We have chicken pox! Wanna come play with us?

[skipspin]

Sounds tempting, Splash, but I think I'll pass on the part this time. LOL. I have about 6 weeks of sleeping through the night left and I want to take advantage of every minute!

If I wait two-three years maybe I can get everyone to get them at once and be done. (I've already had them pretty bad, so I will be okay!) I wonder if DH had them...maybe I should ask. LOL.

 

[chaoticoctopus]

I did vax my DD for Chicken Pox- despite the fact that she may need a booster or two down the road. We do all other vaxes anyway, and the way it was explained to me, my healthy daughter would not spread CP to other immune suppressed children or pregnant women she may encounter in school. So in effect, we were preventing the virus from circulating in the community.

This is where some "spin" comes into play, though-- a healthy child, vaccinated for CP, will not expose others simply because s/he was vaccinated, but there IS a risk of contracting CP him/herself from the vax. And IF CP is contracted from having been vaxed, it IS contagious to the rest of the community at large. My 2nd round with CP happened in PRECISELY this manner. Daycare kids were vaxed a week or two before entering my care, caught CP on literally the 2nd day I watched them. I wasn't upset; on the contrary I was glad for the opportunity to expose the two of my children who hadn't had them yet. (Although it turned out that three of mine caught it; one who'd had a very mild case as an infant caught it for a 2nd time.)

BTW, whoever mentioned the incubation period as 9-14 days, just wanted to add that there are always exceptions. My kids came down with it after about... 5 or maybe 6 days, tops. The daycare kids came to me on a Tue., had CP on Wed., and my kids were breaking out in spots by.... actually I think that very weekend. I ended up caring for FIVE with pox, and everyone who didn't have pox, had a nasty stomach virus on top of everything else. The pox kids eventually caught the virus as well. The whole episode was very un-fun, as my hubby had also JUST deployed the day before I started watching these two harbingers of plague. : Wouldn't you know!!

 

[Yoshi]

This is where some "spin" comes into play, though-- a healthy child, vaccinated for CP, will not expose others simply because s/he was vaccinated, but there IS a risk of contracting CP him/herself from the vax. And IF CP is contracted from having been vaxed, it IS contagious to the rest of the community at large. My 2nd round with CP happened in PRECISELY this manner. Daycare kids were vaxed a week or two before entering my care, caught CP on literally the 2nd day I watched them. I wasn't upset; on the contrary I was glad for the opportunity to expose the two of my children who hadn't had them yet. (Although it turned out that three of mine caught it; one who'd had a very mild case as an infant caught it for a 2nd time.)

BTW, whoever mentioned the incubation period as 9-14 days, just wanted to add that there are always exceptions. My kids came down with it after about... 5 or maybe 6 days, tops. The daycare kids came to me on a Tue., had CP on Wed., and my kids were breaking out in spots by.... actually I think that very weekend. I ended up caring for FIVE with pox, and everyone who didn't have pox, had a nasty stomach virus on top of everything else. The pox kids eventually caught the virus as well. The whole episode was very un-fun, as my hubby had also JUST deployed the day before I started watching these two harbingers of plague. : Wouldn't you know!!

OMG!!!! You have 6 kids AND a daycare? AND your DH is a soldier??? ******* That's me giving you a standing ovation! Awesome. Bet you aren't an old coot like me (41)!!!!

 

[chaoticoctopus]

Well, to be fair, I "only" had five back when this last bout of CP took place. And I haven't done daycare since I stopped watching those particular two children. They really *were* harbingers of plague! We were never so sick as when I cared for them, plus the pre-K-aged boy and my own (just 6 mos. younger than him) did NOT play well together. If they weren't all sick, I was breaking up fights constantly. :

Anyhow, these days it's just my own brood. I found I enjoy watching babies & toddlers, but I don't really like having to discipline other peoples' kids so much as when you get to the pre-school stage.

To be fair, you're not much older than I am.

 

[southpawboston]

Besides which, the CP vaccine contained cells from an aborted baby, and I'm pro-life.

Thank you for mentioning this. I can't believe I forgot to list this in my original reasons. I don't want to start a spin-off discussion on pro-life/pro-choice, but this DOES factor into my objections against certain vax.

one of the advantages of stem cell research... hopefully we won't have to get cells from fetuses in the future, but will be able to take skin cells from an adult and culture them to become whatever kind of cells you need.

 

[beeman]

So isn't the vaccine preventing us from developing a natural immunity, and then at some point the stronges strain of the virus will spread like a wildfire and cause the cp situation to be worse?

 

[southpawboston]

So isn't the vaccine preventing us from developing a natural immunity, and then at some point the stronges strain of the virus will spread like a wildfire and cause the cp situation to be worse?

vaccines trigger your immune system to mount your own, natural response to the virus. your immunity, in most cases, is the same as if you mounted an immune response to the actual pathogen.

 

[thepeach80]

Beeman, I read somewhere (one of the vax books I looked at) that several years after the HIB vax came out, they saw a rise in a strain of HIB that was not covered in the vax b/c of mutation and such. I understand what you're saying and I wouldn't doubt it. I don't know enough about mutation and things to really talk about it further though.

 

[skaterbabs]

vaccines trigger your immune system to mount your own, natural response to the virus. your immunity, in most cases, is the same as if you mounted an immune response to the actual pathogen.

This is not entirely accurate. If it were, we wouldn't see a difference between naturally aquired immunity and "artificially aquired" immunity (i.e, from vaccinations.)

