My four children have measles.

[Spidermama]

I'm almost at the end of it now.

My 7 year old got it first and was ill throughout half term. The other three have just had the week off school with it and are still loafing around on the sofas at the tail end.

We've lived like vampires in darkened rooms.
During the worst days (probably about 2 days per child) I had to carry them upstairs to the toilet, hold bottled water to their mouths to get them to drink, and DS2 didn't eat anything for four whole days.

We're on the home stretch now and they just need fattening up. It has been a very bonding, intense experience and I'm really glad they have now got natural, lifelong immunity.

I hesitated before starting this thread. I have talked about my childrens measles on the vax thread but I wondered if I could have a measles thread which didn't turn into a vax debate. I also thought the subject deserves a thread of it's own because it's a really big deal for me.

None the less this is such a full on, eminal parenting moment for me, I would hate to let it pass without sharing it with MN. It would feel somehow wrong, like concealing stuff from my family almost.

So DS3 bounced back very quickly. He was flat out and barely able to whisper one day - the next je was out on the trampoline in full gold cape superhero gear. DD1 is also bouncing back nicely. DS2 and DS4 are a bit slower but showing improvement by the hour.

DH is away by the way so I'm here on my own.

Marmum that sounds apalling. You need a break! We need a break!

Heated no I didn't go to a measles party. Are there really such things or is it urban myth? I've only heard it in gossip before ie 'I hear they have measles parties in Hove' but have never actually met anyone with first hand experience.

I was slightly worried as anyone would be when their kids are that ill, but I never really panicked or thought it was going wrong. I knew they were just utterly wiped out and that's normal. That's measles!

Maybe it's because I remember having measles and remember my brother, sister and friends having it too. They're perfectly concious - just floored, but bounced back very quickly.

I had to keep focussed to not let the outrageously one sided attitude of the media and the medical profession get to me.

I'm also concerned about allergies. Having been blighted with asthma and awful eczema as a child I really wanted to do all I could to protect them from that. Also I have a son who's T1 diabetic - which is brought on by an auto immune response. His own body killed off the islets in his pancreas so he can't make his own insulin any more. His grand father has Krohns disease which is a leaky gut thing - also to do with auto-immunity.

Anyway I worry that we know so little about these allergies which are mushrooming, and that no-one seems to be putting any serious research into why they're happening, concentrating instead on treatments for them because that's more lucrative I guess.

All i can say is that you and your children were VERY lucky that there were no complications. That's my two pence worth.

spidermama. not sure if it will be of any conselation (sp?), but the allergy thing I am not convinced about being connected to vaxs, altho I am suspicious, as like you say, they are mushrooming.

the reason I say this tho is that I had absolutely no vaccines, bar the rubella one, as a child as my aunt was advised not to (she raised me) because of my mother and the drugs she took while pergnant with me. the docs simply didn;t know how they would affect me.

I had measles, mumps, scarlet fever, altho not chicken pox for some reason (and altho now vaccinated against CP, am still not immune, and nor is DD3, but that is another thread).

what I do suffer from tho is serious allergies, and asthma, and occasional excema.

I wonder sometimes if it is not just chemicals in general that are found in food, the atmosphere, in furnishing etc.

or just that the children that suffer badly from allergies now are the ones who many many many years ago would have died due the the illnesses they are not suffering anymore (ie, the weaker ones are now surviving, but with other problems IYGWIM).

am hoping I have made some sense.....and this is just my opinion only.

psycho I totally agree about other environmental factors being likely suspects in the rise of allergies. Also of cancer.

I reckon pesticides play their part as do nitrates in the soil and generally the way that, since the Common Agricultural Policy, we've been forcing our soil and our livestock trying to get as much food out of it as possible in the shortest space of time. Intervention has snowballed. The animals get ill trapped together in enclosed spaces. No wonder the likes of swine flu, foot and mouth and BSE spread wildly and enter the food chain.

Then of course you have the anti biotics with which we treat our livestock because we've treated them so badly they get ill -- those ABs enter the food chain. I think the meat is already diminished because it comes from a sad and dismal animal producing sad and dismal hormones and on and on and on.

