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Exposing kids to chicken pox on purpose???


teachergirl

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The Neidnagels had all three of their children purposefully exposed to chicken pox which I know was a thing to do in the past and maybe still is.  The poor things all came down with it as planned. Wouldn't that be dangerous for Melissa as she is pregnant? Why would you want your children to suffer all because you don't vaccinate??? Has anyone else done this?

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I know it was the thing to do in the past. 

For years I thought I had never had the chicken pox. No one remembered me having them as a kid. As an adult whenever I heard of a kid having them I would get positively paranoid. Then I developed shingles, guess I had them after all.

Does anyone know what impact the vaccine has regarding shingles as an adult? It's not an experience I would wish on my worst enemy. I've been told my case was pretty mild.

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I had chickenpox when I was 9 years old and suffered pretty badly. Especially since we had a big family get together at that time and I couldn't participate, because my mother feared that some of the older relatives might get exposed. Having chickenpox as an adult can lead to shingles and for old people it can be quite dangerous. My younger siblings didn't get chickenpox although there wasn't a strict quarantine or anything like that. They had it two years later. We never really figured out why they didn't got infected and furthermore how I got infected in the first place since I was visiting my uncle at  that time and didn't have contact with any other kids for more than a week.

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Before the vaccine was invented and widely available, it was common in my area of the UK, in the 70s and 80s, for families not to go out of their way to avoid their children getting the illness, even if they didn't actively hold parties to pass it around.  

My mother likes to tell stories of my older siblings all being treated with the same big bottle of calamine lotion when they all caught it at the same time, and I think that family visits went on as usual. She is not particularly well-educated or good at dealing with illness, so she may not be representative of parenting at the time. But as I remember, chicken pox was generally considered as bad luck, but not life-threatening.  

I should say, we were all vaccinated routinely but probably more because it was "the done thing" rather than because any thought went into it. (When a new baby in the family went down with a viral infection recently, my mother blamed the parents for having allowed the baby to sit in his vest for half an hour, in a centrally heated room.)

I guess if you were brought up with that mindset, and have never had an education that allowed you to think critically and absorb new information then there isn't much hope of doing things differently in the next generation.

 

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@blessalessi, the chicken pox vaccine is not in the vaccine schedule on the NHS unless you are in a vulnerable group, parents have to pay to get it done privately if they want their child vaccinated.

Chicken pox can be dangerous for pregnant woman and their unborn baby but according to the NHS the risk of any complications occurring are extremely low, if you have already had chicken pox as a child the there is no need to stay away from people who do have it,  not sure what the public health authorities in the US say about it.

  http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1109.aspx?CategoryID=54&SubCategoryID=137

Personally I would not have done that, looking after 3 sick kids while pregnant would be beyond awful for me to contemplate, I didn't set out to purposely get my kids infected but I never stopped them from getting it either, thankfully both kids got it mild both times they got it, I wasn't able to afford to pay privately with my daughter and my son had already had CP when the vaccine became available.

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In Sweden we don't routinely vaccinate against chicken pox and going to visit someone with chicken pox is not uncommon. My daughter got it at preschool though "for free" so I didn't have to do that. I had made the decision to let her wait until 12 and if she hadn't had it by then I would vaccinate her but I preferred that she would get it naturally as the vaccine can fade and getting as an adult is no pick nick. My sister in law got it in her 20s and my brother had to take time off work to take care of her and even carry her to the bathroom the worst days. She didn't need any hospital care but a doctor came to check her out at home. 

I had when I was about 9 or 10 and had a normal case of it, fever and itching for a couple of days and then boredom until the poxes were dry and I could go back to school. The same was true for my daughter. 

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My house was in the middle of three with 8 kids between us.  This was right before the vaccine and I remember being encouraged to go play at the house with the sick kid.  I got it, and so did everyone else. No complications among us.

Does anyone else remember the episode of South Park where the parents held a chickenpox party for the boys, and they retaliated by giving their parents a herpes party?  

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Glad to not be the only one who was impressed by Jordan's chirpy chickenpox party story. Negatively impressed, FTR. 

