Chicken Pox vaccination

I'm wanting to know from those who support vaccination and/or fully vaccinate did you get the chicken pox vaccination for your toddler?

I ask because my Dr told me it was optional... obviously i realise the entire schedule is optional, but i've just received the immunisation payment and my son has had all but the chicken pox vax. It is nothing to do with the money but i though you received that on completion of the schedule which suggests to me that the chicken pox is not considered essential. (we viewed the others as essential by the way however did delay them).

DH had chicken pox as an adult and i had it as a teen and both found it awful and based on that were thinking perhaps go ahead with that vax but i've also heard that since its a fairly harmless disease that some people just don't give that one.

So if you gave all the other vax did you give the chicken pox?

Mumma... I support vaccination, though I'm not a Mama yet, I will vaccinate to the schedule but probably not the chicken pox one... mainly because I have seen that it actually doesn't stop kids from getting the chicken pox. My bro (who is 7yo) had it, and got them a year and a half later (though mum reckons not as bad as my sis or i without the vac.) but I personally think its a waste when chances are they'll end up getting them anyway...

I support vac but Jack didn't have the rota-virus one and he wont be having the chicken pox, I just dont feel there is enough evidence of the side effect and long term effects of either of these ones

Thanks guys!

When i was about 4 years old our neighbours had chicken pox, my mum sent me to live with them for a week to try and get me to get it (thats what they did in the 80s!) anyway believe it or not despite full on contact (they were my best mates) i didn't get it! It was years later when i was about 13 that i got it and i was bed ridden for over 2 weeks... i know its worse when you are older.

MummaB, the Varilrix (chicken Pox) vaccine wasn't on the schedule when my first three were old enough to have it but that was the one I really wanted them to have in preference to the meningococcal and phneumococcal vacc's - which I chose not to give as these weren't on the schedule for them either. I had it when I was 10 and it was the worst 2 weeks of my life I think, I was sick as a dog from them, and when my sister got it at 2yo (the 4 of us all got it one afte the other, so mum had 3mths of it all up by the time it finally went) she had them inside her nose, ears, mouth and vagina and she was really quite ill from them. Seeing how bad she got them really spurred me on to get my children done as chicken pox is quite common when you think about it and it can be prevented, so why wouldnt you do it kwim? Now it is on the schedule anyway I think isn't it? If it isn't I will still be getting Alister done for it.

And its actually not a 'harmless' disease either. The effects of having chicken pox can vary greatly from one person to another, and can even lead to serious illness in some cases (apparently children of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander heritage can suffer terribly from it and it has been part of the schedule for this group of children for years before it was for all other children)

it is also true that even having had the vaccine, you can still get chicken pox, but usually the illness isn't as bad as it would be without it. And if your child is at school and not vacc'd for it, then if it 'goes around' your child will be excluded from school for the duration of the outbreak too. I suppose that depends though on how rigid your child's school would be with excluding children who aren't vaccinated - when you think about it, there aren't many children over the age of 7 (when the vacc first came out) who would be done for it.

As with any vaccination it is up to us as the parents to research it and decide if it is the best thing for our children and our situations.

My MIL had it as an adult too and was soooooo sick like sheries mum so it inspired me to get DD to have hers.

I agree its up to the individual but i have vaccinated for everything and IMO what's one more.

I had the chicken pox when I was three or four years old & was deathly ill from it, to the point where I could barely breathe or move for three weeks and I lost a very dangerous amount of weight. It took me seriously about 10 years to recover from it & be able to put weight on properly as it had damaged my immune system so much. As a result I decided to immunise my children against it. I know it's not a guarantee that they won't get it, but they would get it to a lesser extent than if they didn't have the vaccination.

Yeah, we did the chicken pox vaccination. My nephew had it recently and had it in his eyelids.. ended up in hospital and there was concern it might get in his lungs. So it can be serious.. it's not just an itchy rash. I'd rather if DS was going to get chicken pox that it be a milder case because of the vax.

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Wow thank you! i didn't realise it wasn't that harmless.... as i said in the 80s lots of people sent there kids to get it on purpose and i've even been told to do that with DS. So this information has been invaluable!

Oskar will be getting it. Joshua had it and did get chicken pox when he was 5 but not as severe as might have been. It's can be a very nasty illness which can kill them as they can also get it internally if they get a very severe dose of it.

MummaB, Jack had it and Tom will too in a couple of months. I asked my trusted GP about whether it was necessary and he said that there are some very nasty complications of cp so he recommends it. I am not totally convinced that vaxing is the right thing to do, but we did the others so I did this one too.

BTW the reason it is not part of the payment is because the schedule has changed. CP was not on the schedule when the payment was brought in for 18 months. It isn't anything to do with "necessity" of the vax.

Just to add my 2 cents.... When we were in hospital the paediatrician told us not to get the cp vaccine cos they dont know enough about it. He said that often its not that bad if you get chicken pox when your young. He reccomended that my DH get the vaccine because he has never had it and it can be bad when you are an adult!
I think that i will see if DS gets it and if he doesn't then when he gets a bit older we might get the vaccine. There are no age restrictions!
Just my opinion!
Good luck
xox

I will be getting the vaccination for DS next month for chicken pox. Big and main reason is DH has never had chicken pox. Now if he gets it, it can turn him sterile. I want to prevent this perhaps happening in the future for DS. If he doesnt have the vacination, is to never get chicken pox while younger and gets it when he's older, he may not be able to have children if he chooses to. I would hate for that to happen to anyone especially if i could have prevented it.

