in thinking Measles can't be more dangerous now than it was 15 years ago ?

[Onajourney]

Hi

Wondering if there are any GP's out there that can tell me this ?

My eldest child is 15 and I still have his baby books and they say Measles is a mild disease and just to keep their temperature down etc, they liken it to chickenpox. I remember not being worried about it at all when he and his 11 year old brother were small.

Fast forward 14 years and we have a 1 year old who is at "huge risk from this killer disease" according our GP, but I can't understand how it can have changed so much.

Can anyone tell me, is Measles worse now than it was 15 years ago and if so why ?

Thanks

ORM

"My granny died from shingles, caught from a baby who had chicken pox. I don't see how that could be more serious TBH. "

I'm really really sorry about your granny, but she didn't catch shingles from a baby or anyone. She had shingles because she had at some point in her life had chicken pox, and once you have had it it lies dormant in your body reoccuring at times of stress / when defences are low as shingles.

Unimmunised babies / children can catch chickenpox from people who have shingles.

here

and

arrow down to is shingles contagious

Hope that poor child doesn't think they were to blame for your Granny's passing.

Didn't they immunise against measles 15 years ago? I'm 36 and I have not had measles to my knowedge, and I don't remember it "doing teh rounds". I had chicken pox and remember everyone getting the mumps, but I'm sure we were immunised against measles.

Anyone know? Am a bit confused about the OP.

My eldest was in the first batch of children to receive the mmr and he is 23yo now.

Well that might be the case but she still died from shingles. So not true to say that cp isn't a dangerous disease.

And I doubt very much the child ever knew about my gran. She was a baby at the time.

I think largely it's our attitude to risk that has changed - when we were kids, it was expected that we would get various childhood diseases, and probably need a period of bed-rest as a result, and in a few cases, serious complications would ensure. This was to be expected - after all, only a generation earlier many children died from childhood illnesses. These days we (probably quite rightly) have a much lower tolerance for the risks of childhood diseases, and seek to minimise them where we can through vaccination.

Mild disease in the majority of cases - but my own cousin has SLD caused by encephalitis caused by measles. I have worked with a child who had measles at 2, which again caused a brain disease, which caused severe autism. A close friend had it as a child and got encephalitis, and her parents were told she would die - her father had to give her baths in ice water, and she was ill for months.

Chicken pox was a Bad Thing for most of DD's class and also their smaller siblings, it was apparently a "nasty strain." 2 kids in the class ended up with septicaemia, DD had to have anti-b's for the infected spots in her throat, DS1 had infected spots in ear canals and on ear drum, rather less than fun all round.

I would rather my children had "wild" versions of the disease as I think that it gives a better immune response (although still not guaranteed) but you cannot predict the severity of an illness, therefore they are vaccinated. I was vaccinated against measles in the 70s and now have no immunity whatsoever, so I wonder if there ought to be booster jabs for adults too? Especially those working with kids.

Just out of interest as there are a few on here talking about shingles - there is now a vaccine for that (independent of chickenpox). Recommended in rich southern hemispherean countries if you haven't yet had shingles and have had chickenpox in the past. Not sure about NHS recommendations... might be too expensive for NICE

Yes they did vax against measles 15 years ago, and long before that. I had the
measles vax 30 years ago. I didn't however get the pertussis vax due to ongoing scares (unfounded) about the safety of it, which led to a massive increase in whooping cough cases, which I caught and nearly died.

What Bramshott says is very true. It's our attitude that has changed a lot.

But you also have to factor in that medical knowledge is fast moving - so it's pointless to refer to something from 15 years ago.

Runnybottom, the whooping cough vaccine worries in the 70s were certainly NOT unfounded. It is pretty universally accepted that it caused severe problems for some.

I am sorry you went on to contract whooping cough, but to say there was no problem with that vaccine is wrong.

ISNT, as I said earlier on thread, I am nearly 38 and was routinely vaccinated against measles. But then DH is the same age and he and SIL1 weren't (they both had measles at the same time as small children), so presumably the uptake was nowhere near 100% even then.

DD got chickenpox on holiday in Florida.

We were required by holiday insurance to see a Dr at the nearest hospital to have it confirmed.

The receptionist and nurse immediately moved away from us, we were put in a special waiting room and we were whisked through to see the Dr.

The Dr just kept (rudely) demanding to know why she hadn't had her 'shots' - I told him she was fully immunised but UK don't immunise for CP.

We were treated as though DD had a serious disease whereas in Uk I don't think I'd have even taken her to the GP.