And I'm not judging anyone else's decisions WRT the pox. I admit,  It's simply that:

 Jordan and Melissa Lee Beautifully could raise their kids just like I did, and I'd find fault with them.  Because I Doubt I will ever get over him/them hating on former FJites who had the courage to reject their FOOs' destructive patriarchy and get married quietly at a courthouse, IIRC

In response to that couple's defection and wedding of their choice, Jordan fumed that anybody who did not have their father perform the marriage ceremony was dishonoring not just father but God in heaven!  ( This was all on FB, as I recall.)

 

 I don't think he threw shade at any wedding that wasn't themed to within an inch of its existence (like his and Meliss's backyard Robin Hood+Maid Marian extravaganza).  So there was that, on his behalf.

That was what, 6, 7 years ago and it annoys me as if it were this minute.  I think initially it had to do with my traditional Lutheran upbringing, where a wedding is a service of worship with a ceremony of lifetime commitment included. Conducted by a pastor who's educated and "called" to lead such ceremony. The Sherwood Forest, Massachusetts, nuptials were such a show of those two rich kids ....which was their choice BUT mixed with their whole hearted adherence to patriarchy -- followed some time later by his scathing disdain for the other couple's ceremony ... Ugh, no just NO!

And please note: if your wedding was a joyful celebration of the two of you and your most beloved and had nothing whatsoever to do with God, or was anywhere else along the spectrum, I'm NOT judging!  I'm just stuck in a state of high dudgeon that Jordan had the nerve to loudly criticize a loving couple who did it their way. 

*gasp*.... I'm harshin' my own TGIF buzz!  Time to take a walk. Sans iPad. 

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Chicken pox. Ugh. 

Also measles, mumps, and German measles (rubella), which This Here Olde Lady got in the time-honored tradition pre-vaccines: you caught it at school or from a sibling---and dear heaven help Momma, with back-to-back sick kids.

No complications (yet---*knocks wood, and resolves to check out shingles risk*), but well-remember Mom swabbing us down with calamine and counting the blotches, till it got above 100, at which point she just grabbed a small paint roller and just slathered us up....

If there IS no vaccine for an illness, can vaguely sorta support sickness parties---but good heavens, if you HAVE a nice tested protection available, NOT using it seems (IMNSHO) to be insanity.

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I had chicken pox at four. My mother did, too, while she was pregnant with my little sister. It was later in her pregnancy, thankfully, and my sister is ok, but it was the 50s, and yes, once someone had chicken pox, everyone else was brought around to play with them, especially in summer, so we'd all get it and get it over with.

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I had chicken pox at 9, it was going around at school.  My two sisters came down with it in quick succession and my mom was actually glad we got it because immunity.  

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Yeah, I've not heard of the chicken pox vaccine being widely available here in the UK. I got it on my 2nd birthday, which must've been fun. My cousin got it when he was only a few months old. I remember him being completely covered in calamine lotion, poor kid. 

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Dh and I both are carriers or something for chicken pox. He went to every pox party available as a kid and never got it. I even babysat a poor kid that had it so bad that he had a pox diaper and never got it. I did get mumps despite having had the vaccine, but only got one on top of my head. I made sure that both kids got the vaccine though, since never having contracted it despite exposure is hardly a guarantee and getting it as an adult is really dangerous (kids can tolerate higher fevers than adults). That was the reason for the parties though. It's a lot safer to get it as a kid.

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Just adding- Shingles isn't just an "old person" disease. My husband was hit last year at age 37. He still gets periodic nerve pain in the arm where the rash was.

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My mom apparently never got it, and I was never allowed to play with kids who had the pox due to this. I got it when I was 12, after a family trip. I was immunocompromised and wound up hospitalized on IV antivirals. Still remember it 20+ years later. It was awful. My sisters caught it from me and one got it bad like me, and one barely had splotches. The funny thing is, my mom must be a carrier, cause she never got them...even caring for three sick pox girlies for over a month. I don't think she was ever so glad to get out of the house as.then! 

That said, I think we are at the point where it will be clear how long the vaccine lasts. Not that I think getting it is great (esp for people like me!) but it'll be interesting to see if we have adults getting it if the vaccine fades, and how bad a case they get. 

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I had chicken pox twice as a child. At the time the vaccine had not been developed yet. I'm fairly sure my parents didn't deliberately expose me to it, but I know other families that did and it was considered preferable to getting it as an adult back when it was assumed everyone would get it eventually.

