Measles and the demon-haunted world
It is ironic that the success of modern vaccination programs against ancient scourges such as measles has been part of the reason parents today are so ignorant about what these diseases can do. A recent outbreak in California has demonstrated the effects of this lack of knowledge:
Researchers have found that past outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are more likely in places where there are clusters of parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated…
In California, vaccine exemptions have increased from 1.5 percent in 2007 to 3.1 percent in 2013, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times.
That’s a surprisingly large number—but hey, this is California:
Researchers have found that those who refuse vaccines tend to share similarities.
“In general, they’re upper-middle to upper class, well-educated ”” often graduate school-educated ”” and in jobs in which they exercise some level of control,” Offit said. “They believe that they can google the word vaccine and know as much, if not more, as anyone who’s giving them advice.”
An enormous amount of damage was also done by fraudulent science in the guise of an influential 1998 article in Lancet claiming a link between vaccines and autism, that has since been proven to be a fraud and retracted. But the study’s author, Andrew Wakefield, couldn’t have done it alone:
But it couldn’t have been done without a willing and for the most part scientifically ignorant public, clamoring for easy answers to medical mysteries. In an editorial in BMJ, editor Fiona Godlee writes that the furor against vaccines continues to be “fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession”¦”
Measles is a serious disease. It is very serious in populations that have not been exposed to it—just ask the Hawaiians, or what’s left of them. Measles is more commonly a relatively mild disease contracted in childhood, but one that in a small but not inconsequential number of cases has very severe repercussions that can include the complication of encephalitis (see this for more details on why doctors are very concerned about measles outbreaks).
But many people cling to the notion that it is vaccinations that are the greater danger, and they will not be dissuaded by mere facts. I wrote about the phenomenon in 2008, and I’m sorry to say the problem is still as current as ever (see also Part II, here).
I will add that I have a dog in this race: personal experience. When I was young, virtually every child got measles as a rite of passage, along with mumps and chicken pox, and often German measles too. There were no vaccines for any of them. But it’s not primarily my own experience of having measles—which I remember only vaguely (I was around two or three)—that made the deepest impression. What was far more searing was the fact that, when I was two, my only cousin (age 6) had measles encephalitis and was so severely brain-damaged from it that he’d had to learn to walk and talk all over again.
He never quite made it back all the way, either; I remember him well after that. He remained partly paralyzed, walked with a strange gait, could not use one of his arms, had a great deal of emotional lability, and was subject to frequent seizures. When I was six he died of complications of the disease.
That is the sort of thing a child is unlikely to forget.
I find it odd that the very same people who believe in the “science” of climate change and deride deniers as being anti science so vehemently disbelieve the science on vaccinations.
Bookworm had a bit on this a few days ago and posted this excellent Penn and Teller video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo
There is another aspect to this issue, and that is the source of these diseases.
From what I have read, there is strong suspicion that some of the childhood diseases we all of a sudden seem to be afflicted with can be traced to the Obama Administration allowing untold tens of thousands of illegal alien children from Mexico and Central America to swarm across or borders and, then, their shipping them all over the country.
Actually, those who are most egregious in their unwillingness to vaccinate their children are LIBERALS.
Studies in California prove it.
Researchers analyzing records for about 55,000 children born in 13 northern California counties between 2010 and 2012 found five geographic clusters of 3-year-olds with significantly higher rates of vaccine refusal. These included East Bay (10.2 percent refusal rate); Marin and southwest Sonoma counties (6.6 percent refusal); northeastern San Francisco (7.4 percent); northeastern Sacramento County and Roseville (5.5 percent); and south of Sacramento (13.5 percent). By comparison, the vaccine refusal rate outside these clusters is 2.6 percent, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics. …
The communities where anti-vaxxers cluster are also among the most liberal. Marin County, San Francsico County and Alameda County all voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. In Marin, 78 percent of the vote went to Obama. In San Francisco, it was 84 percent. And in Alameda, it was 79 percent. That’s all higher than what Obama got in his own home county of Cook County, Illinois.
So the next time one of your liberal friends starts in on science denial, point them to the aforementioned.
Unlike creationism or (at least in the short run) climate change, denying the science on vaccines can be lethal.
