This odd story reminded me that as a kid in the late 70s/early 80s I knew a number of kids who had “chicken pox parties”. When a neighborhood kid got chicken pox, parents would often send their kids to hang out with the sick kid. The idea is they would catch chicken pox, and thus gain immunity from the illness later in life. Anybody out there do this? Did it strike you as weird at the time? And with the chicken pox vaccine now available do you know of anybody who still does this?
The immunity one gets from catching chicken pox makes them suseptible to shingles as adults.
The virus sequesters itself in the nerve roots, then at a later time presents itself as a painful rash that can last for weeks and leave scars.
The vaccine doesn’t.
Good lord, I just read the story linked to in the GD thread.
http://www.kpho.com/story/15896021/cbs-5-investigates-mail-order-diseases
That’s insane. And gross. I’ve never had kids, so I’m fairly ignorant about vaccinations. I do remember having chicken pox and people bringing their kids to my house, though. Sometime in the early to mid-1960s, I’d guess. I also remember my mother explaining to me that it was so these kids could get the pox early, get it over and done with, because having it when older was a much worse experience.
But to ask complete strangers to send infected bodily fluids through the mail so you can make your own child ill is just…words fail me.
And the immunity from catching it as a child isn’t always life long. I had it at 7 years old and then caught it again from my youngest child at 37. It was only a mild dose the second time around, but still unpleasant.
How certain are they that the vaccine doesn’t leave one susceptible to shingles? It’s only been around 16 years. Not snarking - honestly want to know.
When my oldest caught chicken pox at the age of 1, my boss wanted me to bring her to his house so his kids could all get it. He then got extremely pissed off when he found that his wife had gotten them all vaccinated already without telling him.
I didn’t know anyone who did this, but my wife says that she knew of cases of it when she was a kid. Of course, that was years ago, when we didn’t have vaccines against many of these diseases.
I don’t remember “parties”, but I do remember parents purposely bringing their kids into contact with other sick kids. My babysitter’s children got it at the end of the school year, and my parents kept sending me to their house. Lucky me, I came down with it in the first week of summer vacation. Lots of neighborhood kids came over to play with me while I had it.
This was 1986.
Same here, late 1970s. Well, except for the “kept sending me to their house” part, the babysitter actually kept me at her house until I got it and then recovered.
I had a strange attack of something December of last year that nearly blinded me in one eye (it took about four months to recover my vision in my left eye). One of the first guesses by the doctors was shingles, and they still suspect that it was the underlying cause.
I don’t know if some parents deliberately exposed their kids to it, but I know that in the grade school school I went to (early 80s) chicken pox was treated like the bubonic plague. The teachers would speak of the Afflicted in hushed voices, and when the kids came back to class they were hailed as brave survivors, especially when they’d hitch up their shirts and pant legs to show the scabs they had from the blisters and everyone would stand around and go “cool!”
I do remember being quite annoyed that I’d had chicken pox at age 2 and so didn’t get a week off of school in 2nd grade like everyone else.
Yikes! That must have been terrifying!
My son hasn’t had chicken pox (16). I don’t think he’s had the vaccine. I should really do that. I seem to remember that at the time we were talking about it there was some debate about the vaccine? But I don’t remember now.
This thread has reminded me and I think I’ll call his doctor today.
When I got chicken pox (late 70’s), my parents’ friends brought their kids over to catch it from me.
I had a friend in high school who got chicken pox and it was bad, severely bad. I don’t know if he almost died or anything but it sure seemed like it.
I had a brief mild case of shingles in my 20’s. At least now I know what it is like so I can go to the doctor earlier if it happens again.
Is there any merit in getting the vaccine as an adult if I had chicken pox as a child?
I didn’t even know there was a vaccine for chicken pox. It is certainly not offered as a standard to kids in the Netherlands.
My kid (aged 3,5) has chicken pox at the moment and his daycare (where he contracted it in the first place) is okay with me bringing him. In fact, there were several spotty kids there when I brought him. A neighbour brought her kid over to play with him when she heard it.
When I had chicken pix back in the mid to late 70s, every kid in the neighborhood had it. I don’t remember being intentionally exposed but the kids who had it weren’t restricted from having friends over.
I did contract shingles in late 2005. It was probably brought on by stress from Hurricane Katrina. It was pretty painful. I went to the dermatologist thinking I had a spider bite on my back and they took a biopsy of the sore and did some kind of test. The doctor, who had a heavy German accent came back and said “Ah yes, I see ve have ze herpes!” I finally got a better explanation from an assistant who didn’t have an accent! 
My aunt deliberately exposed my cousins to me when I had chicken pox (mid 1980s). I don’t recall if they caught it or not, but my aunt was definitely hoping that they would, since both were teens and hadn’t yet caught it.
The state of Wisconsin includes the chicken pox vaccination as part of the standard vaccination requirements for schooling, but there are exceptions for “health, religious, or personal conviction reasons.” There’s also an exception for children who can prove that they’ve had chicken pox.
There are “shingles vaccines” for adults. I haven’t read anything about them, but I’d guess they prevent shingles.
I think the only controversy about the chicken pox vaccine–apart from the general antivax nonsense–is from all of us who had it and think it was no big deal. I’ll certainly get my kids vaccinated, but I’m sort of amused, too.
Back in the mid-80s my older brother (about 10 at the time) got the chicken pox when it went through his school. I went to a different school and my mom didn’t feel that she could keep sending me to school since I was probably going become a juvenile Typhoid Mary and spread the disease over at my school. So she kept me home and forced me to spend all my time with my brother, in a ‘chicken pox party’ of sorts. I know other kids had them too.
I can remember being really grossed out by it because he was so spotty and itchy and cranky and miserable, and I apparently did understand that what was happening to him would eventually happen to me too. I did get the pox and I was actually way sicker than he had been, which made me bitter, but I guess I got it over with.
I imagine that if the vaccine had been available then we would have gotten that instead and the whole situation would have been avoided. As it was, the disease ended up sweeping through my school a few months later anyways, but hey, at least my mom tried.
I got it after my brother picked it up at kindergarden. I don’t think you can call playing with my brother a pox party though 
I would have much preferred not getting it though, I remember getting it everywhere, including under the edges of several finger and toe nails, on my face and on my scalp under my hair. I swear that at one point my mom probably considered filling the bathtub with calamine lotion and dropping me in. I remember her medical taping mittens on me so I wouldn’t scratch [I was 3 at the time, and 3 year olds are not known for their patience.]
I was about one and a half or so when I got chicken pox, so I don’t remember anything about it, but I don’t think my folks did pox parties. My brother had to be vaccinated because he hadn’t gotten it by the age of 12.
By the time I was in school, teachers and parents were treating chicken pox like the plague.