As far as stem cell research, I have no issues with using adult cells, but of course that's a whole other can of political/religeous/philosophical worms.

 

[southpawboston]

As far as stem cell research, I have no issues with using adult cells, but of course that's a whole other can of political/religeous/philosophical worms.

do you have issues with using stem cells from mus musculus??

 

[skaterbabs]

mice? ummm......better mice than people, I suppose.....

 

[Splash]

Maybe I sounded a bit too enthusiastic in my first post. Actually, if that IS what he has, I'm thrilled he has it with no complications. But I'm not all gung ho on him getting sick.
He's definitely in a high risk group for complications, and we're well aware of that. So while I'm glad he's not having any problems, I'm not particularly glad it exists.
However, I do have to acknowledge the coincidence of the kid being vaccinated and then Charlie getting this rash (which has spread a bit more, and they're definitely fluid filled, but I think it's pretty much over since most of them are drying up and going away) given Charlie's history of high levels of varicella zoster in his blood. Using my fabulous skills of inductive reasoning (I can't really call it deductive though, so we'll stick with inductive) I am coming to the assumption that this is an outbreak of varicella zoster, though a doctor has not confirmed it. Maybe not classic chicken pox, definitely not classic shingles, but something in that range of viruses. I'm not all excited (despite what my original post might have seemed to suggest) but I am not bummed out either.
I am NOT excited about him getting measles, because that is likely to cause complications for him. Normally I would be pretty content with my young child getting measles and therefore being done with it, but in his case I'm not.

And yes, most kids with fatal complications from chicken pox have underlying immune disorders. It is extremely rare for an otherwise normal child to die from chicken pox. But that is the same with measles, mumps, and rubella as well. All of these were just common childhood illnesses, mostly inconveniences, until vaccines existed. Suddenly they are scary baby killers. Even measles (which did kill more kids than CP) deaths were normally caused by underlying conditions, and secondary infections and dehydration which these days are easy to treat.

I had chicken pox. I wished for them. I then gave them to my high school uncle who was miserable for weeks and is now sterile from them (a fact he has actually thanked me for). It's definitely not a cakewalk for older people, but for kids it's normally just itchy.

 

[AdventureMom]

I then gave them to my high school uncle who was miserable for weeks and is now sterile from them

I had thought that CP could make men sterile also, so when DH got them eight years ago (before we had Nolan), I totally panicked. We asked his doctor and he said that CP does not affect a man's fertility at all - it's the mumps that can make a man sterile. He said alot of people *think* that CP can do that, though.

 

[Splash]

Yes, mumps can definitely do that. But CP can do it in very rare cases. I'm not sure how much truth there is to his sterility, or if that actually caused it. I do know however that he and his long time live in partner never had a child, and they didn't use any form of birth control (yes, he and I are VERY close) but after they split she had a child with someone else. So... he was probably shooting blanks, and it was blamed on the chicken pox. Whether or not it caused it, I'm not sure, but the family has always "blamed" me for it.
I did just check a bit online and sterility in males is a possible side effect for adult CP. So it can happen, even if it's not common.

 

[southpawboston]

mice? ummm......better mice than people, I suppose.....

the overwhelming majority of the drugs on the market never could have been developed without doing the research on mice, which are like 99.9% identical to us genetically (in terms of DNA sequences). they have the same organs, and their proteins are almost identical to ours. what we know about modern medicine has come more from understanding disease processes in lab animals than from humans in hospitals.

to avoid the ethical issues of human stem cells, researchers are looking to mice. >95% of what is learned from that can be directly applied to humans.

 

[skaterbabs]

I completely agree with that. I just had to look up the latin name for mice because I didn't know it. lol

My dirty little secret? I never went to college (had babies instead), and my high school bio class didn't teach latin names.

 

[Yoshi]

I completely agree with that. I just had to look up the latin name for mice because I didn't know it. lol

My dirty little secret? I never went to college (had babies instead), and my high school bio class didn't teach latin names.

That's ok- I did go to college and DH is astounded at the fact that I never read a single Shakespeare play in my life. I always tell him that my high school was waaaaay out there - we read Camus, Hesse, Dostoyevsky... and then I majored in psychology and got my degree in elementary education- so you see, no need for Shakespeare!!! LOL. My son on the other hand, went to my high school alma mater and did read Shakespeare. Of course, 25 yrs later, they've mixed up the English curriculum a bit!

 

[skaterbabs]

roflol
I *love* Shakespeare (especially the comedies).

I'm unusually well read for someone without a college degree, but then I *love* history and literature. The year we read Jane Eyre I was ordered not to answer the questions in class because it's one of my favorite books and the teacher knew I'd read it four times already. lol

Cam is the same way, except his excelled in science, especially physics. Funny though, he does more computer-oriented stuff, and I do physics-oriented stuff (CPS) and I *hated* physics in school. Math and science are not my strong points.

 

[Tara]

Hmm
Could we guarantee I get 'em all done in one 'shot'? I don't want this to drag on forever. Though, I can imagine all 5 with pox would not exactly be enjoyable for me LOL But, I'd really rather not do them one at a time, that's exhausting!!

Ok, yeah, I'm in! We're about due for another school break anyway aren't we? haha

 

[chaoticoctopus]

I was sooo sorely tempted to just pile the kiddos in the van last night and take off for DC, Splash! I can only hope that since it seems to be "going around" in this mid-Atlantic seaboard range, it'll make its way into my household in the next several months. As soon I catch wind of it going around my kids' schools, I'll be poking my head in and volunteering all of a sudden!