Last minute jitters re MMR tomorrow - POV needed

[mumgoingcrazy]

My 14 month old DD2 is having her MMR tomorrow. First time round we debated it and DD1 is absolutely fine, however DD2 has global development delay. Her development is improving through intensive therapies. She doesn't really show any ASD traits. We have talked about this so much with various professionals and DH and I came to the conclusion that yes we were definately happy for DD2 to have the MMR and not separate jabs. However, tomorrow is the day and until now I have been happy with our decision but now I'm looking for some reassurance or actually any points of view. What does everyone think?

Thanks cyber, that's the gist of the Uni of Sunderland theory too, that children with predisposition to ASD often have "leaky gut" syndrome which means they absorb vaccines far more than they should and behavioural changes are then caused by their extreme reaction to the vaccines.
The Uni of Sunderland tests are designed to determine (using urine testing,) whether your dc has leaky gut. Just posting ds1's sample off today (won't even go into the hoo ha involved in getting a wee sample from him, suffice to say it was messy!!), so we'll see what they say in a couple of weeks..

If you're concerned, you should follow your instincts and make a decision that you are happy with but to put in perspective, an attenuated (weakened/strength reduced) vaccine is not likely to overload an immunne system given that the dose is miniscule compared to any real life exposure to the disease. But that's just my opinion and I'm definitely not a medical professional !

KT14, can you tell me more about these leaky gut tests at Sunderland uni?? Thanks

Just to clarify, I personally don't believe in the gut theory - that wasn't what I was trying to say, but not trying to stop others.

Is it related to allergy induced autism? and by eliminating gluten and dairy they are much better, or am I totally getting the wrong end of the stick?

Sure, I've only heard about them via mumsnet but I know several mums seem to have used them with great results. Basically the research unit there think that autism is often a metabolic disorder, and that removing certain triggers from the diet such as gluten and casein, will improve autistic symptoms considerably in some cases. They test the child's urine to determine any intolerances and make dietary recommendations based on this.

If you contact them at [email protected] they'll send you an info pack including a booklet and questionnaire. You return the questionnaire and they send out a specimen tube for you to return to them. It costs £60 plus £4 for the booklet, and takes around 2 weeks.

Just sent our sample off today so I'm afraid that's the extent of my knowledge so far, will update once I get the results though!

I should probably add that it's designed primarily for children or adults with a diagnosis of ASD, or suspected symptoms of autism. I was considering having DS2 tested as his chances of being on the spectrum are likely to be higher, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate given that he currently has no symptoms whatsoever, much like your DD..

There are several different issues with vaccination- and people confuse them and mix them in together hence the common confusions.

Big story in the states has always been thimerosal- thimerosal contains mercury- is a known neurotoxin and with the increase in jabs the amount a child was getting has been increasing. It does seems that children with autism have less mercury in their hair than children without- so the theory goes where's it's being stored? (Mercury and other heavy metals should be excreted). Quite a bit of research going on with animal models into this area. Possibly many autistic children have dodgy detoxifying systems (quite a bit of evidence for this) so they can't get rid of heavy metals in the way non-affected children can. And the US has and is continuing to pay out for cases of vaccine damage involving undiagnosed mitochondrial disorders, which can present similarly to autism.

MMR- nothing to do with thimerosal. Wakefield - pre- MMR wrote some papers and did research on Crohns diseases. He believes that following an 'atypical' measles exposure Crohns is more likely to develop. MMR may be an 'atypical exposure' and may be able to cause gut damage which then leads to autism (autistic enterocolitis).

The leaky gut that Sunderland deal with more often is not the same. It's there already- that means various things can get in and do their damage. But it's not as extreme as autistic enterocolitis. Autistic enterocolitis is rare- believed to be found in about 7% of autism cases. The other type of leaky gut is far more common.

Then there are other issues. There's quite a bit of research being done in the States at the moment on autism and the odd immune system. Many different abnormalities are seen. One interesting feature seems to be a pre-natal exposure to something (eg a virus) can set up an immune reaction in the fetus which make them vulnerable to a further trigger. This could be from a natural virus, or (as one researcher put it in a talk I went to) 'the dreaded vaccines'. What is known is that immune disorders do seem to be common in autism.

Asperger's and HFA appears to be associated more with many genes - (so family members show traits). Most of these immune factors/ regression following viruses/vaccines etc seem to be associated with families where there is no autism, but family history's of immune conditions.

Jimjams, the specialists have always put DD2's GDD down to the chicken pox she got at 6 weeks old. I do believe a lot of the problems stem from this, however when I was 39 weeks pregnant I got viral meningitus and was pumped full of anti biotics etc. From what you said it seems that the problems could be this. Do you have any links or info that could tell me more about the pre-natal exposure you talked about? Thanks

Hi mumgoingcrazy

I do, but the abstracts are at work. I'll try to post more in the next few days.

The other person it might be worth you looking at is Derrick MacFabe. Type his name plus autism canada into google and you'll get a video. He's quite interested in the role of antibiotics (I suspect antibiotics played a role in ds1's regression- his infection was viral but became infected with a bacterial infection as well and he had heavy duty antibs).