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<p>The risk of having shingles, and the risk of shingles giving severe complications, are not step functions with the step at your 50th birthday.</p>
<p>Ema, you can (and should) get the chicken pox vaccine right now, while you’re not pregnant.</p>
<p>[Vaccines:</a> VPD-VAC/Varicella/Who Needs Chickenpox Vaccine](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/basic-who-needs-vacc.htm]Vaccines:”>http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/basic-who-needs-vacc.htm)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on the chicken pox vaccine, ill talk to the doctor about it. That is an immunity I definitely want, especially after reading this thread!</p>
<p>I didn’t think adults usually got the meningitis vaccine. I asked about it right after I graduated and was told it wasn’t really intended for people my age.</p>
<p>Ema, chicken pox is highly contagious. It is mainly spread through respiratory droplets but can also be contracted by exposure to the lesions. If your sister had chicken pox and you were exposed it is likely that you had a subclinical infection (no pox or only a few that no one noticed). I am an example of someone who was exposed (to my two brothers) but never showed clinical signs of the disease. That I have immunity was demonstrated by multiple exposures to the disease in my career as a pediatrician.</p>
<p>However, the only way to be certain in your case is to have a laboratory test, which is likely to cost more than the vaccine. Therefore, most doctors would recommend that you go ahead and get the vaccine.</p>
<p>Chicken pox can be a serious life-threatening disease. I had young patients in the ICU with it in the days before the vaccine. Today the danger of secondary bacterial infection with antibiotic-resistant strains such as MRSA is also a reality.</p>
<p>The chicken pox virus is a herpes virus and never leaves the body after the acute phase of infection. The virus lies dormant in the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord. When reactivated it follows the nerve out to the specific surface area controlled by that nerve.
Older people are more susceptible because their immune systems weaken with age, but shingles can occur in people of any age group who have had chicken pox.</p>
<p>Clinically I have never had chicken pox but I got the vaccine as soon as I could after turning 60. I would hope that insurance companies would begin to cover it as a routine immunization for adults</p>
<p>re; shingles vaccine at 50 vs 60</p>
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<p>And there is the explanation for why some intelligent folks are a bit hesitant to run to the counter and comply with the latest and greatest recommendation (I am specifically referring to the HPV vaccine). Since it DOES take time and often political pressure for the wheels to turn and since there are known issues with the VAERS system (ahemm…financial and political pressures in addition to reliance on accurate physician reporting) it is prudent to go slowly.</p>
<p>Have you ever heard the baby and the bathwater phrase? You seem to want to throw out ALL CDC recommendations (eg, for chickenpox vaccine, which has now been around for about 20 years, and flu vaccines) out because of the difference between the APPROVED and RECOMMENDED ages for shingles vaccine.</p>
<p>Digging deeper into the CDC website, I found this:</p>
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<p>Currently there is apparently only one manufacturer of the shingles vaccine, and the supply is not sufficient to expand the group it is recommended for. So… stop nitpicking at the CDC. They have far more expertise in this than all the vaccine-doubting nutcases out there.</p>
<p>I’m the shot weinie 
I absolutely need to get the shot, I’m just a big baby. I got the flu several years ago and it’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. People toss that run over by a truck saying too loosely, but it applies to the flu. I was flat on my back for two weeks and it took me many weeks after that to completely recover. I also tend to get asthma/bronchitis with any illness.</p>
<p>To top it all off my business is at hospitals so I go to those germ infested places too often for my liking. Ugh…they ALL have that smell of death, decay and germs. A friend of mine got legionnaires disease from being in the hospital. </p>
<p>I think my solution is going to be to take my d to her pediatrician and get the nasal vaccine. I have a few years until I hit 50 and I’ll figure out what to do after that.</p>
<p>For me, I have to watch to relax-- otherwise I tense in anticipation of the poke. Once I feel the poke I look away. Tension, I think, is what really makes it hurt.</p>
<p>I can sympathize with people who are skeptical of vaccines, who are pushed into the latest and greatest, and even those who are worried about the safety of existing vaccines, in so much as I personally am not all that convinced that the FDA is acting as a safety checkpoint, over the past 20 years it seems to have become more a marketing arm of the pharma industry more than a regulator. </p>
