Seven Weeks Of Suffering Whooping Cough

[Flyinthesoup]

Thank you for the understanding reply! I was going to send you a private message, but it doesn't appear you receive personal messages, I think? Or, I am doing something incorrectly with the new system. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. Interesting that the doctor/health clinic would not treat other members of the family. The communicable disease department was adamant for all members of the household to have the antibiotics, which makes perfectly good sense. When I discussed the matter, further, they agreed with our position to not take the antibiotics, again, since we had done it the two previous times and the antibiotics are really hard on the system. We also took the extra step to quarantine our family.

Our first experience had me at the doctor or hospital, once every week from mid Aug. - early March. When they say the 100 day cough, it's no exaggeration! Add to that the secondary infections and it went on longer. The irony in this is that our vaccinated children had secondary infections. Our non-immunized children did not have any secondary infections. They all suffered pretty much the same with the cough.

Wishing for your family, quick healing!

[EyeQueue]

Our area is in the midst of an outbreak right now, also. In fact, the school just sent him a note last week that a least one child at my daughter's school has pertussis. She's been vaccinated, but I know that doesn't always work.

I got whooping cough about three years ago, and it was the worst illness of my entire life. I was sick for about 7 months. Real fun trying to teach classes with that going on, and having to leave in the middle of lecture off and on for a 10-minute coughing extravaganza.

I hope your little ones are well and recover as quickly as they can.

This topic is really hitting home for me right now. My area is in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak, and despite my children being fully vaccinated, the younger two seem to have contracted it. We just got back from the ER, where the kids were nasal swabbed and prescribed antibiotics. The antibiotics will prevent them from passing it on to anybody else, but they do nothing to cure the disease. According to the doctor, my kids could be coughing for the next 100 days. Vaccines are definitely not 100% and we need more people to vaccinate to prevent outbreaks like this.

Also, my kids are autism spectrum. I discussed the increase in autism rates with the psychologist who diagnosed my younger daughter and she confirmed that more cases of milder autism were being diagnosed nowadays than in the past. I am one of those weird kids who I'm pretty sure would have been diagnosed if they had been looking so closely for autism. So, I don't believe there is a real increase in autism rates, only an increase in the number of higher functioning autistics being diagnosed.

[louisa05]

That stuff is terrible. I had to evacuate one time because of that dangerous chemical. Today I burned myself with it at work.

Definite need to restrict its use especially with children.

The solid version fell out of the sky here yesterday afternoon and shredded our entire town. Definitely dangerous stuff.

[flubber]

The solid version fell out of the sky here yesterday afternoon and shredded our entire town. Definitely dangerous stuff.

:lol: :lol:

[Flyinthesoup]

Sydney....

Just thought I would check in and see how your family is doing and how the test results came out? I hope everyone is doing better.

[debrand]

Oh yes, can't have them ingesting that can we? I mean, bad enough when they inhale it... Imagine what would happen of they actually SWALLOWED it! Clutches pearls

Did you know it is addictive? I admit I have a problem. It has gotten to the point that if I don't have my daily dose of the stuff then my throat gets sore and scratchy, my lips get dry and my head hurts. Even my urine turns darker. Obviously, I need to attend some sort of rehabilitation

[Rescinded and Mended]

Ugh, so sorry to hear about those of you dealing with Whooping Cough and Pertussis. What an awful situation to go through. I've never dealt with either one, but my son and I both were sick recently with what may have been a seriously nasty sinus infection (mine was diagnosed as bronchitis), and we both had to have two rounds of antibiotics.

I just wanted to throw in that antibiotics can indeed be nasty, and I highly recommend a probiotic while you take the full course. Yogurt is good for this, but if you want a more concentrated form that helps stop the stomach aches and diarrhea, try Acidophilus. You can get it at just about any grocery store, pharmacy, or vitamin store fairly cheap. Take one or two pills with every dose of antibiotics. No side effects, and safe to give the kids. Your stomach will thank you for it. :)

[littleblueheathen]

Just heard on the news that my county has has 10 confirmed cases (18 suspected) of whooping cough in the last 2 weeks. That's up from 8 cases in the entirety of 2013. The cause? Unvaccinated children. I know my son was vaccinated as a baby, but I don't know if I was or not, as the stone tablet on which my shot record was chiseled has likely crumbled with age. We will be asking about boosters today.

[Coconut Flan]

What I was told was that if it's been more than 10 years as an adult they will give you one. If you don't remember, then it's more than likely longer than 10 years.

[FakePigtails]

What I was told was that if it's been more than 10 years as an adult they will give you one. If you don't remember, then it's more than likely longer than 10 years.

