To get DS vaccinated against chickenpox?

[HamCob]

DS 6 hasn't had chickenpox and although there are some germs flying around school at the moment I haven't heard of anyone having chicken pox in a fairly long while.

I'm getting a bit anxious that he hasn't had it yet as I know it can be quite nasty at any age but particularly in teens/adulthood.

DH thinks along the lines of 'well catching it never did me any harm' but one of my secondary school friends was hospitalised when it went into her spinal cord and travelled to her brain so I admit to being a bit twitchy.

I'm not sure whether to wait and see if he catches it naturally or get the vaccination. I don't want to hang on too long though as the vaccination is more effective in children than teens or adults.

So AIBU to get him vaccinated or would you hold off?

I had chicken pox at 15 and it was a minor illness. My oldest had it at 16 months and was sick for 6 months, it went to his gut and caused toddler diarrhea. So my gp thinks anyway. I was determined to get second child vaccinated but he also got it at 16 months but it was just a minor illness. Even as a standard illness it is very inconvenient, 10 days of isolation isn't easy for anyone but we all know that....

Personally if I had a girl I would 100% vaccinate because you don't want to pregnant with no antibodies. For a boy.... probably 50/50

I would vaccinate.

DD2 had it when she was 1 and suffered horribly, I had no idea CP could be that bad.

I enquired about getting DD1 (then 3) vaccinated but had to wait c.2 weeks to see if she had the virus.

Unsurprisingly, she did, but thankfully only a mild case.

I caught chicken pox when I was 12 and had it really badly. Ended up on antivirals and sleeping tablets and was off school for about a month. I’ve now got quite bad scars on my face and body which I was teased about relentlessly in secondary school.

Luckily DS caught it at nursery when he was quite young and had a really mild case otherwise I would have had him vaccinated. Ex DH caught it as an adult and it absolutely floored him for a good couple of weeks.

The only clinical reason that the CP vaccination was not entered into the system for childhood vaccinations by NICE was the potential for increased incidence of shingles in adults.

The US has now been vaccinating for years and no increase in incidence of shingles has been recorded. I expect that in the next review the CP vaccination will just be added to the programme.

I gave it to my children, painless, quick and no side effects for us.

My eldest has T1 diabetes which is an auto immune disease caused by the immune system overreacting to viral infection and attacking the insulin producing cells in the pancreas.

I read a study that showed the incidence of T1 diabetes fell in Australia after they introduced chicken pox vaccine as a standard childhood immunisation.

My youngest was 9, still hadn't got chicken pox so I brought her for a private vaccine. Just didn't want to take any chances.

I decided to get my DS the chickenpox vaccine after visiting family in the US where it's part of the usual childhood vaccination regime. My American SIL was really shocked when I said we don't vaccinate again CP in the UK. When I did a bit of research I saw that most developed nations (including most European countries and Australia) vaccinate children against CP so I decided to get it privately for DS and I think he was around 6 at the time.
I had CP when I was a kid and can still remember the awful scratching! I also have 4 or 5 scars on my body and one is on my face. I'm so glad I got him vaccinated as there was a big outbreak at his school just before we were due to fly to the US again to visit family. He was the only one in his class not to get it!
I get that not having CP as a child puts you at risk of having shingles as an adult however we use the shingles vaccine in the UK so surely this will be protective?

I dithered about this as the dc got older and then they caught it aged 6 and 11. Both had it quite badly and have big scars on their faces. Poor 11 year old was really bad and in tears with it. I would vaccinate if I had my time again.

Surely you still catch it but your immune system deals with it and prevents you developing the virus and you never get symptoms. It doesn't put a forcefield round you that the virus can't break through

It depends on how you define ‘catch it’, I guess. By that definition no vaccine can be considered preventive.

By the same token by that definition you couldn’t say that wild-acquired chickenpox stopped you catching it again - you’d ‘catch’ it again and the antibodies and other immunity developed from infection would stop it developing. Same as the vaccine.

I’ve used ‘catch it’ as ‘stop it taking hold in your body’ rather than ‘have come into contact with it and have small amounts of virus in your system that your existing immunity is successfully neutralising’’. I think the former is a more commonly understood definition of immunity to a virus.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122114955.htm

Chicken pox is more fatal to children than COVID which will blow much of Mumsnet's minds!

