Measles-anyone have any experience of it?

[hellymelly]

My daughters are not vaccinated and there is a measles outbreak here.We have agonised over vaccination and so far we have opted out but measles does frighten me,and reactions vary,my GP is naturally very pro vaccination,the homoeopath I spoke to feels differently,I have been to several lectures about vaccination and I still can't decide.DH is thinking maybe we should give the girls the single vaccine.Does anyone have any experience of measles?How bad can it get? I had it as a child,everyone did,but I don't really remember what it was like.

"but some mothers have a problem with the idea of their dc being born with ANY illness. as they believe they will get the blame for doing something wrong in pg, or bad genetics."

you really can't make this sort of comment without evidence (although plenty do). Weird how once you're the mother of a disabled child you're seen as automatically in denial.

ELMO
I am not trying to argue. I just disagree.

I have to say I have never encountered any mother who was looking for something to blame autism on.
I am amazed that you have
Most mothers I know just want to understand their childs condition in order to help them.

Extract from a letter just received from my doctor:

"About 1 in 15 children with measles will develop more serious brain complications which can include chest infections, pneumonia, fits, encephalitis (infection of the brain), and brain damage. Studies have shown that for every 5000 individuals with measles one case would be expected to be fatal and sadly a teenager has died from measles this year."

My daughter had the MMR and within weeks had developed bad eczema and she also has mild dyslexia and a condition called Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). She is the only one out of four children to have had the MMR (the others had single vaccines) and the only one to have these conditions. We did not have the booster done and she is now 10.

She no longer has eczema and the other conditions are mild. However, having had a look at the statistics, which my husband understands (I dont) he is concerned enough to want our daughter to have the booster.

I had measles as a child and shortly after I had to wear glasses - I remember not being able to stand daylight and being in a darkened room.

We are probably going to get the booster done and then if the eczema flares up will go to a Homeopath, who dealt with it last time. The Homeopath will probably tell me I am silly to get her the jab, but I'll cope!

about one in fifteen? Wow, that sounds terrifying. Wonder where that statistic is from?

Pneumonia is a 'serious brain complication'?

pagwatch (and jim jam) -

you've hit the nail on the head.

i know someone who's child has a particular illness. i cant give any details.

her behaviour and comments bring me to this conclusion. if i never knew this lady perhaps i would have a different view.

i am also not a complete idiot and consider all mothers to have this view on their childs illness.

of course your doing everything you can to help you dc and make life run a smoothly for them as possible with the complications involved daily that cant be easy.

you cant flame others who have personal experiences that bring them to their conclusions,

i made it clear that i thought only SOME mothers have these feelings.

and i made it clear that these feeling were not aimed at YOU.

you are obviously great mothers doing the best you can in difficult circumstances that life has given you.

however, not all mothers are like you. not all are as caring, understanding and supportive to their children who desperately need help with their very complicated young lives.

Umm
ELMO

I am not aware I have flamed you

I have disagreed with you.
And I still disagree with you on the basis that you are saying "some mothers" on the basis of apparently one mother - whilst I have never experienced what you describe and i know hundreds of mothers of disabled children.

Disagreeing is not flaming

That 1/15 number is ridiculous. As I said before, I had measles and so did everyone in my family and everyone else I've ever known.

If none of these people from my childhood died or had any long term effects whatsoever in Turkey in the 1970s, then I sincerely think you people living in UK in 2000s fare much better.

I know several mothers of regressed autistic children who would LOVE to be convinced that their child was born with autism.

That would mean they can stop blaming themselves for having given MMR to their perfect little babies

It'll be 1 in 15 if you include every single possible complication (such as an ear infection that doesn't progress onto anything else). My family health encylopaedia written by a paediatrician in 1989 before all the measles hysteria describes measles as a common childhood illness which is usually self limiting. It goes onto say the only concern is the complications which can usually be treated easily with antibiotics.

