as bad as it would've been had he not had it. And so what if they need a booster when they're 20? They'll get a booster. This vaccine has only been in the states for about 9 years or so, but I believe it's been used in other countries for much longer, so if your child needs a booster when they're older, then they should know that by then. And most communicable diseases that there are vaccines for are virtually nonexistant these days. Imagine how many people will have gotten the vaccine by the time your child is an adult. What's the chances he'll come into contact with chicken pox by then, anyway? Probably pretty slim. But if he hasn't had the vaccine or CP and DOES get exposed as an adult??????
So your options are to actively look for someone to expose your child to CP or get the vaccine. I know it's easy to say CP is relatively mild, but we KNOW that's not always true. Kids get hospitalized with that all the time, for very serious complications.
I had CP when I was 15, so I remember it vividly. It was not a fun illness, but I did survive. My sister's case (she was 7) was actually slightly worse than mine. She came through it ok, but has still, at the age of 25, has several scars on her face from it.
Good luck making your decision.
Erin
I really hate these kind of posts, but I feel the need to respond to this one. All 3 of my kids have had the cp vax. I was hospitilized for 7 days when I was 8 yrs old having the cp. My temp was 105.5 at its highest. I had them down my throat and on my private area. Can you say TRAUMATIZED? Also my dh had cp when he was a kid, and just a year ago, he got shingles. None of my kids caught it of course. He had to be one rx pain meds b/c the shingles hurt him so bad. So the therory that you won't get shingles if you had cp as a kid is not true. It is the parents decision to give the vax or not, and I don't think one parents choice is better than anothers. This is MY choice.
Chrissy
Hi there! I've been trying to avoid responding to this question because I didn't want to be involved in a huge debate but since it seems to be going smoothly so far I will go ahead and post our story.When our oldest Haley(now 11)was 2 my cousins son had chicken pox so I freaked out and rushed her to the Dr. for the vaccine and didn't think anything else about it.By the time our next child was born (now 8) we had started to question the vaccine and decided that we would only vaccinate our children if they hadn't had them by puberty (it was not law for school entry at the time).Well when my 11 year old was in first grade she came home from school saying that the little girl who sat across from her in class had been sent home with the chicken pox.I didn't think anything of it because I knew Haley had been immunized.Well guess what Haley had 2 weeks later??? YEP chicken pox!! And 2 weeks after that both of her brothers ages 3 and 1 had them also.I was suprised when my pediatrician told me that even immunized children could catch chicken pox and could spread them to other children.By the time Hannah was born we weren't impressed with the vaccine at all and decided that we would have her immunized at the start of kindergarten if she hadn't yet had the chicken pox because it's just become law in our state.Well this spring when Hannah was 2 she caught the chicken pox from somewhere (we have absolutely no clue as to where but think it might have been at the play area in the mall) and like our other 3 she came through them just fine.I have heard of "horror" cases out there but we didn't experience that here.We simply let them take oatmeal baths on request which they all loved since they all love taking baths.We were also told that we could give them Benedryl if they became too uncomfortable.I am relieved that all of my children have them out of the way.Something that really concerned me was the booster thing.Chicken pox are most dangerous in pregnant women.What if one of my daughters got pregnant before the booster was given and then got exposed??In a perfect world I would like to think that at 20 my daughters would be in college waiting until they graduate to start dating and definately not having any "relations" with a man until after marriage but in life there are no guarantees and I don't want my daughters and/or grandchildren to suffer because of a decision I made under pressure.I certainly don't have issues with people who have vaccinated their children against them.My sister has vaccinated all 3 of her children and my mom vaccinated my 13 year old sister as well.I feel that it is a personal decision that only you can decide.I will say that the pressure for the vaccine has dramatically increased in the past few years so be prepared to take some gruff if you decide not to do it but you should not let that sway your decision.Sorry this got so long...Hope it has been of some help to you :o)
~Heather
ProudSAHmommy of 4
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