To hunt down these bastards who exposed my son to chicken pox

It's very bad timing when he will just want to fit in with all the others starting a new school.
The positive side is he gets chicken pox over now whilst he's young and it should be relatively mild. It's a lot more serious to get it as an adult and can have very unpleasant complications then.

Awareness of the vaccine being available is low - it is not promoted in the UK, although it is available privately. If you don't know it exists, you can't make sure your kids have it. NHS don't think it's worth doing as part of normal childhood vaccines, so that makes people think twice about it if they even do know.

And the cost is a barrier, especially at a time when so many people (clearly not those buying Oasis tickets) are struggling. It is not cheap to vaccinate something which basically is a mild childhood illness (for most.)

That’s so sad that you speak to people in this way. Really is.

Better for your child to get it while he's young although I thi k those patents were irresponsible

That is annoying, I feel they should have warned parents if they took him there and let him play outside near others. Pregnant women, elderly etc are at risk not just your son.

Being Devils Advocate, having Chicken Pox as an adult can be dangerous and more stronger. Having it as a child is safer, if he hasn’t had CP he was at risk everywhere. It may have been better to have got the vaccine if he hadn’t caught it by Year 2, that’s the general consensus around here.

Sorry to hear he is missing out on the first few days of a new school, however all kids are moving around in the first few months he will fit right in when he’s ready.

This

In the UK, most vaccinations that are standard elsewhere are not available. I paid privately, but it was several hundred pounds. Given children are encouraged to attend school sick in the UK, even when they have Covid, nothing surprises me. The result is lots and lots of young folks unable to work due to longterm sickness. It's just culturally different.

They were always that serious. People just didn’t have as much access to information, and were doing their best to protect their children in whatever ways they could. Vaccines are a better, safer method of protection. Why choose a dangerous way (pox party) that could leave your child scarred, blinded, brain damaged etc., when you don’t need to?

After 2 doses the vaccine is 98% effective in children, 75% in teens and adults, so, yes, there are some breakthrough infections, most mild. Lucky him not to have been very ill!

Sometimes even having chicken pox doesn’t mean they won’t get it again. My twins had it at three and I was quite happy about getting it out the way then they caught it again one after the other over Christmas when they were seven.

There just aren’t any guarantees unfortunately just luck : genetics.

It is really not standard in the UK - noone I know vaccinates their kids from chicken pox

Sorry, but the hell has got £150 to pay for a vaccine for a disease that we know is catching and that you shouldn’t be sharing it around! And yes, I do remember the chicken pox parties of the 80’s…

Getting the vaccine doesn’t stop them catching chicken pox. My son had the vaccine when he was a younger. He caught chickenpox when he was 17. He was covered with spots, which have scarred. The only good thing about having the vaccine, it stopped him being ill with it.

I do speak to people like this , especially people I know that need a healthy dose of reality

They haven’t ‘suddenly become’ so serious 😵‍💫 They always were. My mum (born 1960) had at least a couple of friends who had long term problems from having mumps and measles. Why wouldn’t you avoid that if you could?

Have you not read any replies? 😵‍💫

I wonder if people like you would speak to someone in real life like this. Like if your friend came to you upset their child had chicken pox and was upset about school would you say this to them? Genuinely would you? It’s just so disgusting and rude and the reason mumsnet has the reputation it has.

The OP has a poorly son who caught something off an irresponsible parent who allowed a contagious child to play with him. He’s missing an important first week of high school. It’s ok for them to be upset. Just because other people have worse problems doesn’t mean the OPs aren’t valid.

Is there a chickenpox vaccine?

I was born in 1956 and if anybody in our street got a childhood disease ie. measles, chicken pox, mumps all the other children went to play with them hoping to catch it to make them immune. I can't understand why these diseases have suddenly become so dangerous.

Oh what Selfish pigs, that’s really nasty,especially letting him run around with other children..🤦‍♀️
..hopefully you have had your son immunised ✔️

The shingles vaccine is £450. The chicken pox vaccine is c.£150. They are two different things.

Oh FFS ! Get over yourself , if he isn’t vaccinated then he will get it - guaranteed , the older someone is when they get it the worse it is. If this is all you have to worry about then it’s not so bad

That's fine, you're absolutely not obligated to engage, but I do think it's really odd not to be able to just say, in the face of actual, you know, evidence, oops, things might have changed since I asked my gp (or something like that).

For anyone who gave up on this discussion, but is considering the vaccine, the cost is around £150 for both jabs, not £450.

Not engaging with this any more. Posting from personal experience. If you don’t like it, that’s not my problem. If you prefer to rely on Google that’s up to you, but I’m posting from experience in the real world.

Yes, just edited to reply