7 days later we saw another (nice) Dr to get DD a fit to fly letter and he confirmed they don't see it alot so Dr's tend to overreact. He did say though that if the Dr had been more on the ball we would all have been quarantined as Florida was under an advisory for small pox as a strain had escaped from a reseach lab in central america, apparantly the early symptoms are the same as CP.

My grandma, had a turned eye and poor eyesight from measles - she was self concious all her life about it.

Butting in here to ask any GPs out there if vaccination against an infection could ever lead to a lower natural immunity in the population. By which I mean, could the fact that most of a country/community is immunised mean that when a disease strikes it hits the unvaccinated/those whose vaccinations have 'worn off' harder than it would have if the majority had not been immunised?

I tihnk I misunderstood OP.

Is she speaking from no personal experience of the disease when she says it is mild?

Also about old books - as medicine has moved on, things which were once considered mild will now be considered to be more serious, as more serious things are no longer contracted.

So in the days when people got polio, tetanus, an infection could kill you etc, then something that only killed you a bit would have been considered mild. Our lives are less risky now, thanks to modern medicine, and now any risk of childhood death/damage is treated as serious. Simply because the diseases which killed lots of children/left them with terrible consequences have been (on the whole) got rid of.

I wouldn't want to return to the days of killer diseases on every corner, just so that we could go back to thinking that measles is "mild".

it's all relative, and the reason the goalposts have moved is a good one, not a we're all feeble now.

My mother lost 50% of the hearing in one ear from measles.

Now she is near 70, she's lost all hearing in it and has a grommet in it as well.

whooping cough vax was not a concern over nothing.

ImSoNotTelling, the books say it is a mild disease, that's why I was curious if Measles had somehow got stronger in 15 years but a GP on here answered that for me earlier.

Does anyone know how long the vaccine gives you immunity for ?

Chickenpox is now a routine vaccination in Australia - I'm taking DD for her's on friday. I didn't get DS done when he was due two years ago because I thought it was just a mild illness etc. But now the thought of being stuck at home for 2 weeks with an itchy irritable DS is enough to make me consider it serious enought to immunise against .

@Vallhala: One would not necessarily expect a susceptible individual in a population of vaccinated people to get a worse disease after infection, and the same should be true of someone within a naturally immune community. Severity of disease can't always be predicted, but I mentioned a few important factors in an earlier post (age, intensity of exposure, other background medical problems).

@Onajourney: Vaccine-derived immunity is lower than you would get from natural infection, and may not last as long: but the important point is that two dose schedule protects you from the worst effects of the disease if you ever do encounter wild-type measles and become infected. The immune response to measles is mainly T-cell based, which has a life-long memory even though the surrogate marker used for measles immunity (i.e. IgG levels) may be weak or absent.

My cousin nearly died as a baby because of Measles.

A friends son (about 10 years ago) nearly died from complicatons of chicken pox, my DH's mother did die from complications of chicken pox.

I nearly died from German Measles (or possibly German MEasles followed by Scarlet Fever). Although in my case they didn't even admit me to hospital, I was hallucinating for about 2 weeks (but working class so didn't get admitted).

Mild childhood diseases aren't that mild necessarily.

Measles always was, and is in some countries still, a killer. However some nice middle class parents think it was mild disease, however the risk of complications is much higher than other so called mild childhood diseases.

As far as I'm aware, the vaccine compensation scheme was set up in order to provide for children injured by the whooping cough vaccine.

I had the vaccine in the early seventies with no ill effects. I caught whooping cough a few years ago, because the vaccine wears off.

It's known that measles depletes Vit A considerably so it's not true that a "well nourished" child will not benefit in a case of measles.

How much research has been done into treatment of measles with Vit A in non Third World population? Wouldn't it be helpful?

Unfortunately it wouldn't profitable. So I'm not holding my breath.

Like the "measles is killer" scares, we are scare-mongered about Vit A too. It's ironic that the worst scare-mongering comes from those who dare to accuse those who highlight evidence of vaccine damage, of creating unnecessary fear.

Who knows anything about Vit A? Who knows anything about required levels, beneficial levels, measles-affected levels? Which GPs? Which health visitors? Which parents?

Why? Why, if measles is such a danger and it's known that Vit A can ameliorate the effects why?

OP, I do agree with you to some extent. However I did decide to get DS vaccinated in the end, because I felt that it isn't the disease that has changed as much as the way we react to it. Because most children are now vaccinated against measles etc, it isn't as common as it once was, so there is not as much information etc around about how to treat it and the younger doctors trained since the MMR was introduced are going to see it as more serious than perhaps older doctors do.

Bertie I understand your point. But I think it's dreadful that children are being asked to take a risk because doctors' training and experience are lacking. If that is the only reason that risk is being taken.