I'd vaccinate. DD1 had it age 3 before I knew there was a vaccine and DD2 got it before she was old enough for vaccine, otherwise I definitely would have vaccinated her

Yes I had mine done as I know a child who died from complications that came from chicken pox.

My DS2 caught it from his brother when he was nine months old. He ended up in hospital, terribly ill. He's 20 now and still has very visible scars.

DS got chicken pox at nursery, thankfully very mild didn't bother him at all. For most it is mild, but if it puts your mind at rest, why not. I was ill with chicken pox as a kid, my siblings were fine. Weirdly though I had measles and that was really mild. We all got measles milder than chickenpox

I've vaccinated both my kids. My reasons are that CP is unpleasant, I still have scarring and remember how horrible it was, and obviously in rare cases it can be life-threatening so if I have the means to prevent that, why wouldn't I?

The shingles argument makes no sense - if you don't get CP then you can't get shingles as it's a reactivation of the dormant virus. I understand that exposure to active CP for adults can boost their protection from shingles, but there's a shingles vaccine that would do the same job. Government are cheapskates is what it seems to boil down to.

Wasn’t available when my children were small, the eldest three had it at the same time one and three weren’t too bad but number two son was extremely poorly, thought I was going to lose him at one stage, and scabbed from the top of his head to the soles of his feet so he was unable to stand up.
Four and five went down with it as one and three recovered, neither of them were as bad as two but were very unwell for at least a month.
I also got it (3rd time, had it twice before and also have had shingles since ) luckily unborn number six was fine.
I would have vaccinated in a heartbeat had it been available and now would happily pay for any of my grandchildren if their parents weren’t able to.

We've had all our kids vaccinated. When I looked into it to find a bit more data about how badly it does affect children in the UK. I found a paper looking at rates between 2001 and 2011 and was actually shocked to discover almost 3000 under 15s are hospitalised with it every year, most of whom are otherwise healthy and the rate has been increasing over the years.

It's table 2 in this paper www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4304893/#!po=41.6667

Sorry should have added the study covered England only, it would obviously be higher if NI, Scotland and Wales were also included.

Why wouldn't you? I can't understand the logic of allowing your child to suffer illness unnecessarily for the sake of a few quid to vaccinate. Other countries vaccinate as standard.

We did. It is not a part of NHS because of the cost and perceived risk of shingles in elderly as there will be fewer CP kids running around. This wasn't the case in US.
Most importantly, what is 'mild ilness' for most could be pretty horrible for some. There is no reason to suffer

@ScaredOfDinosaurs it's more than a few quid. IIRC I paid around £250 5 years ago so not cheap. Not everyone can afford that which makes it more of a shame that's it's not given on the NHS.

I'm based in Australia. Our vaccination schedule has CP vaccine as mandatory. Also decreases the likelihood of shingles later on- which can be bloody painful. Also helps to protect those who can't get the vaccine- which is anyone who is immunocompromised as they can not receive it. If you're thinking about, I would.

Chickenpox is horrible. When my dd had it she had to isolate for 11 days and it cost me loads in lost earnings. I would vaccinate.

It's hard. DS had it 3 times, it made him very ill. Spots literally everywhere you can think of, privates, inside eyelids, ears and all round his mouth.

DD was 5 years older than him and never got it, or so we thought until she had a seriously nasty case of shingles as a teenager. So she had had it but so mildly that we didn't even know.

Next DC was vaccinated as soon as we were able to arrange it as both the shingles and CP wasn't something we wanted them to have to go through.

So even if they get it v v mildly you've the risk of shingles to contend with.

My kids got it on the NHS because I'm not immune to CP (I've had it several times including as an adult - really really not fun) but have never managed to become immune. I have an auto immune disease which is probably why and am now immunosuppressed so CP is quite dangerous for me undoubtedly requiring hospitalisation. I cannot be vaccinated for it so my kids are to reduce the risk with the bonus that they can avoid it too.
Mine are 5 & 12 and so far so good.
A lot of the long term studies are from other countries where they have been routinely vaccinating for 20+ yrs and so far the computer modelled theories that worried about shingles/ immunity wearing off as adults haven't been borne out.

Boots offers the 2 doses for £140