Cote
I would really really love to just once met a health professional who spent any time at all trying to explain to me what they think did cause DS2's regression rather than what they think did not.

I would love it not to be the MMR. I would love to know what it is. Because something is causing the huge increase in numbers of children with ASD and dyspraxia and speech disorders and the whole focus seeems to be on what isn't causing it.
Except those fabulous ones who also try and convince us that there isn't an increase

The doctor who speculated about MMR causition is charged ( amongst many other things) of falsifying the data which purported to prove his hypotheses. No one should blame themselves about anything in relation to autism and I agree it rare in real life to meet someone who tries to do this. The doctor concerned with the discredited and dubious 'research' was more of an attention seeking fool than a maliicious meddler. If he had aplogised for his antics, opinions about him might be different because most people accept that the lure of fame can be very attractive ( as is money of course).

He may be "an attention seeking fool" ( way to go withthe non-imflamatory postings btw ) but I will always be very very grateful to him.
Were it not for his theory I would not have tried changing my sons diet and have the fantastic results that I have had.

I love that his theory is supposed to be nonsense yet every aspect of it miraculously fits with what happened to my son - including the reduction of symptoms, including autitic behaviours when his diet was changed.

Frankly I would take the advice of this 'fool' over the conventional advice of most Doctors which was pretty much take him home and look for residential care now.

Perhaps being a fool is only offensive if you have any respect for the person calling you thus....

Scarlet fever has reduced in severity anyway. No-one really understands why. It used to be feared as a killer, then suddenly it wasn't anymore

Now this is scary and imo is a risk you take if you start fiddling with natural selection.

There's a new strain of whooping cough as well. That is believed to have arisen because of selection pressure from vaccination. Luckily in that case it seems to produce a milder whooping cough (and it cannot be protected against by vaccination). DS2 had it. Can't find the link now - will search later, it was in the new scientist in 2002.

Why should he apologise? He merely suggested that more care over vaccination should be taken with some children and that further research was needed. Sensible imo, and hardly what one would call radical.

His findings were never actually discredited - this was discussed on the MMR thread...

I was trying to put in plea in mitigation for him. Many others have gone much further in the strength of the accusations made against him particularly with regard to his significant financial gain ( in contrast to the vulnerable families who did not get a penny). If it is 'flaming' to mildly criticise the holy Dr W - what does he call his own inept attempts to use the libel courts to attack his own critics - whose only 'crime' was to dare to suggest he might be wrong?

If you actually read my 15:29 post you'll find something from the trial cybersaphim which rather shows that the research hasn't been discredited.

But for some reason you don't seem interested in the reality of what happened with Wakefield, so I guess there's probably no point in this post.

He actually lost money from the MMR case (as he lost his job) to suggest that he was somehow after money is libelous I would imagine.

What significant financial gain?

In what sense are they not discredited ?

I don't think it is flaming. I just think it is bollocks.

Also didn't think being grateful was the same as deifying...

perhaps read the post above. At the trial, said under oath by Horton (wtiness for the prosecution) 'Horton said that the Lancet paper was an excellent example of a ?case series?. That this was a standard and entirely reputable way of reporting on a possible new syndrome. He likened it to how the first cases of HIV/AIDS were reported in the early 80s and how the new variant CJD issue broke more recently. He said unequivocally that the science reported in the 1998 Lancet paper ?still stands? and that he 'wished, wished, wished' that the clock could be turned back and the paper be considered in the light it was first presented, without everything that followed.'

Can't see much in the way of discrediting going on there.

Am a paediatric nurse of 20 years experience.
There is definitely an outbreak,it is most certainly not propaganda.There have been many cases in the north west,about 100 plus in cheshire alone.
Measles is a nasty illness.I have seen a child die grom Measles Encephalitis,and I have seen some children be severely ill.Of course,there is also the risk to the population as awhole,particularly vulnerable members who are immuno suppressed.
All our four children have been vaccinated.