Our kids are older, so the vaccine hadn’t come out yet. But when our oldest got chickenpox Mrs. Kunilou was praying that the twins would get it as well, and get it over with.
They didn’t, they did later, separately, so we wound up with all the fun of a sick child three times over.
For the record, I have never had chicken pox, not even a mild case. I did, however, come up with a nasty case of shingles when I was 13. Mrs. Kunilou and the kids all had chickenpox, and none of them has ever had shingles.
The ONLY danger I remember hearing about, while rare, is that if one is given aspirin during chickenpox, one may end up with Rey Syndrome later on in life.
My mom had my cousins come over to play, so I could get them. I hated it-I scratched so much…icky!
They were so ugly-and the medicine was icky.
But, I got a Cabbage Patch Kids Puzzle that was also a Colorforms set, a jelly bracelet -both from Mummy, and cards from everyone in my class.
i got chicken pox during christmas break. how horrible was that, i didn’t get any days off of school. i couldn’t go out and play in the snow all day. it was a poo.
i must admit through, if someone had asked my mother if they could play with me to get “the pox,” she would have thought they were nuts. i got it the old fashioned way, accidental exposure in school.
i have to admit i’ve been reading up on the vaccinations and it does seem that you could go either way on this one. the more serious ones… measles, rubella, polio. no question there. i am a bit leary of the combo vaccines though.
Just to put in another perspective: Our outstanding pediatrician offered us the vaccine when my daughter turned 3. It’s required by our preschool and by the kindergartens around here. BUT, she did inform us that waiting to see if she would catch it “naturally” was a perfectly okay thing to do from her perspective, because the immunity you get from the disease itself may be superior to the vaccine. We decided to do that, but it hasn’t happened yet, so we will probably have to go ahead with the vaccine.
Both my daughters got the vaccine, at the doctor’s recommendation, about 6 years ago. He said they’d need to get a booster prior to having children, though. My youngest daughter is recovering from a very mild case of “chicken pops” that she got the “natural” way as I write. (She’s 7.)The school admin said hers is the 3rd case this fall that she know of, of a kid getting the virus that has been vaccinated.
My feelings are that if the vaccine minimizes the discomfort of the virus, then I’m all for it.
Getting pox as a kid is usually no big deal. However, it can really lead to complications if you get them as an adult or if you are pregnant. So exposing your children when they’re young, either via a vaccine or via exposure to an infected child, is a good and wise thing, not something to be appalled about.
My kids have had the vaccine, but only because it was required for school & the day care they attended. Otherwise, I would have skipped it. I did skip it when it was first offered to me, when my daughter was about 2. And I skipped it based on what my 20-years-in-practice-and-raised-five-kids-besides pediatrician said. She wasn’t 100% comfortable with it, and also told me (like cher3’s doctor) that waiting to see if she’d get them naturally wouldn’t hurt.
I personally don’t like the idea of my kids not getting chicken pox. The natural immunity thing. Get them once, never get them again. The thought of my kids not getting them as small children, then maybe getting them as teenagers or adults terrifies me. In teens and adults, chicken pox can be deadly.
I had chicken pox when I was six. My brother was four, and he had them too. My mom didn’t expose us intentionally, but I do remember her telling me (much later, when I was an adult) that she was quite relieved when we caught them, and both at the same time. Just got them right out of the way. Can’t blame her for that.
And if your child gets chickenpox at 50, when it is far more likely to kill her, how would you catagorize that? I suppose I could fling around phrases like “parental neglect,” but I won’t. This issue is not that simple. We look at the choices we have and the relative risks and make our decisions. I’m confident in the choices I have made.
Am I the only one thinking of that episode when the South Park kids got revenge for chickenpox parties by paying the town hooker to give all the parents herpes?
Caught it naturally when a little tyke. I thought it was pretty neat a couple days into it when the pocks on my scalp could be scratched right off with a minimum of trouble, and then slide them off along the particular hair they’d formed around. Never got to do that at a party, though.
Ah yes… the deadly specter of small pox looming over small town suburbia. Am I the only one who is a little troubled by the fact that we are rushing toward mandated vaccines for chicken pox? I mean, can we tolerate no discomfort in our lives? This is essentially a harmless disease for children, adults currently comprise 50% of deaths even though they are only 2% of the infected population.
And it’s a live virus vaccination, a strain of herpes, making the South Park episode a little funnier, I should think. Below is a cite for one the the sites that I checked out, rather against the whole thing. I saw a few that were for, but this wsa the last and so here you go…
Seriously, why would we want to vaccinate against chicken pox? it just means that in 20 years when you want to take your kids to some other country, you’ll have another booster shot to get before you go. Wholly overrated, if you ask me, and I even have chicken pox scars on my chest. Two little white scars the size of a cigarette. My pediatrician flipped a little when he saw that one, i tell you what.