In short order…
Measles, mumps, chicken pox, and German measles; like most kids in my cohort, I had them all because there were no vaccines.
And now I can add shingles to the list (bad stuff, that). I wonder: If one has been vaccinated for chicken pox, will that prevent shingles later in life?
I can remember taking the polio vaccine at age 5 or 6 (one of my best friends in high school had been among the last of the polio victims in the 1950’s; he died at age 33). And of course, I remember getting the smallpox vaccine that leaves one with the round scar on the shoulder.
BTW, your reference to demons reminded me of this book: The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story by Richard Preston. A very good, scary read.
I agree with Wolla Dalbo, we have seen diseases that have been rare suddenly blossom across the land, and the likely source is the messiah’s border crash. As far as parents (who by the way probably received childhood vaccinations) denying their children vaccinations is concerned, its too bad they don’t become ill instead of their kids.
I remember being quite ill with measles — not with complications such as the terrible encephalitis your cousin suffered, but just the normal illness itself. I was in bed for what seemed like forever, delirious some of the time with fever, itching and uncomfortable with rash, and worst of all, forbidden from reading to pass the time — the blinds were drawn and the room was kept dark for days to avoid the complication of damage to my eyes.
But my understanding of the value of vaccinations doesn’t stem so much from that experience, but instead from one of my first jobs in adulthood, years later. I worked at an institution for the blind with children, then aged around 12, who had been affected in utero by rubella — a/k/a German measles — contracted by their pregnant mothers during an epidemic in the mid-1960s. Rubella’s usually a mild disease, but for unborn babies, it’s devastating. The children with whom I worked had been rendered blind, deaf and profoundly mentally retarded. Just stop and think about that triad of disabilities for a moment. Now add the emotional and behavioral disturbances that also beset those children, born of their frustration and bewilderment, so that they often required high levels of daily sedative medication just to allow them to be near others. They were so damaged and unreachable that they seemed unable to comprehend or accept any level of learning, communication or affection. They were fully closed within themselves, with no happiness or ability to enjoy their lives that could be perceived by the adults around them, no matter how creatively we tried to find ways to provide it. They are likely still alive now, entering their 50s and still living in silence and darkness in some institution.
The vaccine for rubella was developed only a few years after the epidemic that wrecked those children. Today’s parents who refuse the rubella vaccination for their children may think they’re not exposing their children to much risk. But they fail to understand — or perhaps don’t care — that they are also exposing the unborn children of any unvaccinated pregnant women who come unknowingly within reach to utter disaster. It’s unforgivable, and to my mind, incomprehensible. Maybe these parents would better understand the immorality of their actions if they realized that their grandchildren may be at risk of disaster when their unvaccinated daughters grow up someday to be pregnant, if rubella once again becomes common as a result of choices like theirs. Maybe when more people have actually encountered human beings who’ve experienced such disasters, they’ll begin to understand that vaccines were developed for compelling reasons.
Haunting…
Don’t forget this person’s huge and malignant influence: Jenny McCarthy: anti-vaxxer, public menace — and also the person who gave her large public exposure–Oprah, as well as others, like Larry King:
May I play devil’s advocate for a moment, while also stating I am not an anti-vaxer? Just a few years ago when reading about this topic, one article listed the current pediatric vaccine schedule. I was shocked at how many more shots are required compared to what my kids had 30 yrs ago. Seemed like it was double or triple the amount. You know how our nanny state do-gooders just over reacted to the snow? Wonder if they’ve done the same thing with the vaccine schedule? It is an assault on the immune system, even if it is a necessary one. And something has caused an uptick in autism. Could it possibly be not a particular vaccine but the effect of so many? Or maybe adverse effects only occur when a child’s immune system is already somewhat stressed. For example, your kid is coming down with a cold but they’re not showing symptoms yet. So there is no reason known to you to cancel their doctor’s appointment for their scheduled shots.
So, I’m wondering if there could be some non- conspiratorial, not non-scientific connection.