I really believe we need to re-think the way we produce our food.

I may seem to have gone off on one, but these things are intrinsically linked for me.

I agree, they are linked. and when you start thinking about one, it does tend to lead to something else we had not considered a threat previously.

in is all a viscious cycle tho really, as one impacts on another, then another, and round and round it goes.

even organic food is still going to carry some small amount of chemicals too, as I think it all goes up into the atmosphere and rains it down, which is not avoidable obviously.

still, we all do what we can for our family on the info we ingest, and hope that we have done the best for them. and in the meantime, cross fingers

have I spelt ingest correctly??

I think so. Who cares it was a brilliant sentence anyway which had me nodding vigourously.

Wish you had said earlier. I would have brought my children down to rub them on yours. Every body vaccinates round here virtually no chance of catching it.

lol

I'm glad your DC are on the mend.
I'd have rubbed DD on your kids too (she hasn't had MMR).

I can get what you mean about the bonding. Although DD has never been seriously ill, and I of course don't like it when she's not well I do kind of like how she is quiet and huggy and it cuts out all the whining and naughtiness and cheek for a few days and we really do sort of bond all over again.

That does make sense in my head anyway!

glad your children are now recovering Spider. I come from a family with a horrible muddle of auto immune illnesses and dcs have gut issues. However I was hospitalized with measles and I have a baby so catching it does not seem a good option either. i think your children were fortunate to get it when they did, and not as babies.

That's it muggle. Also it really focusses you. You HAVE to fetch and carry and dow what they want when they want it. There's no grey area like most illnesses where you're wondering if, actually, they could fill up their own glass of water or get to the loo on their own. So it was like full on nursing with no attempt to get anything else done. You should see my house.

Olympic how old were you when you had measles can I ask?

Why were you hospitalised and what did they do in there?

I understand babies are protected by the anti bodies they received from their mother in utero for 15 months or so ... longer with extended breastfeeding.

Sorry I meant OlympedeGouges.

i don't know about the extended breastfeeding, the research I've found says the protection is weak, probably limited research though. I had it at aged about 10. It has always been a bit of a mystery to me why I got it then, I don't know if I was vaccinated or not, can't ask dead mother and father can't remember. I had it very badly. I was in an isolation room and had a fan on at all times, I remember the lights being very bright and not dimmed! I was hallucinating and very hot, that's about all I remember. I do have slight hearing damage in one ear.

Very worried about my baby. She gets things badly so far.

Sorry to hear that.

I feel sorry for people with measles who are hospitalised. Completely the wrong environment to deal with it IMO. Different if there are secondary infections which need to be treated of course -- but with straighforward measles...

Mine all reacted badly to light and were very keen to be in darkened, quiet rooms. I would say it was the most important thing for all of them. That and plenty of water to help keep them hydrated.

I had measles at 6 months old (hospitalised with it) whilst I was still being breastfed.

spidermama, that's great I'm very that your kids have now got natural lifelong immunity. hooray.

I'd love for all of mine to get measels too!!

Lockets I remember you 11 month old getting it. So Young!! How was that?

Kitty I know I feel blessed , though there aren't many who would understand that. Am I right in thinking you have five?

spidermama I have 6, the first had the mmr and was badly affected so the others have had nothing.

lockets, sadly none of them have had it and I haven't heard of any cases round here. I keep hoping though!!

"That's it muggle. Also it really focusses you. You HAVE to fetch and carry and dow what they want when they want it. There's no grey area like most illnesses where you're wondering if, actually, they could fill up their own glass of water or get to the loo on their own. So it was like full on nursing with no attempt to get anything else done. You should see my house. shock"

But I find that makes me focus on what is important. Admittedly it's just DD and I so far easier than having four, but I can lose sight of it and get too caught up in the importance of a hoovered carpet. It's easy to lose sight of on a day to day basis I think.

Although I wish we could do it without DD being unwell, I do think it's gives us something once in a while, and I at least re-evaluate how I am as a mother each time.

A measles episode with six children under one roof would be something to behold.

As it is my household alone makes up almost 10% of what they're calling an outbreak in the city.