Does anyone have chicken pox?

You might consider the vaccine, Scrounger.

A friend of mine's husband just got chicken pox at the age of 30. He nearly died! It took a couple of days to find a doc (in Indianapolis) who even recognized what it was... By then his fever was raging and he had pox everywhere on his body.
Even after he was "out of the woods" he was still in a lot of pain. For a couple of weeks. Not pretty...

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

If you are looking for pox parties, I suggest looking up pox parties on yahoo groups.... The groups are heavily moderated and they ask 50 questions and make you release them from liability (kinda like vaccs) but theres pox in California if anyone wants them

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Love and Laughter, Theresa

The vaccine's not all it was cracked up to be. My daughter had a reaction to it--had a rash that started at her feet and worked its way up her body. I had to miss work and observe her for an anaphylactic reaction. I'll never booster it, that's for sure!

Chicken pox vaccine associated with higher rate of shingles and death from shingles.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=12896

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Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

My home town is small enough that 90% of the elementry school got them at once and the actually shut it down for a week. So, we didn't have a choice as to purposely exposing ourselves, although mom has told us she would have. I think it is a good idea for healthy normal kids, as mentioned above pushing your immune system sometimes is what strengthens it.

Actually, leeches are being used in medicine these days. Seems that they are quite effective at reducing the pooling of blood that often happens as a result of microsurgery (such as when attaching severed fingers.) Here is a link to a writeup on a PBS show detailing the use of leeches in modern medicine. ** Warning; photos are not for the faint of heart! **

I've been in on a leech treatment. Medicine seems to repeatedly go through the cycle of discounting old methods as "quackery," pushing the new and improved for awhile, and then realizing that there might be something to the old ways after all.

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A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have . . . Barry Goldwater

I had "leech therapy" last July when I was in the hospital with an on-the-job injury (crushed hand). I had my thumb and three fingers reattached (I lost my ring finger).

I ended up losing a third of my thumb anyway because they never could get the blood flow all the way to the end of it, which explains why the leeches wouldn't stay attached to the end of the thumb but would work their way farther down it to where they could actually connect with the blood.

Quackery?

Janis

I never got CP. Neither has my husband. Why? No idea. But when we became parents, and our kids started to associate with other kids, we started to think about how awful it would be to get CP. I went to the doc to get a vaccine. My mom always said, "maybe you were exposed and got a mild form of it..." but the doctors can do tests to see if you've got immunity, and my test said no. So I got the vaccine. But adults need a series of 2, and I neglected to go in for the 2nd. I may still have some immunity, who knows?

I gave my kids the vaccine. I just figured, CP is a miserable experience, and if I could save them from that, it was a good thing. If they need a booster later, so be it.

I had a friend in grade school who almost died from CP because she contracted Reye's Syndrome as a complication.

My aunt's mother died from shingles. I never knew that shingles could actually be fatal!

So...I read about CP being a prophylactic disease...helps lessen the severity IN SOME PEOPLE from having smallpox. Maybe. Maybe not. Well, we have vaccines against smallpox. But we stopped getting those vaccines in the 1980's. That tell-tale scar on your shoulder gives you away for having been born between 1940-something and 1980-something.

Why did doctors stop giving smallpox vaccines?

Because so many people GOT the vaccines, there just wasn't much of a risk of catching smallpox.

Now...as we've discussed, CP is not an innocuous disease. For some, it's nothing. For others it can be fatal, or nearly so. Certainly it causes misery with the constant potential for life-threatening complications.

If you get the vaccine...and your kids get the vaccine...you are doing much more than just keeping them from catching CP and missing a few days of school -- you are contributing to a reduction in the potential diseases that children may suffer. Twenty years from now, maybe nobody will get the CP vaccine -- not because it's a bad idea, but because CP is an obscure, unknown, rare illness like Diptheria or Measles.

At 26 years old, last spring, I developed shingles. It was a blessing for us. All the the kids got chicken pox. Even Faith who had already had the immunization!

As a child I was exposed to chicken pox twice before I came down with it. Finally had it when I was 13. No big deal. Just got to miss 2 weeks of school.

I'll invite everyone over next time I get shingles! I was even thinking of advertising on the yahoo mom's groups.

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Wife to Ben, mother to Levi (8), Faith (6), Hope (5), Charity (3) and Benjamin and Joseph 21 montths.

If you don't have a med. exemption, you can always claim a philosophical exemption, which is what we do. Our kids get the standard vaccines (except pox, pneumococcus) but we just submit a paper to the school every year that says something to the effect of, "We have chosen not to vaccinate our children against varicella on philosophical grounds." No additional information is necessary because it's just none of their darn business and they know it.

Maybe someone can explain to me why schools that "require" vaccination then require those unvaccinated kids who do get it to stay out of school...I mean, if the vaccine's effective enough to be mandated by the state and everyone's so certain of its efficacy, why all the concern? Won't the vaccinated kids be protected? Perhaps no one really is sure, which is all the more reason to wait.

As someone who had shingles at 18, I can tell you it's excruciating. But my (generally meds-happy) family doctor recommended against the vaccination, saying if my children hadn't contracted chicken pox by 10 or 11--when it starts to become dangerous--we can vaccinate then. By that time, there will be a decade-worth of additional research available as to the long-term effects/booster schedule/etc. Not knowing how long the vaccination is effective is a bad thing--a false and potentially dangerous sense of security.

Yes I know leaches are used medically now but they're not used for the same purposes that they were way back when.

As for pox parties Southpark had an episode about parents trying to infect their kids with chicken pox. Funny stuff.

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Respect The Cactus!

Heidi's_Goats, I was going to suggest people come over next time I have shingles. I have had it twice already and I am only 22. My grandmother has had it multiple times, but it has never been severe for her either. I have also heard of the decrease in chicken pox increasing the cases of shingles, as Rose mentioned. For my family at least, we get shingles, but it isn't a big deal. Obviously it is different for other people.

It seems to me like coxsackie virus has increased since we started vaccination for chicken pox. Or perhaps it just seems that way since fewer people talk about their kid with chicken pox and more talk about their kid with coxsackies?

Kayleigh

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http://kayleighjeanne.blogspot.com

I had the chicken pox as a baby. My mom said that she put socks over my hands to keep me from scratching. My younger sister had it at about 12 and still has scars. I gave my children the vaccine. They developed a couple of spots if I remember correctly but nothing bad. They have been exposed several times through school but have not come down with it. I am aware of the risks of vaccinating but agree with those who think the benefits out way the risks. Yes a FEW people will have a bad reaction but can't help but think that is less likely than getting really sick if exposed as an adult. It seems that children have a much faster recovery rate. I would be hesitant to give it to a child under the age of say 2.

Since this is your first post I just wanted to say welcome to the forums.
Feel free to query, answer, and give thoughts and opinions.

Welcome, Windy in Kansas

Chicken pox as an adult is a really big deal. When I was in the Navy, the captain of my ship caught the chicken pox and they quarantined the entire ship.