One component of MMR hasn't worked - will the rest?

[WigWamBam]

Dd is 5, fully up to date with her immunisations, and at the moment has measles. I spoke to the GP about whether she is at risk of getting mumps and rubella, and he didn't know. He said it's impossible to tell whether it was one faulty component, whether the vaccine was completely faulty, whether dd has partial protection, or whether it's something about dd that has made the measles part of the vaccine fail. Pretty uninformative really, but I would really like some information about this so I know where to go next.

Does anyone know anything, or can anyone point me to a website/book that I can have a look at? Is it possible to have blood tests to check whether she's immune to the diseases she's been vaccinated against?

Apologies in advance if I don't come back to the thread immediately; I'm on steam-driven dial-up at the moment and sitting here all day would cost me a fortune!!

you can have blood tests to check immunity but I don't think they are necessarily a guarantee (I think you can get false negatives). (They check pregnant women that way for rubella). Not sure about the mumps part. Also not sure you would want to subject her to a blood test? V difficult.

(by the way, I updated my dd sore ears thread in health - thanks for helping me follow my instincts!).

I'm in two minds about the blood tests, to be honest. One part of me thinks that I would like to know which of the illnesses she's not immune to, so that I could make a decision as to whether to immunise her again. The other part of me thinks she's only little and if I can avoid having them done then I should.

I had bad complications from measles and rubella, as did a friend of mine, so it concerns me that she could still be open to infection when I thought she was immune - at least if I knew for sure I would be prepared for it when she developed the other diseases!

I just thought that if someone knew what the likelihood of her being immune was, it might save her having to have blood tests. I hate not being well-informed about things that affect me and dd, and just wondered if anyone knew where I could find some more information.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I thought that the thing about any jab (or even catching the illness itself) is that it stimulates the immune system, but a lot depends on enough white cells encountering the proteins... so it's probably just that her immune sytem didn't take to recognising the measles, but there's still the 90% or so chance of immunity to the others.

Have to say, just my experience, but having blood tests done on my son (problems with lead in our old house) I would definitely choose another MMR jab over the blood test; it's horrible watching them pin your child down and taking something precious out of their body. But wait until she's really well in herself before getting it.

Thanks, zebra. I don't really know how it works; it would make sense though that it would only be the one illness that her immune system didn't recognise.

I'm so torn about the blood tests; common sense says they're not a good idea, but I just want to protect her.

What age did she have it done? pre 15 months measles has a higher failure rate than post 15 months.

Mumps has the highest efficacy rate of the 3.

Rubella inbetween the 2!

Blood tests aren't that bad. Ds1 has had them. Over in minutes (and he had 3 people holding him down). Did him a lot less damage than his DTP.

One woul presume you can get her tested easily for rubella immunity as they test pregnant women all the time, if that has worked then as jimjams says then it is more likely the mumps has.
I have no clue about mumps immunity testing...
My dd had measles I hope your dd is ok WWB

off this thread jimjams! :o

Thank you :o Really I should just keep off mnet I;m begining to feel like an alien with 2 heads again.

Nooo, don't stay off the thread, Jimjams ... I know you know your stuff, and I promise not to treat you as if you were an alien with three heads. I really appreciate your input.

She's had both - one at 15 months, then one at 4. Interesting about the efficacy rates, and reassuring in a warped kind of way that the other two components are more effective. This is the stuff that the GPs never tell you, although to be honest talking to my GP yesterday he knows bugger all about it. He asked me whether children have another booster after the 4 year one, and everything I asked him his answer was "I don't know". Even when I asked what the complications of measles could be (I already know; I was just gobsmacked at how little he knew and was hoping he would redeem himself!) he didn't know.

Dd's fine in herself now, Piffle - just still covered in spots and very tired.

WWB - hope dd is fine - nothing to add re how effective it is, as know nothing about it.....(interesing to see what Jimjam said about over 15 months, more effective than under - why oh why are we badgered from 12 months on then? - I stuck out to 2.5...)

Just a thought - your GP doesn't sound particularly clued up, so is he sure its measles she has and not one of the (15 or so) other viruses that masquerade as measles? I know of a few people who had measles diagnosed but had blood tests to confirm and found it wasn't measles. Doctors are increasingly less able to diagnose diseases for which we have (in large part) herd immunity. In Australia when DD came down with chicken pox she was paraded in front of a stream of young GPs and medical students so they could see what it looked like. So is it possible, maybe, that she doesn't have measles?

He did say that there has been an outbreak of measles locally, otherwise he would have been less certain. As it is he's as sure as he can be ... and I agree he's either clueless or doesn't give a damn, but of the three GPs doing surgery yesterday he was the only one who has actually seen measles, the others are much younger and have no experience measles at all. She has all the other symptoms, including the white spots in her mouth, so he's as sure as he can be. We had to provide a mouth swab to go with the forms he's had to complete as it's a notifiable illness, so I assume that if it doesn't turn out to be measles someone will let me know!

white spots = measles, ah well at least you'll know she's immune from that. chuck as much vitamin A into her as you can!

They fiddle with the date of vaccination all the time. The later it is the more likely it is to work, but then you leave children who are at risk exposed for longer iyswim.

It seems unlikely that both vaccinations, that many years apart, would have been generally duff, doesn't it? I would have thought it's just really bad luck with the measles, and would tend not to worry about the other components. Easy for me to say though, I know. Hope she gets better soon.

Do you mind if I ask how sick your DD is? I mean, how serious is measels? If say my 10 month old boy caught it, would he be hospitalised, or would it be like a bad cold?

My neighbour's boy had measles at 10 months and apparently it was quite mild, certainly not hospitalised. But it's unpredictable, another child might take it much worse. I think most cases are pretty mild, though.

I remember an editorial in New Scientist where someone's 8yo had measles, also apparently a mild case...

Both my kids had measles and both ahd had the mmr but not the booster, dd1 started first and was misdiagnosed and went to nursery then dd2 got it worse and was correctly diagnosed and major panic at nursery!

Nikkie, what were dd2 symptoms, as you say she had it worse?

Gosh, all that pressure to go get the MMR, and then they get it anyway. That must be very upsetting.

WWB's dd's condition wouldn't really be relevant Uwila, because she's older, and might easily have a milder version because she's had the immunisations. Plus the enormous individual variation, of course.

When dd had it at 15 mths, she had amazingly high temps I mean like 43 degrees, she had a dry cough, headache and slept, woek for milk, slept, wke for milk, slept, woke for milk For about 5 days - then she got the rash.
The doc just said control the fever with the usual methods and watch for any signs of meningitis or any visual disturbances/light sensitivity etc
It was the 1st case my young doc had seen too and we till cannot figure how she got it.
They only hospitalise you if you get complications, otherwise in itself it is just another nasty but manageable childhood illness in the most part.

Uwila, dd was pretty poorly for a couple of days last week, like a very bad cold, but she's fine in herself now. She only seems to have had a mild version of the illness, presumably because of the MMR. There's a huge variation in how it affects children anyway. My real concern is some of the complications that can arise - I know that they're rare, but I have partial deafness caused by measles, and I also had bad complications with rubella, so I'm probably a bit more twitchy about it than some might be.

My dd1 was fine apart from the spots and off colour for a day but dd2 had a temp, and cold symptoms really ,not very ill. my mum also got it and was nearly admitted to hosp but she refused to go.
We think that measles was the cause of dd2s hearing loss .