FWIW. I didn’t get chickenpox until I was 15 years old, despite multiple exposures. I had an apparently mild case, with only a handful of pocks, but then the virus attacked and damaged nerves in my back. It was excruciatingly painful, and I still have problems from it. I don’t have children, but if I did, I would prefer that they got natural, permanent immunity while they’re young and the risk of complications is low.
Ugh…I remember feeling so ugly…my cousin came over to play-she had gotten over them the week before-and was upset that I didn’t want to play dress up, because I felt so ugly.
I have a picture of me sleeping on the sofa when I was getting them-but no marks showing-with my cat, Fluffy, who wasn’t even a year old yet-(I was only six at the time)
The funny thing is, while I had the pox, I was tested for strep throat, which was going around, and it came back negative. I was over the pox and went back to school. Right before school was about to start, I was called to the office so my grandmother could take me home-it turned out I DID have strep throat, it was a mistake. So right after chicken pox, I got strep throat. Lovely.
You know, I had cooled off and logged on tonight to apologize for going, according to some of you, a little overboard, but this just sets me off.
Yes, there are studies that would suggest that vaccination can result in problems for autistic children. And others that say otherwise. And still others that say the older vaccines were worse than the newer ones or that there are fewer problems if the kid gets the vaccinations in separate doses rather than the convenient all-at-once way.
However, **where on Earth did you get the idea that “there is evidence that it (vaccination) makes no difference?” Are you daft or simply too young to remember smallpox, polio, scarlet fever, diphteria, whooping cough, and measles? Of course, I’m also too young to remember smallpox, but that’s because we have had a highly effective vaccination program for TWO HUNDRED YEARS! I do remember the others. Hell, my iummunity to some was conferred the “natural” way because they didn’t have vaccines yet.
Whatever you folks do about chickenpox is up to you, I guess, but those others KILL CHILDREN and it really is wrong to think that vaccination does no good. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. In my lifetime it has gone from being pretty dangerous to be a kid to the present safeness. By neglecting vaccinations you are putting your children in mortal danger.
Yo, another vaccinated person checkin’ in. I went through many years without getting chicken pox, and my parents NEVER tried to infect me. I got the vaccination very soon after it came out (I was 14 I think, I’m 18 now), and was glad to have it. I feel that delibriatly exposing children to that kind of suffering is not right. I mean, why don’t you just give the kids measles while your at it so you can forgo that shot as well? Hell, throw some smallpox and hepatitis B in there too, anything that doesn’t kill him can only make him stronger, right?
Personally, when I have kids, I would rather they had the vaccination than the disease. If there is no need to have them go through that painful ordeal, then why let them? Vaccinations wouldnt’ be used if they weren’t safe. I’m not saying it’s 100% safe, but neither is getting chicken pox. Give it a few more years, let it become the norm, and people will look back on events like these and they’ll be comparing us to the dark ages, for Christ’s sake.
Way to go with either the miscomprehension OR the misquoting! What I meant was that the evidence is not absolute one way or the other WRT AUTISM!
Dropzone then very kindly goes onto patronise me further:
However, **where on Earth did you get the idea that “there is evidence that it (vaccination) makes no difference?”
I write:
to AUTISM! Not being daft I know full well that vaccination made a difference to disease rates. What I don’t KNOW and NOBODY KNOWS at this point in time is whether or not vaccination is worsening autism. If you could live with yourself having read both sides of the debate and knowing there is a debate and then go ahead and vaccinate and then have your child retreat further into autism, well that would be your choice. Mine was different and you know what? My choice is a real life fucking difficult dilemma! Yours is merely posturing with opinion on a messageboard!
I had it at the same time, too. At 18. My college roommate (witness to it all) said she’d never seen someone so pathetic. I had the pox all over my scalp and it drew the skin so tight over my skull that the slightest pressure made my entire head throb. I’d be trying to get comfortable and my head would lightly touch the wall next to my bed and I’d practically be screaming.
Frankly, I think she should have gotten a medal, now that I think back on it. For me it was a dazed sick memory of hell. She didn’t have the dazed strep fever going for her.
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? However, I know that my parents HMO will not pay for my 18 year old brother to get the meningitis vaccine, despite the all of the epidemics of it on college campuses in the last couple of years. How it’s cost effective for them to not cover a $180 shot and instead risk paying for extended hospital stays, I’ll never know. Insurance companies (at least around here) are pretty reluctant to pay for vaccines not required by state regulations.
My husband is a state employee, and our insurance is more than willing to pay 100% for vaccinations or any other preventative, and for that we feel very fortunate.
When my husband and I got the Heptavac, they covered it 100% for the buckaroo when he was in second grade. It’s not required for students in our state until sixth grade.
People choosing to totally forego any and all immunizations for their children is more common than you might think. The reasons for their individual decisions are varied, some for religious reasons, some for medical reasons; those I have no problem with. But there are some for which it seems they’ve made their decision for no other reason than pure rebellion, as far as I can tell anyway. Like Cranky, I’ve had the debate several times and used the same argument: That they would not have the luxury of their rebellion if it weren’t for those of us that do vaccinate.