Which, again is not to say children shouldn’t be vaccinated. Just wondering if the schedule should be looked at again. My personal experience happened with my son. Thirty years ago there was a scare about the pertussis vaccine. He had a bad reaction to the first vaccine on the schedule and his pediatrician suggested we do the other shots but not the one for pertussis. Back then most kids were getting their shots, so the only consideration was his safety. About two years ago he caught an adult case of whooping cough. Very long lasting and unpleasant. However even if he had received the vaccine as an infant, that immunity doesn’t last longer than twenty years. So it wouldn’t have helped thirty years later. He’s on the west coast and probably caught it because of …… people not vaccinating their kids.
I’m all for vaccinations but my understanding has been that for a very small percentage of those vaccinated, there are serious side effects. Not wanting to rely on an impression, I did some research. The CDC states that, “Any vaccine can cause side effects. For the most part these are minor (for example, a sore arm or low-grade fever) and go away within a few days. A vaccine, like any medicine, could cause a serious reaction. But the risk of a vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small.”
Reading through the CDC’s page entitled; “Possible Side-effects from Vaccines” the percentage of serious side effects varies from 1 in 100 to 1in 100k to 1 in a million. There are approx. 46.5 million children in the US age 0-11. So, 1 in 100k means that if all those 46 million get vaccinated, 460 of them are going to have serious side effects.
The CDC lists serious side effects as fever, severe allergic reactions, long-term seizures, pneumonia, coma, permanent brain damage and death.
Failure to get vaccinated means, in the greater population many more potential casualties. Statistically, getting children vaccinated makes complete sense. For the children who experience a serious side effect to a particular vaccine, statistics are little comfort. Either way, it’s essentially rolling the dice albeit with the odds heavily in favor of the majority.
In all likelihood, there is no increase in the number of cases of autism. It’s just more frequently diagnosed. Also, the definition has been greatly expanded: “autism spectrum”. I was not diagnosed as a kid, thankfully, because that was a long time ago, but if I were a kid today I probably would be. So, don’t blame vaccines.
Also, there is now a vaccine for shingles, though it may not do any good if you’ve already had an attack.
autist:
If you follow the links in my post to those articles I wrote about autism and vaccines in 2008 (this and this), you’ll see I treat the increase in autism statistics and offer explanations for it.
I like the “anti-science” and measles incidence correlated with blue, blue lib-land.
I think there is a contagious insanity, low-grade but nutty and persistent, afoot in the land. Educated people though ignorant of science feel entitled to invent their own facts, their own science. Because, you know, you just can’t trust anyone these days. Or, “I bet they haven’t thought about THIS” (whatever THIS is).
Like, autism is on the rise and something must be causing this. Aha! preservatives in vaccines are doing it. Or power lines or any other nutty idea: they are all treated as if they may have validity.
Or, why are there so many vaccines these days? Seem excessive to me. Must be the drug companies grubbing for profit. Not said is, “Wow! No we can prevent shingles.” The only exception to this anti-vaccine thrust is the pro-Gardasil crowd, to prevent some HPV genital infections, and that’s because teen-age sex is a right or an inescapable truth.
No one ever says, “Autism is a trendy diagnosis, so let’s consider that the rise might be due to diagnostic inflation.”
All of these wretched diagnoses are OK to have. We have been made aware. Autism Awareness Week, or whatever. There is no stigma to any diagnosis anymore, not to AIDS in gays-passed on by disgusting promiscuity- or anything. Any malady is a cause for prideful exhibitionism. The root for “mal” is what? Remember?
So these people of Marin County, the upper upper middle class, vote for Baraq, eat organic, despise GMOs, don’t vaccinate their kids, and fight man-caused global warming.
It is worse than nutty.
In 1957 I caught the measles. At that time, it was not unusual for doctors to make house calls. Ours did and announced, as he came through the front door, “She has measles. I can smell it.”
That I did, and a nasty time of it I had. Darkened room, feeling like crap, and then a seeming recovery for a normal 10 year-old. A few weeks later, I developed a series of bruises with no apparent cause. When I had a nose bleed that lasted hours, my parents called the doctor who sent me directly to hospital where I was diagnosed with a blood disorder whereby my blood marrow ceased making platelets. Fortunately for me, this complication of measles was treatable and curable, although I spent a month in the hospital, getting daily blood test to determine whether or not the administration of cortisone was in the high ending dosage to jerk my marrow back into doing its proper job. Then, the long, drawn-out process of weaning the dosage to keep the platelet count up and the amount of cortisone down.
