to ask - chicken pox

[dubbada]

if you could vacinate would you?

Both my DSs have been vaccinated.DH had it at 35 it was totally horrendous for him and his feeling was that if you have the option of never having it take it!

My feeling is it very much depends on the child. For some parents the risk of harm from vaccination is far less than the risk of harm from the illness. For others the risk of harm from the illness is perceived to be minimal while that from vaccination is an unknown quantity and so they decide to go the natural immunity (via contracting the virus) route.

My 2 have both had CP, but if they hadn't had it by their teens I'd have had them vaccinated - they are otherwise healthy and CP is an appalling illness in adults. One of the sickest patients I've had to look after was a mid30s man with CP.

Yes, I had my dd privately vaccinated. I remember having a very bad case of cp as a child and didn't want dd to go through it.

I did some research into it and decided that the vaccine was the way to go.

ds has been as recommended by our gp, it was done on the nhs, as he has underlying health issues and she felt that he could suffer some unpleasant complications if he contracted chicken pox.

If DD hadn't had it then yes, I would have done when pregnant with DC2.

But she had it mild and actually, it was fine. She was very little when she had it, before I even knew you could vaccinate.

Nurse at my health centre, who does the "standard" NHS vaccinations, urged me to privately vaccinate mine with whatever I could afford. So far we do flu jabs privately, but will probably do more, as we plan to travel with the DCs.

Why do they not have a different for boys as rubella is not cryptic for them?

I was told that children in America and France are routinely vaccinated but the NHS can't afford this. Vaccination not only avoids chicken pox but also the possibility of getting shingles later. My Dsis has been very ill with this a number of times.
Your friend's story is desperately sad BBTitanium.

It was my understanding that the chicken pox vaccine actually makes it more likely for shingles to develop as an adult.

At least there was certainly that suggestion in the press a few years ago - evidenced by an apparent increase in shingles in us where vaccine routinely offered.

I haven't had my 3 vaccinated. Older two had chicken pox before ds2 was born. He hasn't had it yet.

My oldest 2 are vaccinated but my youngest got cp before we vaccinated her.

I think the argument about shingles is if we vaccinated against cp we would no longer be exposed to cp as children wouldn't develop it, every time we are exposed to it we boost our immunity to it and this would no longer happen and that would make us more susceptible to shingles.

No you cant get shingles if you are vaccinated. You have to have had cp.

The thinking is that with more vaccinations and less people having chicken pox there is less routine exposure to the virus in general life for those who have had chicken pox. This may make shingles more likely as the body has less constant exposure - still to be fully quantified.

Vaccination standard in us and lots of europe.

Both my girls have had it. One had a mild dose (10 spots no fever or illness) and if that was all they both had, I would have advised you not to bother with a vaccine. The other twin had well over 300 spots, almost joined up and in every crevice imaginable. She suffered so much and I'd never want to see her go through that again. I'd vaccinate now, knowing what I know from her experience .

I vaccinated DS as soon as I found out I was pregnant, because I can't develop immunity (I had it as a child and was vaccinated as an adult - no dice). But I would have had him vaccinated anyway if he had his teens without getting chicken pox - it's an absolutely awful disease to get as an adult.

There is an article in today's Daily Mail about a child who died from complications caused by chicken pox and the fact that he hadn't been given antibiotics for a secondary bacterial infection. Very sad.

It costs £55 at the local private GP

Yup I would have. I had two very ill little boys here, they had it their mouths, throats and ears. It was not at all funny.

DD had it mouth, throat, ears, soles of feet, vagina, started to hallucinate
Very scary time
A few years later another dc got it , hardly any spots
Guess it must be different strains or immune reaction

I'm currently suffering from shingles, got antivirals from GP as soon as the hypersensitive skin feeling started so its limited the pain, still feel crap

Why can't you get shingles if you've been vaccinated? I know you have to have had cp before you can develop shingles but the vaccine is attenuated so surely that means you can develop shingles as you've triggered the immune response as if you've had cp.

I got DD vaccinated.

I would definitely have given it to mine. DTD had it first and breezed through but DTS got it 3 weeks later and suffered terribly. It was all over his entire little body, willy, bum, balls, everywhere. He was so I'll and has quite a few scars. DS2 also caught it aged 5 mo despite EBF. Horrible illness.

Not sure did not, vaccine is not lifelong immunity. Lasts I think around 15 yrs so immunity reducing when illness more likely to be serious.

I certainly would vaccinate if it was part of the programme and tbh if I was having another dc I would be thinking about a private jab. I've heard a few too many nasty stories of chicken pox complications now to take the risk. As it is all my dds have come through CP safely.

We had it on the NHS for DS as I can't go near anybody who has CP as I have no immunity (never developed it and had it several times both as adult and child ) and I'm now immunocompromised due to other health issues, so is very dangerous for me. My fab Health visitor's suggestion when DS was wee as we couldn't work out how we'd cope if he caught it as I wouldn't be able to look after him and one of us would have to move out of the house for duration etcetc so just figured it was the most sensible outcome rather than trying to plan for An inevitable yet unworkable situation. He's been though 4 serious bouts of it doing the nursery rounds and so far it seems to be working.
Yes it might get less effective as he gets older but a) it's easier to cope with the childcare issues when older b) he's less likely to come in regular contact when he's older, c) he may have inherited some of my screwy immune system so we have no idea what will happen.

But people are just more likely to talk about and spread the bad stories. The vast majority of cases have no complications whatsoever and people don't really say much about them.

It's a bit like childbirth - you'll always hear more stories about the horrors of it and how many things go wrong and if you listened to them all you'd be terrified to even have children!