To ask for opinions on varicella vaccine vs natural immunity?

[Moopp]

I am not an anti vaxxer - me and my kids have had every vaccine offered so far. My kids will be eligible for a single dose of vaccine in the next year on the NHS. They have not yet had chickenpox, as there's only been one outbreak locally and we missed it.

The varicella vaccine offers protection for 10-20 years, and many people may get lifelong immunity, but it's only been in use since the 90s so it's presumably actually an unknown.
Natural infection generally offers lifelong protection.

My options:

• try to get the kids infected naturally before their vaccine appointment comes through. Very low risk of serious complications as they are both healthy, age 3 and nearly 5. They get lifelong protection.

• get them a single dose of vaccine, which offers 95% protection for 10-20 years (maybe more). They might then contract chickenpox in adulthood and it is much nastier for adults.

I will not leave them both unvaccinated AND uninfected, as I want to contribute to herd immunity. That's not an option.

Obviously eventually we might as a country get to a point where so many people being vaccinated means there is so little chickenpox circulating that their chances of catching it as older adults is really small. But that relies on vaccine uptake (or natural immunity) being above 80% I believe, and I'm not sure I have that much faith in people's decision to choose to vaccinate anymore. It will be generally offered with MMR, and uptake for that is currently 84% and declining.

It's worth mentioning that both my kids are boys, so I don't have to worry about the additional risk of them getting chickenpox in pregnancy should their vaccine based immunity wear off in less than 40 years.

If anyone is really knowledgeable about long-term varicella vaccine immunity I'd really value your input. Also I'm just interested if anyone has a perspective I haven't thought of.

Are you sure your children are even eligible for the vaccine? The oldest age group eligible for the vaccine are children born after sept 2022 - your 5 year old won't fall into this certainly...

4-6 children per year die from complications of chickenpox in the UK. It’s rare but not impossible.

I’m a doctor, my son hadn’t had it by the time he turned three so I paid for the vaccine. I had it when I was fifteen and was really ill so I’d rather pay for the vaccination than put him at risk of a more severe illness and possible complications.

Mine had the vaccine. A close friend is a medic so sees the worst cases, and she vaccinated her kids. I felt if it were good enough for her, then mine should get it.

Seems like a lower chance that those with a positive outcome from the non-vaccinated route would be posting in this thread. Interesting post (and responses) though.

I would definitely get them vaccinated to remove the risk of shingles in the future. Shingles is extremely painful and can affect the eyes etc. And post herpetic pain is awful.

I got it at the age of 19, three weeks before my first wedding. For some reason, I wasn't ill at all! I woke up on the Sunday morning covered in a rash over my trunk. I went to see my GP on the Monday morning and he look puzzled until I showed him one spot on my shoulder which was the only spot that resembled chicken pox. As I didn't feel ill, I asked if I could go to work. He looked horrified and said I had to have at least a week off. DM decided that as I had been breast fed and she hadn't had chicken pox until the age of 21, she must have passed on a strong immunity. That was her theory anyway.

You can have chicken pox more than once. I have seen someone in their 70s with cp.

For what it’s worth, the disease itself doesn’t always give immunity. I’m an outlier but have had it three times, as a child a teen and the very painfully as an adult. Was then given the vaccine before ttc as protective measure which worked but had worn off when they tested me a couple years later.

Can I ask why that’s not true?

A study recommended that healthcare professionals highlight the increased risk of febrile seizures with MMRV…
one found 8.5 febrile secures per 10,000 as opposed to 4.2 with separate MMR & Varciella vaccines?
And Merck commissioned their own study finding 7.0 with MMRV and 3.2 MMR and separate varicella?

As my child has recently had an adverse reaction to vaccination, the combined MMRV isn’t my preference.

I have two children and decided to pay to have them vaccinated. My first had two doses. My second was booked in for his first dose. He had just turned 1 and we had to wait a month from his MMR jab before having the chicken pox one, so during that time… he contracted it naturally from nursery. He was so poorly, vomiting, scratching, I had two nights where he didn’t sleep at all, was just thrashing round trying to get comfortable and whimpering. He has scars. He doesn’t remember it, but he suffered with it. Two weeks later, my vaccinated eldest had it. He had caught it from his brother. He had a single tiny spot on his tummy and zero other symptoms.
So I do know they can catch it still even with two doses of vaccine, but the difference in how it manifests in terms of symptoms was incredible. Please don’t put your kids through the full blown disease if you are being offered a vaccine. Some protection is better than none and they may well get exposed and have natural protection on top anyway.

Catching wild chickenpox in a setting where most people are vaccinated, and where circulation of the virus is decreasing over time, can be the worst outcome.

After you have had chickenpox, the virus stays in your body in a dormant state. To reduce the risk of shingles, your immune system needs to keep that virus under control. In the past, this control was continuously boosted by natural exposure to circulating wild chickenpox in the community.

If wild chickenpox becomes less common because most people are vaccinated, there are fewer natural exposures. Without these occasional boosts, the immune system may have more difficulty keeping the virus suppressed.

This was our reason for choosing to vaccinate privately.

