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

[littleredbumblebee]

User name changed as outing

went on a caravan holiday last week for 5 nights and my son who is 11 played with some kids from other families and had a great time- all good

On the last night one of the smaller boys was running around with no shirt on and he has spots, one of the other families asked and his mum said oh he has chicken pox but we though getting away would do him good.

I told her my son had never had chicken pox and said I bloody hoped my son was not going to come down with them. One of the other parents also said they should not have brought the kid. Basically it ended up with them going inside the caravan in a huff. The next day we all left

So today the day before my son is use to start at high school he woke up covered in spots and now has chicken pox and won’t be in for his first week at high school. Tonight he is now crying saying he won’t name any friends now and he won’t know his way around and no amount of comforting will calm him down. Very few kids for his school are going to this high school and he is so upset he will have missed out on making friends.

We have been in touch with his form tutor who has been great and has said they will support him and catch him up but I could bloody scream. How can some people be so bloody selfish.

In my country the shingles vaccine is recommended for people over 50 and it is free for 12 months after somebody turns 65 (and for some younger or older people with certain medical conditions. I chose to pay privately to have it and it costs, converting into sterling, £280-370 to have it privately in my country. No idea what they charge in the UK.

Where CP causes more serious illness there is usually an underlying cause or vulnerability. For the vast majority of children chickenpox is mild and catching it naturally is thought to build a better, longer lasting immunity than with vaccination - which by the way, does not give complete immunity to actually catching the disease, but reduces the chance of passing it on. The UK doesn’t vaccinate routinely, partly for this reason and partly because currently, expert thinking is that vaccination can actually be counter productive with CP.

When you get chickenpox as a child, the DNA stays in nerve cells, giving it the capability of reactivating years later as shingles. But being exposed to children carrying the virus later in life is thought to have a protective effect, exposing people to small doses of the virus which act as a booster to the immune system and help to prevent the chickenpox DNA in cells from flaring up again.

One of the concerns is that if most children received a chickenpox vaccine, the disease would no longer circulate in the population to the same extent and that booster effect would be removed, possibly causing adult immunity to wane faster and leading to more shingles cases.

There is ongoing research to suggest that the anticipated rise in shingles cases hasn’t happened in countries who routinely vaccinate against CP and vaccine experts in the UK are still debating the best way of introducing a vaccine into existing childhood immunisation programme - the JCVI have recommended adding it to the existing MMR vaccine, but this gives a slightly higher risk of convulsions, so for now the single vaccine remains available privately by choice. So the question of whether or not to vaccinate isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

That was a theory which doesn't appear to have actually played out in the countries that do vaccinate. Also it's incredibly short sighted - makes much more sense to bite the bullet and start vaccinating so you don't have future generations at risk of shingles as well. And you can use the shingles vaccinate for the older generations during the transition period.

How does the CP vaccine prevent shingles? I thought you'd be at the same risk as someone who caught CP "in the wild" as they say.

For the two stage vaccine in the UK it’s around £450.

I’ve posted upthread a little in more detail.

If you can tell others that their priorities are wrong then yes you are privileged because it means you have a choice. Many dont.

The US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea all have universal chick pox vaccination. Also many European countries ( UK and France are two that don't but many do)

Just to clarify the reaction he had to the vaccine was he came out in a rash and his tongue and mouth began to swell. Lucky this happened near enough straight as we were walking out of the doctors so he was treated really quickly and spent a night in hospital. It was doctors who said don’t let him have the second so it was taken out of our hands. Not that we would have gone ahead if it had been left to us.

Those who have been vaccinated against chickenpox can still get the disease, but* * they usually have milder symptoms with fewer or no blisters and a mild or no fever. They are sick for a shorter period of time than those who are not vaccinated and shedding is reduced so the chance of passing on the disease to others is less. But the vaccine doesn’t prevent shingles if you do get CP.

I only have one DS. At the time we easily afforded the vaccine but I have become disabled since and can’t work so now we would struggle as at the moment we are living month to month with money. So I can perfectly understand how some families can’t. Once upon a time I would have said it’s only £150. But now I understand what’s it like to not have much to spare

Where CP causes more serious illness there is usually an underlying cause or vulnerability. For the vast majority of children chickenpox is mild and catching it naturally is thought to build a better, longer lasting immunity than with vaccination - which by the way, does not give complete immunity to actually catching the disease, but reduces the chance of passing it on. The UK doesn’t vaccinate routinely, partly for this reason and partly because currently, expert thinking is that vaccination can actually be counter productive with CP.

When you get chickenpox as a child, the DNA stays in nerve cells, giving it the capability of reactivating years later as shingles. But being exposed to children carrying the virus later in life is thought to have a protective effect, exposing people to small doses of the virus which act as a booster to the immune system and help to prevent the chickenpox DNA in cells from flaring up again.

