The chickenpox vaccine is only about 85% effective. A family I know all got the shots, and the kids got terrible cases of the chickenpox. The kids were about 4, 6 and 8, so it wasn’t that they’d received a bad dose of the vaccine.
Although there were stricter rules about who could administer inoculations, especially to kids, our medical practice has been recommending the shot for children and healthy adults since before my kids were born. I remember waiting in line with toddlers (now in their mid-20’s) with hundreds of other families at the annual flu clinics. Before I had kids I would often get my shot through my husband’s workplace because it was quicker and easier than getting it at the doctor’s office.
Not quite. For any disease out there some folks have immunity. It’s how Biology works. It keeps a species overall healthier (usually). I don’t know that there’s any true reasoning supporting immunity from any sort of accident.
With the flu itself there are some folks who have natural immunity (as with any disease) and there are some who folks believe get it, but whose bodies don’t react as if they have. The immune system takes care of it without creating the miserable feelings. It’s really not possible to tell the different between the two, but they exist. For those like myself who work in a public school rubbing elbows and pens/pencils/air/whatever with both kids/teachers who have left school and gone home with the flu - diagnosed flu - over a period of years - and never come down with it, it’s very likely I fit into one of those two categories. I used that reasoning to avoid the flu shot in the past. It was never a problem for me.
HOWEVER, a new important reasoning was brought up to me from a doctor at Johns Hopkins. He noted that those of us who never get the flu can still be carriers of it (esp if it’s just our body not responding to it in an illness manner). A flu shot can still help us fight it off entirely or more quickly and help others that we’re around. Since that matters to me, I’ve gotten the shot every year since. My current line of reasoning is “can’t hurt and might help someone.” I know I’d appreciate it if someone did that for me if roles were reversed.
My D used to refuse to get the flu shot. The one year she taught, I told her that she owed it to her students and their families not to get sick and miss time teaching them, but, more importantly, not to spread the flu. She taught in a lower income school and many parents had jobs which didn’t provide sick leave. They could lose their jobs if they got sick. My D is in that carrier category. She never got strep, but always managed to bring it home to oldest son, who has PANDAS. She wouldn’t do it for herself, but she did it for the kids. Now, I tell her she can’t visit grandma, who’s 94, unless she’s had the shot. I, OTOH, always get a shot. I don’t get that much vacation time that I would be happy spending two weeks of it sick.
@creekland, I think it’s playing with fire to assume you’ve gotten immunity from flu. There could be a new strain that hits you hard… I’m glad you get the shot every year, but please don’t give people a reason to avoid it themselves.
I put the immunity to the flu up there with immunity to poison ivy. I hear people time and again tell me how they never get a reaction to poison ivy. I tell them I never did either until I did. It was awful. The flu sounds awful. I get vaccinated.
@MaineLonghorn I’m not giving folks a reason not to get the flu shot. I’m giving another reason why they should - and correcting faulty reasoning. I know plenty who use “they never know what strain is going to hit” to avoid getting it though, so technically your reasoning about a “new strain” could do what you’re trying to avoid.
Poison Ivy is totally different. Each time someone is exposed they lose some “immunity” to it. It’s a threshold reaction with some folks having higher/lower tolerance (higher tolerance mimics immunity), but each time someone is exposed their immune system responds to it and over time with repeated exposure the body “learns” it’s bad and will react more quickly. Last I recall reading they had discovered what causes the reaction and were investigating new treatments. I assume some of the new over the counter effective treatments use that info.
(Teaching Bio and loving rabbit trails can give one a wealth of knowledge to share when it comes to the human body.)
Interesting! I have become an expert spotter of poison ivy. I can find it in its many shapes and forms. I have also learned to wear long sleeves when spreading mulch under trees…
I agree with @Creekland that a major reason to get the flu shot is to prevent carrying & infecting others. The flu can be very mild and people can have the flu without knowing it. See: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/03/17/290878964/even-if-you-dont-have-symptoms-you-may-still-have-the-flu
I think understanding this “carrier” dynamic is important to understanding the value of widespread vaccination.
