mmr vaccine

My daughter was diagnosed with ITP due to MMR vaccine when she was 18 months. Her platelet count went as low as 7000. Was given a drug at hospital to boost her counts up and her ITP resolved after 6 weeks. She is now 5 years old and we have an appt with MD on tuesday concerning the second dose of MMR. They did titer for the 3 viruses and she has protection for measles and rubella but not mumps. We are hesitant of her receiving her second MMR dose. I was wondering if anyone has any input. Thanks, Randy

Hi Randy,

ITP is a known side effect of the MMR shot. If her ITP was caused by that (which I believe A LOT of early childhood ITP is) then giving her another shot would likely be even more damaging to her immune system. If you look at the mumps as a disease itself it is not deadly. It can be bad for boys if they get it when older, but to my knowledge that does not apply to girls. I guess as a parent you have to weigh the benefits vs. the risks of this shot. If she had such a bad immune reaction that she now has ITP, she clearly is sensitive immune wise. Is getting the mumps (which is not deadly by the way and is likely a small risk) less of a risk then getting another shot? That is a question that only you can answer as her parent. I guess I would suggest studying the mumps itself to see what the risks are and then put that into perspective to her risks. There are always going to be extremes. Since you know her, you will have to decide where she sits in the extremes (or not) to get a general idea of what would happen should she get them. Most prudent parents are going to seek medical care for a disease like that so a lot of the extremes may not apply today. So there's my walking on egg shell answer.

Now for full disclosure and personal opinion (so those who want to argue with me just stop reading right here - I've made myself clear this is my opinion and I trust Randy is adult enough to form his own opinions/decisions)..............................................................................


I have a boy who HAD ITP that was severely immune damaged at 13 months old. His whole life we fought to keep his immune system from attacking everything he ate as a result of that shot. He had more then 40 food allergies and an immune system that daily got worse. And then ITP hit when he was 11. Honestly, it was no surprise to me in light of the fact that he had been going downhill for several years prior in his health (severely so).

I gave my kids (all three of them) shots until they were 12 mos. old and I started to study, read and understand what they are, what they do, and how doctor's scare parents that their kid is going to die or cause other kids to die if they don't vax them. And all three of my kids were damaged to some extent. My ITP boy was the worst, but the other two have both had immune system issues as well (clearly there is a genetic component in terms of risk). But in my lifetime, someone will have to kill me before I would ever allow another needle into my kids after the damage I've seen (and not just in my own kids). So my best advice to you is to read, read, read. One way or the other, be VERY informed about what each ingredient is, what it does, and what it's risks are. Because if you look ingredient by ingredient, it will scare you. A doctor can put formaldahyde and thimerasol (and yes, they still use mercury) in a needle and shoot it into a child's thigh and call it a vaccine. If YOU were to do that, they'd throw you in jail. And that's just two ingredients. If you follow the other ingredients, you likely will see my point. But more importantly, just make an informed decision. If, after reading and studying everything one can find, a person still feels vaccines are right for them, then at least they will have made a fully informed decision and know and the risks, benefits, etc. I personally, am very anti-vaccine after our experience. But more importantly, I am pro informed consent. Just make sure you're fully informed so you can make whatever decision you feel is best for your family/daughter. Get the actual drug insert for the MMR shot. Read it, understand it. Look up the mumps. Etc. Etc. On a personal level, I would not recommend you give your daughter the next MMR - or any other shot for that matter. Her immune system is already compromised. Adding more will only make it worse and potentially set her up for more immune issues (for which she's already a risk). But again, that is my personal opinion. You have to decide based on your research and what you know of her body.

The second thing I want you to know is your daughter's immune system (and thus her ITP) CAN be healed. Three doctors told us our son would not be able to get rid of his ITP due to his history of immune issues. We refused to accept that diagnosis. A homeopath treated our son and within two weeks he had platelets (he'd had NONE for 3 months). They went up and down around 35K to 150K for a few months and he finally stablized to normal. And those 40+ food allergies he's had since 13 months? They're gone. Every last one of them. So please do not accept that her system cannot be healed. It can be. Just not with their method. You can read quite a bit about homeopathy on the natural threads on this forum. My heart aches when I know little ones have ITP when it doesn't have to remain that way.

All the best to you and your daughter. The decisions we have to make re: our children's health can be difficult at times, we often second guess ourselves, and it is likely you will NEVER please everyone all of the time no matter what you end up doing. Just do what you think is best for her. That's all you can do.


Best wishes,

patti

I would ask about just getting the mumps vaccine by itself. No point in getting all three if her titers are still good.

