Please give me some reassurance over MMR jab

[ml01omm]

DS is due to have his MMR jab next week.

I was googling re: when might he get a fever, so I could know to book some time off work if needed. I ended up down a link-clicking rabbit hole of stories of vaccine damage, children never being the same again, brain damage, personality changes and screaming for weeks on end in pain etc.

Please can you give me with your positive MMR stories/links to well balanced articles or data? So I can have some counter balance after all the scary things I've read.

(NB: we will still be getting DS the jab, this just might help me get some sleep for the next few weeks).

The MMR is one of the most researched vaccines in the world - if there were any real problem it would have shown up years ago. Andrew Wakefield was struck off for his terrible, corrupt paper.

On an individual level, my own and all my friends' children have had it and been fine.

Read up on how dangerous and nasty measles, mumps and rubella are.

Nobody would want their child to get measles. Even if they make a complete recovery, it's a nasty illness that usually puts the child in bed needing nursing for several days and feeling really unwell. Rubella may be mild for the infected person but potentially catastrophic for an unborn baby. Mumps can cause sterility in men/boys.

I never understand why people fixate on the possible problems of the vaccine and ignore the very real risks of the illnesses from which the vaccine gives protection.

Oh ffs

@whatswithtodaytoday

The MMR is one of the most researched vaccines in the world - if there were any real problem it would have shown up years ago. Andrew Wakefield was struck off for his terrible, corrupt paper.

On an individual level, my own and all my friends' children have had it and been fine.

This. Andrew Wakefield has caused exceptional amounts of damage because of his ridiculous claims.

DS had his MMR earlier this year, along with whatever else they get at the time. A few hours later he was very, very grumpy - never seen him like it before - and I ended up having to cuddle him to sleep on the sofa. He napped for two hours in my arms and woke up absolutely fine.

Really?? I mean, all those myths have been throughly debunked. You must have had to do a great deal of searching for a rabbit hole to go down. 🙄

Why don't you Google 'is the MMR vaccine safe' and select sites that are medical and verified eg national health bodies, research institutes or government-backed. That'll allay any fears.

I'm aware of the risks of having Measles, Mumps and Rubella, which is why there is no question of us not getting DS vaccinated.

I was just after positive stories, after reading accounts from parents who sadly have had negative experiences. Unfortunately I can't unread those, so would like to fill my mind with all the positive accounts too.

Why did you keep clicking when you came across stories that were clearly the opposite of all the peer-reviewed research that makes the MMR such a safe vaccine?

And then you come on MN expecting people to somehow undo the damage your “research” has caused?

I had the MMR jab as a child in the 1980s and i never developed any of these illnesses. My daughter has received the same jab and is also fine, as is everyone else I know has had it. Is this positive enough? TBH I can't recall if anyone had any side effects....if they were they were definitely short lived. I think DD may have been a little tired.

Most of the people you know will have had the MMR, you may well have had it yourself. Think of all the vaccines you remember having, you might get a sore arm or feel ill for a day, but then you're fine. Your ds will be too.

DS was absolutely fine after his jab. And as a bonus hasn't caught measles, mumps or rubella.

Stop clicking on the anti vax posts.

My DC had MMR with no problems. The doctor who tried to claim it was dangerous was struck off. Unfortunately some families do have disabled children and they look for something to blame. Autism symptoms tend to become apparent around the time a child would get vaccinated. That doesn’t mean the two things are related. Those kids would have been autistic even if they hadn’t been vaccinated.

Vaccine damage is a thing. It’s very rare though.

Ignore anything you didn’t read on an actual medical site like the NHS or CDC. Brain damage and personality changes sound like anti vax conspiracy theories (aka lies). Logically you must know that not everything you read on the internet is true. Stop looking at this stuff. And struggling to sleep because you found an anti vax site isn’t normal, would it be worth speaking to your GP about anxiety perhaps?

As you’ve asked for reassuring anecdotes, mine had no reaction at all, didn’t even cry when she got the shot, no fever, no nothing.

The main positive to look at is how much better you will feel knowing you have protected him from 3 potentially serious illnesses

after reading accounts from parents who sadly have had negative experiences.

Given that this is not backed up by evidence, available in peer-reviewed journals, surely, you'd have looked for the reliable evidence before taking any account of unverified accounts shared by those with an anti-vaccine agenda.

Why would you be inclined to believe such accounts, even the evidence is exists to say otherwise & is easily found?

I've so little patience for this level of nonsense, given you're a parent & some level of sense is expected.

I suffer from anxiety too OP, especially around health, and I understand the compulsion to read all the terrible and unhelpful stuff.

My two had MMR . They were- and still are- completely fine.

I was really worried about this as well but it is actually one of the safer ones because of the controversy around it and being examined closely because of that.