<p>That said, it is also playing Russian Roulette with 4 bullets in the gun not to get kids inoculated with standard vaccinations like polio, measles, DPT and so forth, it is playing with something that is stupid to do it. These have been around for a long time, and if they really were that dangerous, the results would have shown up by now. Part of the problem we saw recently was that for example, we are told there is an epidemic of kids being born autistic, when the reality is they are comparing apples to oranges in many cases to bring that up. These days, with sophisticated testing, kids who 10 or 20 years ago would be non diagnosed, are today, there is a wide spectrum that from what I am led to belief, didn’t exist back then, so comparing numbers is more fear mongering then reality…and people see that, then some quack claims it is from the ingredient used to preserve vaccines, and the lightbulb goes off…</p>
<p>Having gone through the process with my son, I also have been careful, too. One of the inoculations that was suggested was primarily indicated for people traveling to regions where it is common (I think the sheet said South America was one place), and we decided to defer it, so there is some wiggle room there,but with things like rubella, measles, diptheria , whooping cough and such, to me there is no justification for not getting them inoculated. I won’t even comment on the religious objections, only to say that theologically it is on less strong grounds then the claim they cause autism IMO…</p>
<p>In some ways, the health care profession as a whole takes part of the blame, they set up this whole aura where they are gods and we are supposed to trust them, and in many cases it appears (even if not true) that health officials, doctors and the pharm industry created a big stir for something, seemingly to generate profits, look at the track record of disastrous drugs being introduced as ‘miracle drugs’, and what came out after the fact about phen-phen and other wonder drugs like Celebrex, and you can see why the trust is lacking.</p>
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<p>It is impossible to know if you have immunities even if you have been exposed repeatedly. When I got the Chicken Pox as an adult I had been teaching school for ten years. And not in one classroom of kids at a time. I teach art and see hundreds of kids per week. I must have been exposed to CP hundreds of times. There were outbreaks in my schools over and over again. I couldn’t remember ever having them but assumed I was immune because of my level of exposure. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The shot wasn’t an option for me at that time but if it was, I certainly would have gotten one.</p>
<p>As I said in my post, the only way to know for sure is to have a laboratory test and that most doctors would recommend the vaccine for someone without a clear history of clinical disease because the test would likely be more expensive than the vaccine. The vaccine was not available to me either.</p>
<p>Musicprint, for pediatricians vaccines are administered at little or no profit, sometimes at a loss.</p>
<p>DS just had to get a titer test for chicken pox antibodies for grad school. They would not let him enroll unless he could show doctor’s records of a shot or the test. Not sure if other schools are starting this, it was not an issue for his undergrad, and DD had the vaccine.</p>
<p>intparent:
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<p>I am as secure in my nitpicking as you are in your blind and unquestioning trust.</p>
<p>How wonderful we each can still make these choices for ourselves.</p>
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<p>Wow, you must deal with a different FDA than the one I deal with. I work in biotech and nearly all my work gets submitted to and reviewed by FDA. And in my experience they are the most skeptical and unsentimental bunch of regulators you ever saw. They view us (private industry) little better than a bunch prostitutes working for money and themselves as noble guardians of the public’s health.</p>
<p>I laugh when I read people (usually someone who is selling a quack cure of some sort) claiming that there is some big conspiracy or unholy pact between FDA and big industry. They know nothing about about what it is really like to deal with the FDA. </p>
<p>FDA certainly isn’t perfect. On occasion they can be mistaken, tricked, old-fashioned & slow to change, bureaucratic, misinformed, unreasonable, and even downright pig-headed. But as much as they aggravate me, believe me, we are far better off with them than without them.</p>
<p>If the shingles vaccine is just a stronger chicken pox vaccine, why wouldnt they just use that in the first place?</p>
<p>Duke didn’t give me my room key until I had all my vaccines, I was only missing one the meningitis one, so I guess colleges wont let you move in until you have all of them.</p>
<p>Deterrance, it’s generally a requirement for all colleges for their on-campus students to have their meningitis shot. On-campus student must be up to date with their vaccinations.</p>
<p>It depends on the college.
My older daughter didn’t have them.
She lived on school property till graduation.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4, from the CDC website:</p>
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