To think it's bonkers to not vaccinate against chicken pox

[Springadorable]

Especially if you have multiple kids who haven't had it who would probably get it back to back meaning potentially 2-3 weeks off work for parents while waiting for them to scab over.

Genuinely curious as to why people don't vaccinate. It is more expensive to have the time off work than to vaccinate and it's a nasty uncomfortable avoidable illness for kids and a standard vaccine for a lot of the rest of the world. So if you haven't, why not?

I would have only vaccinated if they hadn’t had it by a certain age.

Until recently it wasn't included in the vaccination schedule here as it was believed it increased the risk of shingles - which is generally more serious - as adults.

That's now been shown to be untrue after analysing shingles rates in places where the vaccine has been common place for years now.

Agree with other PPs, I just didn't know! Especially for older mums, IT DIDN'T EXIST when we were kids and now it's not on the NHS list so... Sorry I didn't have time to be a freelance vaccine researcher when I had newborn twins 🤷‍♀️

Possibly that, possibly they just referred to Doctor Google and social media for advice. Some people are just anti vaccinations, no matter the serious risks of not having it.

I wish I’d had both of mine vaccinated, one of my dc was really unwell with it. When I googled it years ago I saw lots of conflicting advice about immunity not lasting etc, if I could go back I’d have paid for it.

I had my son vaccinated at 12 months old and he hasn't caught it despite it going round school and nursery several times. His was 7 years ago- paid for it through Superdrug. Does anyone know if it's lifelong? Bit worried from previous posts it isnt..

It doesn't wear off and you don't need a booster.
NHS says

"How well the chickenpox vaccine works and how long it lasts

After 2 doses, the chickenpox vaccine provides around 98% protection in children and about 75% protection in adults.

Further booster doses are not needed.

If you get chickenpox after being vaccinated, you'll usually have milder symptoms than someone who has not been vaccinated"

So although the risk of getting it as an adult is higher than for someone who had it as a child, the fact that you are vaccinated means you should only get it mildly.

I was vaccinated as a child in the States and was topped up right before uni at 16. My immunity was checked during my pregnancies here in England and they said I still had immunity.

Vaccinated our two and will our third when she is old enough. DH wasn’t vaccinated and caught the chickenpox twice, once as a child and the next as a teen. He missed almost a month of school because of how poorly he was the second time.

My dad had them twice, once as a kid and the second time when he was 40/41 when my sister caught them and other than itching, he was fine.

With such different reactions, rather vaccinate with the higher chance of very mild symptoms instead of waiting and hoping it has a mild reaction if they catch them naturally.

10 seconds of reflection and you'd get at least 3 reasons why people don't/cant vaccinate and it's not that they are 'bonkers'.

I'm very pro vax. Agree it should be done, but should be free and part of the routine schedule.

I didn’t have my girls vaccinated because chicken pox to me was always portrayed as a minor inconvenience for children (chicken pox parties!) so it’s one of those to just get out the way. Until my kids got it. 2 of 3 got it terribly and 1 still has horrible scarring. If I knew then what I know now I’d have vaccinated them.

Personally from what I’ve heard and what we experienced my child, it is ‘usually’ mild and a vaccination isn’t necessary. MMR however… I wouldn’t want my child to catch these things as you’re usually very poorly.

My son had chicken pox and was covered but didn’t itch them. He had a week off school and I WFH so it was annoying but fine.

I guess if you’ve had a bad experience you may feel differently.

(1) vaccines are most effective when they are prevalent among the general population and there are only small numbers that are unvaccinated. If a vaccine isn't part of a general programme of immunisation for all it will have some protective effect but the immunity level may not be sufficient to deal with a high virus load in the event of an outbreak
(2) the reason NICE hasn't added the Chicken Pox vaccine to the general programme of childhood vaccinations is because having chicken pox effectively endemic among the country's child population, with most children likely to get it before they are 7 years old, appears to have an overall protective effect on the older adult population in reducing the incidence of Shingles. Regular exposure to Chicken Pox virus particles from an infected nearby child is thought to help reduce the probability of Shingles in a typical (non immunocompromised) adult. Adding the Chicken Pox vaccine to the list for Childhood vaccinations would either need to be paired with an expensive programme of Shingles vaccinations for adults, or the alternative would be a massive increase in Shingles cases.

Given the low incidence of serious complications from Chicken Pox, the risks and negatives from giving it to all children would outweigh the benefits on an overall whole-population scale.