I have had DD vaccinated against everything so far...I have been living in South Africa and they give the CP at 12 months so she has already had it even though in Australia I think it is on for 18 months...

I have had my DS vaccinated against everything and my 2nd DS is in the process of being vaccinated...

I keep thinking though, vaccines do not necessarily last a lifetime (and don't immunise for some people at all), so immunising against CP as a child, doesn't necessarily prevent someone from getting it as an adult. In fact, it may prevent them from getting it as a child, which could lead to them contracting it as an adult, and be very, very sick from it.

Does that convoluted rambling make any sense LOL?

I'm not against the vaccine BTW, it's just one of those things I've been pondering in the 'do I, don't I?' debate :rolleyes:

Janie, I asked my GP about that too. He said that there will be boosters available for when this one wears off. He also said it was one of the more innocuous vaxes.

Janie - I thought along the same lines - same with mumps. If a man gets mumps as an adult, it can be really bad.

But by the sounds, it doesn't really prevent them getting chicken pox, it seems that a lot still get it, so chances are they'll still be exposed to chicken pox as kids rather than in adult hood.. if that made any sense lol. I'd still prefer a milder case of chicken pox whether child or adult.

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I will be getting the vaccination for DS next month for chicken pox. Big and main reason is DH has never had chicken pox. Now if he gets it, it can turn him sterile.

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Actually, Kellxx, I'm note sure who has given you this information, but it is untrue. Varicella does not cause sterility in males. It is possible that it may have been confused with the parvovirus that causes mumps, which can cause damage to the male reproductive tract if it is contracted after puberty.

Varicella is not on the immunisation schedule because it is not considered sufficiently "cost-effective". In other words, the costs associated with subsidising the cost of the vaccine are not really outweighed by the health-care costs of treating people who contract the disease. Some of the stories here are horror stories, but they are thankfully quite rare. Compared to many of the other vaccine-preventable diseases, chicken pox is quite mild.

I do agree, though, that teens and adults who have not had the vaccine should consider getting it. As has been pointed out by the experiences of others in this thread, chicken pox is worse as a teen/adult, so I think it is reasonable to offer it to teens and adults who have not previously had chicken pox.

Michael I wasi was going to reply to kelly's post as well but thought maybe i have my wires crossed :lol:

Michael & Rach, when i had a girlfriend coming to stay who had been in contact with chicken pox/shingles and didn't know whether her or her daughter had contracted it yet, i did some research. Somethings said yes it does and others said possibly not. But those yes it does answers were enough for me not to take the risk. Here, the first thing that came up when i did a search:

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Infectious diseases, such as chickenpox, can affect male fertility in a couple of ways.

First, a high fever associated with the illness can temporarily decrease sperm production. Typically, sperm production returns to normal within 90 days after the fever ends.

Second, infectious diseases may cause inflammation of the testicle (orchitis). This may result in testicular shrinkage (atrophy) and infertility. However, orchitis is most often associated with mumps or infection of the drainage tube of the testicle (epididymitis).

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The second is more likely to be from mumps yes, but there still is that chance it can happen from chicken pox. And to me that minimal chance is big enough for me.

Each to their own, but this is the reason i am choosing to immunize my son.

DS had it, it was a rush job -- we found out one of the kids at his daycare had chicken pox, and he was due to have his vaccination in a fortnight. I emailed the vaccination coordinator at the council who told me that if he wanted to have it at all, it had to be within 5 days of the exposure - and it was day 5 (hadnt been back to creche til that day to find out that he'd potentially been exposed) so I had to book him in to my GPs and have him done that day.

He didnt get chicken pox that time, but he did about 3 months ago, and only got around 10 spots and very minor if any irritation, I was so glad that we had it done becuase I remember being covred in them, insessant itching and calamine lotion, yuk! Thankfully he didnt need any of that.

ETA- It is on the immunisation schedule & free in Victoria.

My DH had chicken pox as an adult and luckily it had no effect on his fertility.

I had chicken pox in Yr 12 in the middle of one of my sets of exams - what horrible timing! I still have a couple of scars on my face from it.

Both of my children have been vaccinated against it. My theory being - why expose them to a disease eg chicken pox when it is not necessary and they can possibly in fact be immunised against it? And yes some of the stories on here are "horror stories" but I would much rather my child have the vaccine and perhaps a mild dose of the chicken pox as opposed to being one of the unlucky ones who becomes a horror story. But that is all IMO of course! :)

I'll definately be getting Ash vaccinated against it. I remember get CP when I was 14, was just awful, I'd never want to see my daughter go thru it if she doesn't have to.

I wasn't quite sure about giving the chicken pox vax as i too figured that it is a fairly mild disease that you usually catch when you are very young. i however caught it when i was 16 and got a really awful case of it. I did my research and in the end decided that it was worth getting, i figured, its free, its as safe as the rest of his vax's, and it might prevent him being ill so why not. He had no troubles with the vax and hopefully he wont get chicken pox.

I support the vaccintation 100%. As part of my post m/c medical investigations my wonderful ob/gyn discovered that I was not immune to chicken pox. The vaccination 'apparently' takes 3 months after you are vaccinated to settle into your system. For someone ttc 3 months is like 3 years! If they get the vaccination while they are young then 3 months will pass just as quickly as 3 minutes. I thought my ob was mad telling me to get it at 28yrs of age then I met a client who was over 35 and had recently caught cp! Then i saw the method in his madness and was thankful for his advice.