Both of my children have had it and the worst reaction was DS2 had a bit of a fever. No loss of skills etc. Sadly the loss of skills associated with autism is quite simply often correlated - it just happens to happen at the same time. It isn't likely to be caused by the jab. It's like the SIDS rate is highest between 2-4 months old, which makes some antivaxxers incorrectly state that there must be a link between SIDS and the routine vaccines given at this age. This worried me a lot as well, and I ended up delaying DS1's newborn jabs until he was 8 months old. Years later I came across actual statistical evidence which shows babies who have all of their vaccines are actually at lower risk of SIDS. I wish I'd known that before!

Something that is common among antivax websites is that they rely heavily on individual anecdotes/personal stories. This activates a very different part of our brain to the one that is looking at stats and numbers. It can be really heart wrenching to listen to or read a story of how a family has been through a traumatic experience. It can also be really difficult or seem heartless to then go through and pick holes and say well... that's absolutely awful but there's no actual proof that the jab caused it. Or to feel utterly terrible for the family while recognising that they were simply extremely unlucky and their baby had a very rare reaction.

The thing is you could read equally heart rending stories about children dying or being disabled or being ill for months from vaccine-preventable illnesses. But pro-vaccine sources aren't usually presenting these stories, because it's considered emotionally manipulative and also because it's not especially representative. Someone's individual story, while tragic, is never the full picture. When you want to evaluate risk it does actually make sense, as well as listening to stories, to look at the likelihood of different outcomes.

@BertieBotts also not getting measles mumps or rubella isn't really something one can work up into an anecdote. Pretty much everyone doesn't get these illnesses anymore (owing to the successful vaccine, and until recently, good level of coverage), but that's not really something that makes for a great story.

I think this the same as anything really, nobody talks/blogs/social medias (?) when they've had an entirely unremarkable experience so whenever I worry about things I think, wait, do I actually know anyone in real life even through a few degrees of separation that this has happened to?

People are quick to post anywhere when they've had a problem, occasionally when they've had a really good experience, but almost never when things have just been entirely average so it will be really hard to find anything as compelling as the horror stories, other than the fact that the vast majority of people have nothing much to say about it.

That's how I think round things anyway, it helps me if I'm having a 2am wobble about something 😂

Should add DD had her first one and she was fine afterwards, better than she was after the infant jabs actually (less miserable, no fever). So she'll have her second one. Of my family and friends with small children, and there's loads of them, none of them had an issue too. Small sample size but again shows the usual thing is it just gets done, you have a grizzly kid for a few hours, then it's forgotten about.

I was so worried about this ( around the time Andrew Wakefield published his "findings", that I went to the GP. He referred me straight to a consultant at the local hospital, who told me he'd never seen a child suffering from leukemia survive after catching measles. And that's why he'd had his own children vaccinated - strong healthy children in the Western world don't usually die from measles, but if their immune system is compromised because of something like treatment for cancer, then it is most likely that they will die if they get measles and are unvaccinated. We knew 2 children at the time who had leukemia, so that really focused our minds.
The risks from not being vaccinated a greater than any risk from the vaccine.

after reading accounts from parents who sadly have had negative experiences.

The dangers of self-selected samples.

There are no accounts from the vast majority of parents whose kids had the MMR jabs because there was absolutely nothing worth writing about. DD... nothing. The little kids I knew at the same time... one or two had a bit of a temperature. Nothing to write home about, let alone tell social media about.

I had measles and mumps as a kid in the 60s, they were very unpleasant.

I think it's natural to have concerns and it's easy to get diverted by all the scare stories etc. Any time my 2 DC have been going for vaccinations of any kind, my mind has briefly pondered possible reactions etc.

I only have personal experience to go by and, apart from a tendency to sleep for a few hours (which was a welcome side effect in the case of DS1!), all was well. And any time I'm asked if their vaccinations are up to date, I am very happy and grateful to be able to say 'yes'.

Try to stay away from Google for a while

My DS has Aspergers, and its not due to the MMR - Andrew Wakefield should be bloody shot for the damage he has done

Thank you @waterlego @BertieBotts @LakeShoreD - for understanding where I am coming from with being affected by the emotional accounts I have read. I didn't actively do a 5 hour deep dive of an

The logical and sensible side of my brain has read all the pros/cons / debunked myths, and science backed theories, and sensibly, logically and rationally agrees which is why I have no hesitation in getting DS vaccinated.

However it is the emotional side of my brain ( and reading back my OP, I do think my anxiety has gone into overdrive at the moment, over this and other things) which just needs to hear some non-descript boring, ' yeah it was fine' anecedotes'.

I didn't actively do a 5 hour deep dive of anti-vaxxer sites on purpose. I clicked one discussion thread which unfortunately had lots of negative personal anecdotes. (as @waterlego mentioned, I didn't want to keep reading, I knew I should stop, but I just couldn't') and it linked to a site called 'Jabs', which I stupidly thought might be a site about the overview of all the immunisations we get, but actually turned out to be about vaccine damage. Again stupidly, I was reading it last thing at night, which is perhaps why its still going round in my head today.

Thank you again to everyone else who has kindly given their own 'DD was fine /DS was a grump but okay' non-event yet positive anecdotes. Thats all I needed to hear.