If I had money to pay for more healthcare resources than the NHS gives me I wouldn't pay for my child to have a CP vaccine without also paying for myself DH & all grandparents to have a Shingles vaccine.

My three are all vaccinated, I'd love an aul vaccine anyway, but I know two drs who basically said it's a no brainer if you can afford it. We've never so much as caught a hint of a rash. Most families I know who caught it have said it's horrific, it's either been all sick at the same time which has you on your knees, or they take turns and it's 5 weeks of hell. My sister still has scars 30 years later from her chicken pox.

My eldest is nearly 20 and had CP before he was a year old. I wasn't really aware of a vaccine in the UK. However I was back at work full time and it was VERY inconvenient and the poor thing was very miserable and uncomfortable.

Younger child i waited until she was 18 months, then vaccinated. CP has been around nursery and school several times and she hasn't caught it so I guess it did the job it was meant to do. Apparently the first vaccine gives 90% chance of immunity and the second 97%. I took a chance and didn't bother with the second. I thought 90% was good odds.

Selfishly my main motivation was avoiding work disruption, last minute cancelled holidays etc. Also I have a bad CP scar on my face which I wouldn't wish on anyone else!

My healthcare provider (not UK) advise against it because the longevity of it isn't yet known and getting chickenpox as an adult is more serious than as a child.

I have absolutely no idea if this is true, but I was told 10+ years ago when we would have been looking at it that the immunity from the jab was not as soon as from getting the illness directly so if you got the jab that then meant there was a higher chance of getting it when they were older and thus more affected by it. So I took the decision to let them get naturally and would have got the vaccine if they hadn't caught it by the time they started school, as it happened, they both got it naturally pretty early on in nursery, it was relatively painless, they are teens now and haven't had it again.

Absolutely no idea if any of that logic is true though so happy to be told it's dross! I can't
remember where I got it from now.

@Springadorable yes, but I'm still not sure where I'm expected to find the money... not that I have to share or explain my finances to strangers on the internet but as I said before, every penny is accounted for. Not in debt other than the mortgage, didn't have a credit card until last September (I only got it because I needed emergency dental work). But I do have 2 in full time childcare (23 month gap). As I say, it's the season we are in and it is what it is.

I decided not to because I wasn't able to find solid research about how long the vaccine protection would last. I have girls, and if CP remains as endemic in the UK as it is now, it's likely they would be exposed to it during pregnancy (if they have pregnancies in the future!) which would be a very high-risk time to catch it, and I wasn't totally confident the vaccine would still be protecting them in 20/30/40 years' time. BUT if it was part of the routine vaccination schedule, and therefore it became a less common disease, I would vaccinate.

Some parents like me haven't got £150 saved up to just get it. I'm currently saving to get it for my 2 year old and I dread him catching it at childcare before I can save up the money.

We've vaccinated privately. I don't feel it's well enough advertised that it's an option.

I did it for two reasons

1. if I can protect them against a potentially nasty disease why wouldn't I? I didn't hesitate at the other vaccines.

2. I can't afford the time off work that comes with chicken pox!

Because everyone I know who have unvaccinated children were fine. We have no one with health issues in the family. My DD was fine when she had it. She was lethargic for 2 days and then back to her normal self. My DS hasn't had chicken pox yet and I won't be vaccinating him.
I'm not saying there are no risks with chicken pox but MN leads you to believe your child will get very poorly which is very very unlikely. It's like births, according to MN everyone has had a traumatic birth which isn't the case.

I grew up abroad and while I received the BCG shot, I don't think I had a chicken pox vaccine as I caught it in Y2 with all my friends, so it wasn't part of the program there either.

We are paying for our DC to have the jabs as he's now Y6, never caught it when the rest of his classmates did years ago. I recall one classmate of mine coming down with chicken pox in Y6, and he was both out of school for a good 2-3wks, plus facially scarred throughout high school from it.

^ This. It's relatively harmless in young & healthy children.
If immune compromised, adult or pregnant, then it's a completely different story. I'd say if you haven't had it by age 10-12 then it's worth having the vaccine.

It’s about to be included as standard on the NHS vaccine schedule… it is now deemed cost effective to do so.

We paid for my son to have it as he is often admitted to hospital with significant tachycardia with very high fevers- we can only manage these with ibuprofen and paracetamol so knew with chickenpox we’d end up in hospital, in isolation hell (without being able to use ibuprofen)

PS. We aren't that so well off that we didn't hesitate over the £150, but we'd much rather pay it than risk DC be really ill or miss high school.