Yes, all adults are supposed to get a pertussis booster. It's done via your tetanus shot. It's even more important if you're around children. http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/prevention.html

[IronicallyMaeve]

The California Department of Public Health has just declared that there is a whooping cough epidemic. My county in particular has very low vaccination rates. A baby has died :(

Guess who is calling the doctor Monday morning to make sure she is up-to-date on her shots? I think I'm just about due for a Tdap booster anyway.

[moodygirl86]

There's actually been lots of study and research into the fact that our society's cleanliness is actually causing a lot of autoimmune disease triggers. Same with allergies. My boyfriend grew up in India and allergies are almost unheard of there. Of course, there are other serious sicknesses they have that we do not. It's just that in many cases, modern societies seem to maybe overdo it with tidiness and therefore our immunities are not being built-up as they would have in the past...of course, assuming you survive childhood and all. So, as the immune system is not tackling foreign bodies, it ends up attacking itself and as a result, normally harmless things like dust mites and peanut butter have become needless targets. Also, our own body threatening itself, hence autoimmunity.

I think you're right, especially with this first paragraph. My mum and aunts grew up around parents who both smoked - their health is excellent. Ditto me and my brothers - our mum's not a smoker but our dad was when he lived with us. My eldest brother and his wife are non-smokers, vegetarians, general health nuts; and their two kids suffer with asthma, hay fever, every respiratory problem going. I used to think that was strange, but your comment makes a lot of sense.

[Snarkle]

I was unfortunate enough to come down with pertussis (whooping cough) six years ago. We had gone to Disney World over July 4th week and a few weeks later I came down with what I thought was bronchitis which I often had in summer. I visited my internist, she gave me antibiotics, and I went on my merry way. Two weeks later I was still feeling bad and had developed a weird cough (not the barking sound like little kids make, but one where I'd cough so hard I'd lose my breath with each cough, like the air was expelled completely from my lungs). In the meantime I had been in the presence of a baby not quite a month old (fortunately I didn't hold him) and been going to work every day (I was on antibiotics so I was OK, right??). So the first part of August I go back to my internist's and she says Hmmmmm, I think you have pertussis. I was shocked - I had worked at summer camps for years and was up to date on all of my vaccinations, as were my husband and son (who was 9 at the time). It was then that I learned that the vaccination wears off - my internist said it wears off as soon as your teens if you're vaccinated as a kid - and I was stunned. [When I was in college in the early '90s, there was a sudden rise in Measles and Mumps due to the MMR vax from my childhood not being strong enough, so my college sponsored an MMR booster clinic (got that shot, too).] So needless to say I was not happy when my doctor called me on my way to celebrate my anniversary with a weekend away with my husband and told me I had pertussis and needed a specific antibiotic to finally "cure" me. When I went back to work the next week (by now it had been over 6 weeks of coughing), my colleagues were angry that I had come to work sick, when I honestly had no clue that it was more serious than I thought. I had been on antibiotics (although the wrong kind) and hadn't felt all that bad, other than coughing, and the workload was light in my office in the summer. Add to that the fact that my illness had to be reported to the CDC and my local health department, who then called me and grilled me as to where I picked up the disease. The town nurse could not believe that I didn't know how I'd gotten it - she insisted people know someone who is sick and then they get sick - but I said no one in my family was ill, nor were my friends, and that the timeline meant I had to have gotten it when I was in Disney World which was of course packed with people that week. I was so horrified that I thought I had been vaccinated against something and then I caught it anyway, as a 30-something adult, and could have passed it on to an infant or anyone else. Between my co-workers looks of disgust (they did forgive me) and being a statistic for the CDC and my local health department, it was a pretty humiliating experience and it made me feel like a leper. My internist warned me they call it the "90 day illness" and she wasn't kidding - I coughed every day, all the way through October. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Months of coughing is so awful and I was exhausted all of the time. I can't even imagine what it's like for children! So I don't abide anyone who is an anti-vaxxer - don't argue with me unless you have been there yourself. My mother and I were talking just the other day and she said, "If you had ever had a friend get polio or had a polio scare go through your town, you'd think twice about not getting vaccinated. Parents of your generation haven't seen these effects first-hand, and they're terrifying." Her own sister got the measles as a child and she said it was awful. I still have some nasty chicken pox scars myself. Oh, and if anyone truly ever tries to argue with me, I say, my son and I and my husband always get our flu shots as well, every year. I even got my DPT (pertussis) booster a few years ago. My husband has developed compromised immunity over the past few years and catches several colds, and worse, every month. I can't imagine him catching an illness that he's supposedly vaccinated against already because of a resurgence and a drop in herd immunity - while we're all current with our shots, if he did get something it could put him in the hospital or even kill him. So yeah, my friends and family know not to mess with me when it comes to vaccinations or illness, 'cause I don't tolerate it.

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