I had chicken pox. I remember it (I must have been about 7-8). No serious side effects or complications but it was horrible. Do not intentionally do this to your children!

And maybe even more importantly: It offers longterm protection from shingles! (Or more importantly: not being exposed to the virus means that the virus won’t las dormant => no shingles!)

I have never had shingles (fingers crossed) but I’ve witnessed it often enough. I would not wish this on my terrible former (boss). So I definitely wouldn’t risk it with my children!

The risk slightly increases, but doesn’t double. And it’s considerably smaller than the risk of it from catching it naturally.

Urgh, I just can’t understand some people. I mean, how to tell me you’re anti-vax without actually saying you’re anti-vax.

The vaccine takes a very, very, very, very small risk and raises it to another very, very, very small risk. And the risk we are taking about is actually the risk of a harmless reaction that some kids are just more susceptible to anyway. Nobody is trying to hide this increased risk. There’s no conspiracy by the NHS here. This isn’t a ‘gotcha’ moment you’ve so cleverly found.

But for reasons I find completely unfathomable, instead of an incredibly low risk of a non-serious side affect of the vaccine, you would rather take the actual risk your child will be one of the ones very seriously affected by the live virus, as well as the risk of shingles when older. The logic behind this decision is simply flawed.

And your little one having an ongoing adverse reaction to their 3-month vaccines (whatever that means) is irrelevant. If the medical profession thought your child had an issue with vaccines you would be put on an appropriate vaccine schedule.

That is right. Shingles is a secondary infection of varicella zoster virus. It stays dormant as a spore in your nerves (yes, nerves, and it is a herpes type of virus).
It may never awake or you may get shingles. Shingles can make some patients life quite miserable. You are more protected against shingles in a vaccinated environment. That is wgat the decades long data is showing now.
I believe when the vaccines first appeared, data pointed to higher levels of shingles. But that is now debunked.

Why would you purposely inflict a disease on a child that could have potentially severe effects on them?

I’m guessing if immunity from the vaccine proves not to be lifelong, then wouldn’t we be advised another booster as adults? I paid for both mine to have it afew years back and was told this would likely be the case if protection wasn’t life long!
If the vaccine only offers protection for ten to twenty years wouldn’t they see an increase in cases by now in that age group? It’s well over 25 years ago, and offer another booster to adults if it’s needed?
I’d go for the vaccine!

Well obviously this has been the case for donkeys years for many people. If it was considered a problem then the UK would've introduced the vaccines for all here years ago. No idea why they didnt

My twins ended up in hospital with infected CP, 12 years ago. I stupidly didn’t know that there was a vaccine then (private). I had awful CP as a kid and then shingles. Absolutely vaccinate would be my advice.

interestingly one of the school mums I knew at the time had had her kids in Australia. They were vaccinated but still got it but not as severe as mine.

Because if you'd read my posts you'd know that I fully appreciate how good it is for us at a population level, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better for my specific children in our specific circumstances IF immunity is less long lasting than natural infection, and IF vaccine uptake is too low to create a complete suppression of the circulating virus in the future.

I had found this thread amazingly unpatronising for a vaccine thread. Until now nobody had told me I was too small and stupid to be allowed to question whether a decision made in the interest of the entire population was actually the best for my children. I didn't think I was necessarily correct; I asked for different perspectives and additional information. That is an entirely sensible and rational thing for an intelligent and questioning person to do.

I didn't consider the vaccine at all - my kids got it at 4 and 6 and I wish I had! Neither one was poorly necessarily, nothing worse than a cold - but it has left them with some major scarring, some on their faces. They will soften a bit over time I know but I'm sad about it.

It was also logistically a pain in the arse, not being able to leave the house for a week, no nursery, no school etc. I'd get the vaccine now!

In Scotland they are giving one dose to children born in 2020 onwards (can't remember which month) and this covers my nearly 5 year old.

Australia and Canada have offered it to their citizens for years and both of them have national health systems so if the vaccine caused more issues than it solves then it would cost them money to use.

The Big Pharma argument didn’t work with national health systems and it’s actually the opposite dynamic at play. If a medication or vaccine caused injury they wouldn’t use it as they would have to pay for all the resulting harm.

Yes, I've accounted for that. Whilst I appreciate the stories from people who have had it badly, it's actually easy to look up stats on the chances of a severe case so it was more additional information that I was after rather than personal stories (but I appreciate all responses).

It has particularly been interesting to hear more about the lower risk of shingles from vaccination vs natural immunity. I had also not realised that you could test for immunity level, and my children could therefore do this as young adults and then get a second dose of vaccine if necessary (they'll only get one dose under the catch-up programme).

Has anyone had their CP immunity tested here? I have been thinking about it for a while - amazingly my parents don’t remember if I’ve ever had CP! (I suspect that means I haven’t.) So I’ve been thinking for a while about it getting tested and then getting the vaccine if needed. I have a 1yo who will be getting the MMRV soon. I asked the midwife when I was pregnant but she said the NHS wouldn’t do it for me unless there was a risk I had been exposed.