ITP and MMR (Adults)

Hi,

My daughter has ITP, she is 30 years old and was diagnosed about 6 years ago. When she was little I just did one those of the MMR vaccine for her and now she has to do the booster vaccine since she is not immune to Rubella which might be important if someday she wants to get pregnant. Are there any adults with ITP that have done the MMR or the booster? Did it affect your platelet count?

I do want to mention that my daughter has lots lots of food allergies too so with the allergies and ITP I worry about her getting the booster shot...

thank you

The MMR has been known to trigger ITP, so counts dropping is a possibility. It's all benefit vs risk. The benefit from having the vaccine may outweigh the risk of a possible count drop. How are her counts?

When I was getting married way back when - It was required to have a blood test before one could receive the license.

I had the test - said needed the MMR vaccine - (I stated I had already had it) I was young so I let them give me the vaccine again. They tested two weeks later and found I still did not show immune so they did it one more time and again tested "not immune" (three shots total)

It might be that your daughter is like me and her body just does not accept the vaccine. I also have ITP, food allergies, and lot's of environmental allergies.

I looked into this a couple of years ago when a friend was applying to be a volunteer at a local hospital and was encouraging me to do so. At the time, the CDC web site's vaccination information page said that the MMR was linked to thrombocytopenia and was contraindicated for people who already have a low platelet count. A bit more checking confirmed this, and I decided not to do that. As Sandi says, however, it's a matter of risk/benefit.

Thank you all for your replies! Her counts change a lot and I feel like her counts has a lot to do with her emotional situation, usually drops when she is going through a hard time emotionally.

I just hope that when she has the vaccine it wont drop way lower.

Thanks for the feedbacks

Sandi can you cite a legitimate stdy to back MMR can cause ITP? Anti- vaxxers scare me as a parent.

Try this one.. adc.bmj.com/content/84/3/227.full

It's kinda well accepted that MMR can cause ITP but it's usually fairly mild and short lived. Personally I think the risk for normal healthy children is worth it.

Works for me, time to eat crow and apologize.

Thanks, Ann. Yes, there are plenty of articles about the MMR and ITP. Some children have turned out to be chronic, but of course you can't really know if the MMR was the sole cause.

I personally feel that anyone with autoimmune disorders should be careful about vaccines. I'm not saying not to get them, but spacing them out and avoiding the unnecessary ones is a possibility to consider. Once the autoimmune spiral hits, you sure change your mind about whether or not they are 'harmless'.

I found these in a quick search.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15196997

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20193633

In the study Ann shared, it is interesting that none of the children who had ITP before the MMR developed it after. Also interesting to me was that ITP is common after a measles infection in children. When I questioned my dr about vaccines (in my case the flu vaccine), she said if your ITP was triggered by a vaccine then you should avoid them, but if your trigger is a virus or flu it is better to have the vaccine.

dru mine wasn't triggered by a vaccine but by a gamma globulin injection and then a tetanus booster brought me out of "remission" - a couple years ago my then new hematologist sent me to an allergy specialist - bottom line for me is no vaccines, however I did get the flu shot and I will continue to get one unless it causes a problem. Too many people go out when they are sick & should be home, too many people do not wash their hands, too many people do not properly cover a cough or sneeze, too many people are very inconsiderate, and I do not want to be a recipient of their illness! I know a few people who have been hospitalized and were extremely ill due to the flu.

Acute ITP occurs after vaccinations against several infectious agents. Best studied is measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination, but there is reasonable documentation for acute thrombocytopenia developing after vaccination against pneumococcus, Haemophilus influenzae B, hepatitis B virus, and varicella-zoster virus (VZV).

www.bloodjournal.org/content/113/26/6511.full?sid=8c7ef2e2-6124-4b2b-9ab8-2eb9dd71d8ef

As I said though, some of these children have been chronic.

How have you been doing, Kyndig?

Dru - it's all benefit vs risk. For many people with ITP, either an infection or antibiotic can cause counts to drop, so either getting sick or treating it can trigger low counts. Sometimes though, counts can go up from either. I'd imagine it would be the same for vaccines.