Jimjams Ask away

[hmb]

The washing is now cleared! So if you want to ask your question about vaccination then fire away. I can't promice to find the answer, but I will try my best, while entertaining the children, and planning some lessons for the new term.

Great news about the dressing up BTW, amazing how ASD children just 'do it'. Shows how helpful all your Bibac stratgies have been. What is the news on the SALT?

Ok, dd is due for her first set of vaccinations tomorrow and up until the past few days I've been perfectly happy about her having them, even having heard some scare stories. But in the past couple of days I've read about things on Mumsnet that I hadn't heard of before (keeps happening).

SO my q is, what are the most important risks/downsides of vaccinations that you normally don't hear about that I should interrogate the doctor about?

Sorry, forgot to say - didn't mean to hijack the thread, just really concerned and haven't got a lot of time to think about it!

Sorry!

Jimjams would be the expert on this one! I posted the thread as Jimjams wanted me to search the internet for the answer to a specific question, but was kind enough to let me finish the post holiday washing before she posted it!! Don't worry about hijacking the thread, but I am not the person to ask as I am quite 'pro' vaccinations (jimjams know this) If you do a quick search of Mumnet you will find lots of threads on the vaccination issue.....be warned they did get quite heated sometimes! I'm sure you will find lots of information there. Jimjams has posted a link to a vaccination info website.

Just to put in my feelings, I've had both of my children done and they are fine. But I accept that my situation is not the same as others, and that JJ has some well founded worries on this issue.

HTH

wobblymum- IME you won't get much joy out of the dr- the issues are too many and they are not up with the latest research - which isn't very clear anyway. TBH you either have to go for it, or postpone and then do an awful lot of reading. Sorry I don't meant to fob you off, but the right decision for you depends on so many factors.

If you do want to explore firther a good book is "the vaccination bible" from what drs don;t tell you. There is also a new book from Jessica Kingsley (pulishers) being published at the end of this month. I've put a link to an article about it on a recent thread- but can't remember where- a search for Jessica Kinglsey should get you there.

hmb question is further down the thread

not thread- health I mean

Just to add - I went back to the GP 3 times with a list of questions (which he couldn't answer). In the end he said to me "you just want me to give you 100% guarantees and I can't do that it's not like that, I can't tell you its risk free, so why not just get it over and done with and vaccinate?"

Well I didn't vaccinate but I think he had a point (no guarantees either way).

Thanks for the help, in the end I went ahead and had her immunised, having found out as much info as I felt I needed and being fairly comfortable (well, as much as possible) with the risks. As I'd done all my research beforehand, I didn't really want to ask the doctor/nurse anything but just to make conversation and to see what kind o info the doctors give out, I asked a couple of questions that I already knew the answers to. God, that was a bad idea!!!!

When I went in I had to see the HV first for a general chat and to have dd weighed and measured. I asked her a question but she said the nurse would talk me through everything and give me the leaflets explaining everything. Then I had to see the GP to have dd's 'physical' and I didn't ask her much because the HV had said the nurse would go through it all. Then I got to the nurse and I am so lucky I was comfortable with everything otherwise I would have run out screaming!!!

I had to bring up the issue of mine and DH's immunisations as she didn't (ie, whether we were protected against getting polio from dd)!! Then, even though I'm immunised for everything going and I'm the one who always changes dd so I'm the only one at risk, she just wanted to spend ages talking about DH's immunisations (not what we were there for).

DH had all his baby stuff but no immunisations after that (serious needle phobia and clever at avoiding it at school) and the nurse just wanted to spend ages looking up his records on the computer (uh, didn't have any - NOT immunised) and when (10 mins later) she realised there weren't any, she finally got onto the business of giving dd her injections.

I asked my routine questions and she seemed unwilling to give me any info, and I asked "what are the main side effects to look out for?", even though I made sure I knew beforehand. Get this, all she said was "they're so rare you don't need to worry!!!!". How unprofessional is that? Then I told her the HV had said there were leaflets I could have and she said no there weren't and there was no need!!!

I wasn't in the mood to keep dd hanging around any longer so instead of making a fuss I just let her get the shots, which the nurse seemed to be able to do ok - huge suprise IMO! And before the injections, the nurse said very confidently "hope you're ready because she'll scream for about quarter of an hour afterwards"!!! But dd cried her eyes out when the needle was in (not suprised) but as soon as it was out and I started talking to her she immediately shut up and went back to sleep!!! Ha - I was so chuffed and the nurse looked almost disappointed!!!! Then to 'cover it' she said "that's the quietest baby I've seen in ages" as though there was something wrong with that!!!

Sorry about having such a rant but I hate most nurses (that I've met) anyway so this visit got my back up a bit!! And I know quite a few people on here are nurses and midwives and I'm sure you're brilliant and I'm sure I'd love you if I met you, but the ones I've run into so far seem to be the worst of the bunch!!