Whooping cough - not just a 1940s disease

[margerybruce]

Can I just take this opportunity to ask everyone to go and get a booster for whooping cough?

I have just recovered from this shitty horrible disease and it's really knocked me for six. I had to have a month off work and I was ill for at least two months before that, trying to work through it before I knew that's what I had.

I have asthma so it was made worse by that.

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/pertussis-whooping-cough

From the CDC - In the first year after getting vaccinated, whooping cough vaccines for adolescents and adults (called Tdap) protect about 7 out of 10 people who receive them. There is a decrease in effectiveness in each following year. About 3 or 4 out of 10 people are fully protected 4 years after getting Tdap.

The main problem with whooping cough is you are most infective whilst you have the early 'cold' symptoms. By the time you've twigged your cough isn't your average cough, you've been infecting people for weeks :(

I caught it from DD2, despite being given prophylactic ABs. Definitely shortened the illness though, and I am eternally grateful to have a GP surgery that listens to their patients, and acts on their suspicions. They were v dubious when I took DD2 back last year, and said I suspected she had WC again, but they humoured me, did the tests, and she was positive - they then tested me again to see if it was a false negative produced by her relatively recent first bout.

I caught mumps as an adult, I lost some of my hearing because of it :(

Sorry to hear that Niffler My dad and his sister both lost about 50% of their hearing after a childhood bout of measles and became profoundly deaf in later life when age related hearing loss kicked in as well.

I think people have forgotten just why we have vaccinations for these diseases.

Indeed. I've seen first hand what mumps and whooping cough can do, and I lost a childhood friend to encephalitis from measles.

I just hope GPS are more informed or more willing to listen to people when they suggest WC. While I was never "officially" diagnosed I had WC in 2012. My 8 yr old DD also caught it (from me, a month later) but our GP refused to believe we had WC as it is very rare and DD was vaxxed at the 3 yr boosters. Us both having asthma was the reason given for our breathing difficulties.

It took me from june-aug to finally turn the corner and many appointments at the GP. I work with young children and told the GP this but was eye rolled out of his office many many times and told to stop googling. I never whooped, just coughed until I thought I'd choke to death. I really thought several times I could quite possibly die, it really felt like that at the time.

My daughter took longer to get over it, well over the 3 months it took me to recover she was still having coughing fits (again no whoop) and in the Oct the GP agreed to send her for a blood test to basically stop me from insisting it was WC and we could finally rule it out and move on. A few weeks later in early Nov we received a letter from the health protection agency saying her results tested positive for WC. All those months I was dismissed, all those people we could have infected, all those eye rolls, all those times I was made to feel like I was wasting their time, wasting resources, being a internet diagnoser.

Never did receive an apology from the GP either.

I know realistically there was nothing they could have done for me, by the time I put two and two together and thought this is WC I was past the stage of being infectious, but my daughter could have been treated, she might have had an easier ride, she wouldn't have spread it (or potentially spread it) her symptoms may have been lesser.

Since her illness nearly 5 years ago her asthma is significantly worse. She rarely needed a blue inhaler, was on a minimum amount of preventer and super well controlled. That changed after WC and we are still dealing with that now. 3 diff inhalers, tablets, many many many courses of oral steroids and I'm convinced to this day it's all because of WC.