The official view is that a child who had ITP after the MMR vaccination has no more chance of getting ITP second time around than any other child. However, ITP is said to come from the measles or rubella part and not the mumps part so it would make sense as Sandi says to have just the mumps vaccine.

This isn't possible in the UK. They don't ever give them separately but I'm presuming they do elsewhere in the world.

Just also to add that mumps is not always the mild disease that Patti would have us believe. I have nursed children who were left permanently brain damaged by meningitis from mumps. If it were me I'd rather risk the ITP, which tends to be of the self limiting acute sort, than mumps.

There are always going to be exceptions. I would not vaccinate my child for 1% (or less) out of fear when the rest is usually fine. If that were the case we'd walk through life living in total fear of everything that crossed our paths.

As I said, I expect Randy is wise and adult enough to do his research and make the decision that best fits his family. Whatever that decision is.

And I did not find ITP acute and self limiting. My boy who had NO platelets (that means zero) would disagree completely with you. And if Randy's daughter's case were acute, it'd be gone by now by the very definition of acute ITP.

Clearly you must be in the medical field. :sick:

Clearly I was in the medical field considering I said that I nursed patients with meningitis induced brain damage. I also looked after children whose mothers had contracted rubella during pregnancy. I'd far prefer ITP than to risk that.

The likelihood of getting ITP from the three diseases, mumps, rubella and measles is higher than from the vaccination. So I completely agree that you must weigh up the statistics.

www.itpsupport.org.uk/mmrupdate.htm

Certainly your right to have that preference. I do not buy the statistics that article is stating because in large part, there are probably VERY few doctors who actually attribute a child's ITP to the MMR shot. But they are very likely to say it's caused by the actual disease if they come close together. But I've seen several parents here say they asked their doctors about the MMR shot causing their child's ITP and they're told it's very unlikely or no way. I highly doubt those statistics are accurate from that standpoint. You can't even hardly get doctors to admit shots are a large factor in autism. Why would that be any different for ITP?

Not going to argue here. I posted to answer a father's question. You can happily shoot up your kids and I will happily not shoot up mine ever again.

Good points on both sides. I am not a vaccine fan, but I would consider the mumps vaccine if the titer was low. There are many sites that admit that the MMR can cause ITP, including the FDA. I don't give a hoot what a doctor thinks, it's a listed and well documented side effect.

I am going through the same decisions with my dog. Not that the dog compares to a child, but I read that my breed of dog tends to have autoimmune problems with vaccines that are all given at once. I am NOT going to get her vaccinated for anything that she isn't at risk for, and will not allow multiple vaccines to be given at the same time, no matter what the vet says.

So - if I am that picky about my pet, I can imagine how hard it would be to decide for a child. I'm glad I was naive when my kids were younger, and I'm glad there weren't as many vaccines back then. It's a nightmare now!

Amen, Sandi! And we had the same struggle with our animals. Although ours aren't known for autoimmune issues, if we feel anti-vaccine in general we had to ask ourselves if that applied to our pets. We ended up only doing rabies for the dog (in spite of my husband having almost lost one dog to parvo) and we do distemper for the cats. The rabies is required by law and there is no opt out of it. And we do not shoot up our chickens with anything. Thankfully, our vet is actually a holistic vet (found that out after we had been using her for awhile) and she's very good about it. She even does homeopathy for animals. Right up my alley.

www.aap.org/immunization/families/aribrownletter.html


Good luck with your decision Randy.

Oh please. First and foremost, as a parent, if you have a child scratching to open sores then you'd better be doing something to prevent staph. You either take them to the doc or you do natural abxs. One way or the other, a prudent parent with half a brain says you don't let chicken pox be scratched to open without dealing with it. So the fact that this kid died wasn't because there was no chicken pox vaccine. It was because the parents did not take prudent steps to reduce the risk of infection once the kid had opened sores up. We deal with the itch before that can happen, but others might use antibiotics after the kid has scratched it open even as a preventive. This is what I have meant all along about a prudent parent getting medical care before the child is critical.

"It's simple math: vaccines are less effective when large numbers of parents opt out. And the more who opt out, the less protected ALL our children are."

Herd immunity is a lie. If most of the population is getting vaxed then mine not being vaxed should be no harm at all. Amazingly, most of the outbreaks exist amongst those who have already been vaxed. Once in awhile an unvaxed kid will get it but more often then not, it starts with the vaxed.
www.vacfacts.info//herdimmunity.html There's enough reading there for a lifetime of science lessons.