One of the concerns is that if most children received a chickenpox vaccine, the disease would no longer circulate in the population to the same extent and that booster effect would be removed, possibly causing adult immunity to wane faster and leading to more shingles cases.

There is ongoing research to suggest that the anticipated rise in shingles cases hasn’t happened in countries who routinely vaccinate against CP and vaccine experts in the UK are still debating the best way of introducing a vaccine into existing childhood immunisation programme - the JCVI have recommended adding it to the existing MMR vaccine, but this gives a slightly higher risk of convulsions, so for now the single vaccine remains available privately by choice. So the question of whether or not to vaccinate isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

Our children are all vaccinated against CP in the normal routine immunisations in Australia. My daughter still got it in Portugal (she was 19 at the time) and had it quite bad. I’m not sure if the vaccine wears off perhaps over time? I’m shocked it’s not standard somewhere like the UK to be honest.

CP parties were a thing here too, but it's part of the childhood vaccination schedule now in most developed countries.

It's not considered better to develop natural immunity. The NHS tried to include it in the childhood Vax schedule at the time the dratted Dr Wakefield was spewing his half-baked theories about vaccines, and parents were panicking. Vaxcination rates went down across the board. The idea was shelved and never dusted off and reintroduced.

Given that there is ample evidence from the rest of the developed world that vaccination is safe and efficacious, I can only guess that it's leadership incompetence or cost or a combination of the two that is holding the NHS back.

Its a much smaller risk because the vaccine is a much weakened version of the virus that causes chicken pox. That virus from the vaccination has almost no chance of surviving its encounter with a healthy immune system, so it does not cause disease, does not go dormant in nerves and it triggers enough of an immune response to protect children from infection for the future.
Whereas with an wild CP case the virus has a much greater chance of embedding itself in the nerves near the spinal cord to re-emerge as shingles when someone is unwell and immune suppressed later in life.

It sucks but you need to be upbeat with your son. He won't have any problem making friends. Main thing to focus on is getting better and scar prevention - he'll be better in no time.

Posted upthread about this. It was a little more involved than just cost, and the UK is currently considering the best way to introduce it into the vaccine programme because research suggests that combining it into the MMR vaccine gives a higher risk of adverse reaction. Research also suggests that natural immunity gives a much lower incidence of recurrence of the disease - there is a significant rate of breakthrough infection with the vaccine.

Interestingly Australia only gives a single dose as standard (and free). So the effectiveness does wear off - a double dose is much better for longer protection (with the second dose recommended between 18 months and 14 year). I'm now considering getting my son the second dose in case he wants to travel to an unvaccinated country (like the UK) down the track.

That’s interesting thanks for sharing. I had the bloody anti vax brigade in my head at the time (20 odd years ago) so I guess I only did the mandatory ones. Stupid me.

OP I'm sending you a big hug. There really are some horrid replies on here.

Moving up to high school is a big thing for him. You must both feel gutted right now. Hopefully in a few weeks he'll be settled in. Mine starts this morning. I've been awake since 4 xx

Both boys should have been vaccinated.
Our school requires a certificate of full vaccination to start at age five.
Hopefully no pregnant women were in contact with the poxy chap.

He'll probably be able to go to school next week so only miss the first few days Best thing is to catch them young, all mine had them under 5.
I know its upsetting for him but the yr7s will still be getting used to everything when he s able to start and he'll make plenty of friends.

Being vaccinated doesn't mean you won't get the disease, you will have milder symptoms and usually recover quicker. The family was inconsiderate to have the kids outside playing width others knowing perfectly he had it

The big hole in the argument about keeping children home is the nature of the virus itself.

It's a clever virus - quarantine isn't the way to prevent its spread because patients are contagious before they show symptoms.

Before the vaccine was available people had CP parties in my area (US). After the vaccine was introduced, very few children caught the wild virus. Obviously, people wilfully or willingly exposing their children to CP were able to spend a few weeks dealing with sick children - depending on the size of the family, this might mean quite a few weeks. I was a sahm and spent a month seeing my four young DCs get it in turn. People sent their children to play with mine and try to catch it. Doing it deliberately meant they could conscientiously keep their children home even when they weren't showing symptoms, so avoiding people with lowered immunity was possible.

It's not that people "like chickenpox" - it's much milder in children than in adults, and getting it was the only way to confer immunity back in the day, despite the shingles risk later in life.

This was also during the days of live polio vaccine and parents were aware of the need to avoid grandparents or family or caregivers who might be in poor health or immunocompromised after their baby received the live vaccine, and the high importance of thorough hand washing after changing diapers or handling diapers.

The NHS is limping along - failure to provide free chickenpox virus is a bad decision.

Agree with this. I’ve never had chicken pox and know as an adult it can be very serious