It’s not just a matter of whether a vaccine that might be 40% effective will protect me from an illness I probably won’t get anyway – it’s a matter of the impact of widespread vaccination on the spread of a disease that has the potential to kill other, more susceptable individuals. Those of us who seem to have a tendency toward experiencing more mild cases are also much more likely to be unwittingly spreading the virus to others, precisely because we aren’t sick enough to curtail our normal day-to-day activities.
Vaccination – and especially flu vaccination – is more of a public health solution than an individual solution. The more people who get vaccinated, the more protection we all have.
There is another major measles outbreak!!
FINALLY got my flu vaccine yesterday at the doctor’s office. Better late than never.
It drives me crazy when people put other people st risk because they won’t get vaccinations. I am immune to the measles vaccine, so I am very concerned about these outbreaks.
I’ve had two niblings born in the last month and both of their pediatricians have recommended not taking them out of the house for a while because of the outbreaks.
Both my sister and sister in law are going stir crazy. But since I have to avoid getting sick too, I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with the babies.
Maybe, but if the teenager is using their parent’s health insurance, the parent would still get to see the insurance explanation of benefits.
I had a baby on New Year’s Eve twenty-five years ago and my pediatrician warned me not to take him to any public places until at least March. I didn’t but he somehow got RSV anyway. It’s hard to keep winter newborns away from that stuff.
I don’t think much will get any better. Just last week I had another discussion with a group of students at school who were doubtful about the benefits of vaxs vs getting the disease. I know most of their thoughts come directly from their parents. Neither generation has seen the effects of a pre-vax world - or areas of the world where vaxs aren’t common. The kids listened to what I told them (fake study for autism, can’t get flu from the shot though body reactions can happen, stats about the pre-vax world) but I’m not sure I changed any views.
Still, it will hopefully plant seeds for them to contemplate vs just hearing one side. These are high school students in a statistically average public high school.
@Wellspring, my son got RSV when he was 9 weeks old. Probably caught it at daycare - I still feel guilty about that. I knew he had a cold, but didn’t think much about it. A friend was taking care of him while DH and I went out for our first date since his birth. He started having trouble breathing so she called the pediatrician (she used the same one we did). He told her the baby needed to go to the ER immediately. We rushed home and got him and took him in. They said it was a good thing we brought him in when we did! He was hospitalized for five days. It was a scary experience. There is a vaccine for RSV, but they only give it to high-risk infants.
My middle son had RSV at 3 months old and it led to a series of ear infections and resulted in him having his adenoids out and ear tubes in at 9 months. I often wonder how much essentially being a deaf child throughout his early childhood due to chronic ear infections, blockages and 4 sets of tubes may have contributed to his ODD/Anxiety issues.
My third son has RSV at 6 months old. Middle son, who was then a couple of months past 2, got into the liquid Ventolin and drank half a bottle. Thankfully, D (5 at the time) saw it happen and told me. We wound up rushing to the ER, where H drank activated charcoal in an effort to get my son to follow suit. They also pumped his stomach. It was only then that I was told that the recommendation for refrigerating liquid Ventolin had been changed and I could have kept in a high cabinet. I was so upset.
S17, my youngest, had RSV at 6 weeks. A friend was watching him for me while I did some errands prior to my return to work when he started coughing and struggling for breath. I took him to the pediatrician, who called the ER and had them waiting for us. He wound up not being hospitalized because it was caught early… The friend who watched him is a big fan of the band Weezer, so he gave S!7 his first nickname - Wheezer.
The RSV vaccine didn’t exist at that time. You can bet that all of my kids have heard all 3 of those stories and know how important that vaccine will be for any future children they may have.
H and I are starting to look into retirement places to live. Checking the anti-vaxxer population has been added to my list in case I ever have grands.
Wow, @techmom99, what a story! I can’t believe three of your kids got RSV. Ugh! I will never forget watching the hospital monitor that showed DS’s blood oxygen level. It was scary. Also, having to use the hospital’s huge, antique breast pumping machine since DS couldn’t nurse. That same week, DH was diagnosed with shingles. I can remember each day as if it were yesterday.