Is vaxed in the dictionary?

Well, I think it's important that those who can be vaccinated be vaccinated. We have to protect those who cannot be vaccinated. The kids on this board have a medical reason for not vaccinating. They are counting on the rest of us to protect them from measles. by getting vaccinated.

There is currently a measles outbreak in Quebec. France has a large measles outbreak at the moment and unvaccinated travelers to France have brought it back to Canada. There have been 7000 measles cases in France with 3 deaths and 9 cases of severe encephalitis (i.e. brain damage). It is irresponsible not to vaccinate.

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/28/measles-europe-cases-map

Lily

As far as I'm concerned, 9 cases of encephalitis does not constitute a need to damage a huge portion of population with vaccines. There are always going to be ones who get sicker or not then others. You cannot go through life trying to prevent every single person from getting sick. It's OKAY to get measles. It is good for the body to build it's own immunities. It makes the immune system better so a person is less likely to get serious illness (or wonder of all wonders - autoimmune diseases). Vaccination does not provide the kind of immune system strengthening that natural immunity does. You cannot prevent every tragedy (and it is) from happening. But again, damaging whole sectors of society for a small percentage of the population is not right. The problem is, most people do not realize just how much incredible damage vaccinations cause. If they did, this would be a non-issue as people would rather get natural immunity.

I agree, Lili. It's what my husband says "People, we are trying to have a society here!" Not vaccinating puts the most vulnerable at risk. Plus of course the science does not support most of the anti-vacc claims (like an autism link).
Erica

That was my first thought: Now that I'm on Prednisone and Methotrexate, I am really at risk for contagious illnesses and would have a more difficult time fighting them. There are many people at risk like that, so that also must be taken into consideration. This really is a tough issue. No clear answers.

patti wrote: As far as I'm concerned, 9 cases of encephalitis does not constitute a need to damage a huge portion of population with vaccines.

I guess this is the sticking point. I, personally, don't believe that vaccines do damage a huge portion of the population so the stats I used to decide whether to vaccinate my own children were different from yours.

It is good for the body to build it's own immunities. It makes the immune system better so a person is less likely to get serious illness (or wonder of all wonders - autoimmune diseases).

I'd like to see a reference to that claim from a respected source. I don't believe it to be so. To have antibodies against one disease does not confer any immunity against another at all. Neither does it have anything to do with autoimmunity. Come to that, there is no difference between natural immunity induced from the disease or vaccine-induced immunity.. same, same.

Many of the vaccines have an additive to prevent spoilage. Often it can be silver nitrate or something similar. One of the theories for the MMR and autism link is the preservatives versus the active vaccine components. I have a freind whose grandchild has autism (he's a triplet) but his brother and sister do not. She advocates requesting a vaccine without the silver nitrate.

Definitely it's an individual call. It wasn't until I was in my 30's that I developed an immunity to German measles, so I had a MMR everytime there was a measles outbreak since it is tough to get individual vaccine. My ITP was diagnosed when I was 39, but there is no way of knowing what was my trigger since I also have other autoimmune issues.

I agree with Patti to a certain extent with her very first post in this thread, that u should research first and then u can make a fully informed decision and u can outweigh the risk of mumps with the risks of having the vaccine. I fully trust my doctor, so if they think I should have it, I do research it, but ultimately I'd go with my doctors advise otherwise whats the point of having a doctor if your not gonna listen to them or trust their judgement

Lauren - I used to have that attitude. After way too many years of dealing with doctors, I've learned that they can steer you in the wrong direction sometimes either through lack of knowledge or stubborn beliefs. I listen to their suggestions, they listen to mine and we make decisions together. I never ultimately go with any advise unless I feel it's the right choice for me.

I believe doctors are necessary and I believe they should be trusted, but no one should ever do anything just because they were told to. You are right to research...keep doing it!

As i get older, i am starting to get more knowledge and know to research things myself. These kinds of things can only be learnt with experience and i feel i am starting to head in that direction, like i knew in my heart it was my appendix and i had a long fight on my hands before they decided to listen to me and go in and take it out. Most of the surgeons would look at me and not want to do surgery cause of my low platlets, but the hospital where they finally took it out is kind of specialises in hematology and oncology and the surgeons consulted with the hematologists and were able to get my counts up high enough to do surgery.

Now 6mths on i have not had the pain back since and i was getting it quite often. I know thats kind of off topic from what we are talking about, it does say that not all doctors are right in what they think should or shouldn't be done. Most things i tend to agree with my doctors, but i did fight for this one and finally i got the right outcome.