Personally, I'm all for the vaccine. Yes, it doesn't give perfect immunity... but as I just said, I had chicken pox twice because contracting it naturally isn't perfect either. I guess my first case was not severe enough to convey immunity, but there was no way of knowing that till I got it again a couple of years later. The risk of death or long-term complications from chicken pox isn't a large one, but it exists and there's a simple way to avoid it, so I don't see any reason not to vaccinate.

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It appears that the incidence of shingles is less with the vaccine than with natural infection- but the data's still being gathered. 

Chickenpox exposure is generally not a problem for a pregnant woman who's already had chickenpox or been vaccinated but if she hasn't she can get quite ill and if she gets them at the "wrong" time in pregnancy there can be serious repercussions for the fetus.

I had a horrible case of chickenpox when I was 11.  Wouldn't wish that misery on anyone.  All my kids are vaccinated.

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Back in the early Jurassic, when I was a child, we all caught chicken pox, or not, as it made the rounds of family & friends. My mother swore I did NOT have it while my brother did although I did have mumps & rubeola (red measles) pretty much simultaneously -- ugh.

Fast forward to last month...in a discussion with my MD over whether or not to get the shingles vax for which I am now eligible as a 60 plus-er, we had my blood titered for varicella (chicken pox) along with the other routine measures. Lo & behold, I am positive for varicella, meaning I must have been infected at some point, probably a subclinical infection. So, I guess a shingles shot is in my future.

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My son got encephalitis as a complication of chickenpox. He was horribly ill until he got to hospital and got the anti viral medicine. He responded quickly and well to the medicine, but it was very scary for a little while, and I feel that we were really lucky that responded as he did. Complications from chickenpox are rare, but serious. Why take the chance?

(We live in the UK, the only reason he wasn't immunised.)

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Well that's going to be interesting. Despite the being apparently immune, the Navy insisted that I required the varicella shot. Will I need the shingles shot?

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The way my grandma talked to me about chicken pox, it was seen as kind of inevitable when she was raising her kids in the 1950s in the US. Since there wasn't a vaccine yet, and most cases in children weren't dangerous, she wasn't terrified of the kids getting chicken pox at school or from playmates. Polio on the other hand... 

I was vaccinated for chicken pox when I was a kid in the 90s. But I still remember quite a few classmates whose parents let them contract the disease instead of being vaccinated because they thought the shot couldn't be effective.

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Having chicken pox is one of my earliest memories.  I remember socks on my hands, calamine lotion, and cornstarch in the bath.  And oh.  MISERY.  I had one on my eyeball.  I think I was three.  Horrid, horrid, horrid.  

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3 hours ago, samira_catlover said:

Chicken pox. Ugh. 

Also measles, mumps, and German measles (rubella), which This Here Olde Lady got in the time-honored tradition pre-vaccines: you caught it at school or from a sibling---and dear heaven help Momma, with back-to-back sick kids.

No complications (yet---*knocks wood, and resolves to check out shingles risk*)

 

If you're in the US, at age 60 you can get the shingles vaccine free of charge (preventative medicine).

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My parents definitely did this to us as kids. This was about the late 90's or early 2000's. My cousins had it so we went down to their house and all three of us got it at once. I don't see a problem with it. We were all fairly healthy kids and we got to stay home from school! 

But again to each their own, if you want to vaccinate go for it! 

(I should point out that my parents were not anti-vaccines, we had all the normal ones. I'm just guessing they put the chicken poxes in with the likes of the flu shot and what have you)

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The massive increase in shingles in older folks is actually in part BECAUSE of the chicken pox vaccine, from what I understand. It used to work like this:

1. You got CP as a kid and (in most cases) developed immunity

2. You kids got CP and your immune system remembered what to do and revved up. Sort of like getting a booster shot. So your body would successfully fight the virus if it tried to flare up as shingles.

3. As an older person you were again exposed when your grandkids got CP. Acting as another booster to keep the shingles part of the virus down again.

Instead this happened...

1. You got CP as a kid and developed immunity

2. Your kids got the CP vaccine so your immune system didn't get its "booster" shot. 

3. You got older and your body forgot how to fight off the virus which is still dormant in your system. The virus wakes up and has free reign to break out into shingles

 

Hence the need for ANOTHER vaccine which now takes the place od getting additional exposure to the live virus.

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