How are you treating measles?

[HotWaterBottleSmell]

North Londoner obviously concerned about the measles situation. As I understand, the hospitalised children are partially vaccinated. How are they being treated in hospital? I mean, with what? As far as I am aware there are no specific treatments for measles. Sorry if I am being dim! If my child catches measles, what do I do about it? Wait it out? Are the kids who have been hospitalised suffering from secondary conditions (pneumonia etc)?

I think they'd thank god that being immunised is likely to mean that they will be less severely affected.

Call the GP / 111 and do whatever they suggest. What will YOU do?

I tell you what I'd do @HotWaterBottleSmell, seeing as your children are not vaccinated - I'd be keeping them home and well away from other children/people. That way they are not going to spread this highly infectious disease to others.

It's massively selfish otherwise.

'You do you' as they say, but don't expose others to your choices.

I gave you advice. If you suspect your child has measles, phone your GP or 111. The advice is likely to be rest, plenty of fluids, and medication to try to bring their temperature down. If you are concerned they are more poorly or developing complications then you phone your GP or 111 for advice.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/measles/ will give you the information you need.

Is there something else you are hoping people will tell you?

And when I called the GP the receptionist didn’t even know you were supposed to have 2x MMR!

If they aren't already, you need to get your children vaccinated. It's not impossible that a small number of the hospitalised children are vaccinated (although I have no idea if that's true, just hypothetically) because no vaccine is 100% effective. However, if people who are medically able to have them do have them, the herd immunity protects the small number of people who can't have them/don't develop immunity after vaccine for whatever reason.

I had all my MMR vaccines. When I was pregnant, they tested to check I was immune to rubella- I wasn't, and had to have an additional vaccine, which DID work. If I hadn't been checked and caught rubella, it wouldn't mean that the vaccine wasn't worthwhile in general. It wasn't effective for me (apparently this is quite rare), but if almost everyone else has their vaccine and it IS effective for almost all of them, then it doesn't matter that it doesn't provide immunity for a few people because it isn't circulating in the population for them to catch. The problem is that enough people are now choosing not to vaccinate that it isn't just a small minority of people who aren't immune, it's a significant enough number to allow significant outbreaks.

Vaccination won't provide a cast-iron guarantee that your child won't catch the disease, but it reduces the chances so dramatically (and reduces the risk of severe disease if they do catch it) that I just can't understand why anyone wouldn't do it unless there was a medical contraindication.

You have had every single piece of advice available as far as I can see. What else do you want people to say?
Measles is a serious, highly contageous, notifiable disease.
There is no cure.
It is preventable by vaccination.
On the rare occasions that a vaccinated child catches it, it is likely to be far less severe.
Careful nursing at home, in a dark room, giving plenty of fluids and paracetamol is sufficient for most previously healthy children.
Adults and severely affected children may well need to be hospitalised.
All the advice is easily available on the nhs website, or via 111, or via your gp by phone. Never take a possibly measles affected child out in public.
There really isn't anything else to add.

... except 'vaccinate your children'!

You are making massive assumptions. I have not once said my child is unvaccinated.
I have already explained what I wanted to know and nobody (as far as I have seen) has treated a child (vaccinated or not) on this thread and instead want to shout at me to vaccinate my child. I didn’t think it was an unreasonable question given that I had read that the hospitalised children were all at least partially vaccinated (at the time I read it).

Apologies, I have reread the thread and must have missed where someone did talk about their own child having had measles.

Not been fully immunised is the same as partially immunised and is distinct from not immunised.

@HotWaterBottleSmell

Here you go

It means the kids who were hospitalised were either partially immunised or not immunised at all, but they were not fully immunised.

No @HotWaterBottleSmell

You are making massive assumptions. I have not once said my child is unvaccinated.

And nor have you said that they are - despite many of us asking you.

There's going to be a big difference between how you'd treat an immunised child with measles compared with one that isn't.

Absolutely do not give vitamin A, unless your child is following a very odd diet, it's very, very unusual to have a deficiency in the UK. I think that advice stems from a time of poor diets -and it can be really dangerous to have too much vit A.

My eldest got it about 12 months after his first MMR and was really unwell for about a week and in hospital for a couple of days, but the main longer lasting effect was on one of his eyes, which subsequently never developed properly and is weaker than the other.

I didn't say give too much Vitamin A. Only what is age appropriate as a supplement.

so has your child been vaccinated or not?
I absolutely do not understand why you won’t answer this question unless you’re actually a journalist or something rather than a “concerned parent”.