I never felt sick and spent the time reading and watching TV.
Everything was duly explained to me by my doctors and I never had any fear, except when the hospital priest administered last rites. I wasn’t Roman Catholic but knew what that meant. Then I was afraid that I wasn’t being told everything. Naturally, my parents were not amused and insisted that the specialist reassure me.
In spite of this, I considered myself lucky. I had a classmate who was lame from polio and the girl across the street “recovered” from measles with epilepsy and mental retardation.
This is wrong to me:
“In general, they’re upper-middle to upper class, well-educated . . .”
No, No, they are NOT well-educated. They might have advanced degrees; but, their education has failed them if they fall for the anti-vaccine hype.
And, that so many of them seem to fall into the liberal side of politics doesn’t surprise me – too many liberals seem to think they know better than the rest of us. Even when presented with facts counter to their beliefs they hold steadfast.
Remind me again, Obama, just who is it that “bitterly clings to their religion”?
Sus…a:
Interesting story. Not a lot of folks were treated with cortisone in 1957.
From uptodate, a medical source, on Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), which is what you undoubtedly had, and is distinctly unusual after measles: “Data on time to recovery of a normal platelet count from most commonly acquired infections are sparse, but in the otherwise healthy child, the thrombocytopenia is transient with recovery within a period of weeks.”
It’s a risk management problem. There is a potential risk of contracting the disease. There is a risk posed by vaccines, most notably in the varying toxicity of the adjuvants and inflammation caused by the antigens and immune response. While most people are at low risk of suffering complications, there are people who will experience moderate and serious effects, up to and including mortality.
Don Carlos: pretty sure the shingles vaccine reduces your chance of getting shingles, not prevents it. And I probably am a nut but I don’t completely trust the government.
My son turned 2 and was set to get his first MMR shot, just as the autism hoax was at it’s beginnings. I admit I googled measles and autism and read everything I could find. I don’t have a college degree, but I do have an excellent bs indicator. It was clear the anti-vax crowd were tin foil hat wearers and there was no actual data supporting the autism claim.
My son got his measles vaccine.
KL: If a vaccine seriously reduces your chance of infection, it prevents that infection in YOU. You are an individual, so it’s a coin toss, which either prevents or does not.
A simple concept.
In a herd, a vaccine may reduce infection by 90%…but 10% will be infectable, and one of those 10 may be you. This also gets us into the idea of herd immunity….that so many of the herd are immune so the infectious agent has trouble reaching the vulnerable.
}}} Measles is a serious disease. It is very serious in populations that have not been exposed to it–just ask the Hawaiians, or what’s left of them.
Two words: Native Amerinds.
}}} KL: If a vaccine seriously reduces your chance of infection, it prevents that infection in YOU. You are an individual, so it’s a coin toss, which either prevents or does not.
This is a markedly simplistic answer to a complex issue.
1) The vaccine may only partly protect you. You get some of the effects of a lesser strain, but not the full brunt of it. Look at Cowpox, vs. Smallpox. If a fire is an example, you’re doing a pre-emptive burnoff, which stops the fire from getting as deep or as hot as if there was all the brush there that naturally occurred between natural fire events. Thus the forest is saved from the events of a really serious fire.
2) The vaccine may reduce your susceptibility to the disease, so even if exposed, and even if not fully protected, your immune system may succeed in fighting it off because it has at least the partial defense of having been exposed to it before, leading the body to marshal its own defenses more quickly thus preventing the rapid expansion of the disease into a fallow field ripe for infection. In this, think of an area littered with fire breaks. Fire may still happen, but it doesn’t make it as far as a place with no defenses set up.
Don’t confuse education with being a fool. Being educated doesn’t mean jack to a fool, the basic definition of fool is that they cannot learn from experience, and that includes education.
Wisdom vs. Intellect.
Think Noam Chompsky.
A brilliant intellect, wrapped around a total fool.
I’ve discussed the issue before, though in this case the general context of prior discussions is less applicable. Fools are more common on the Left, but the Right/Libertarian wing has a non-negligible share, too.
To carl-in-atlanta: You asked if vaccination against smallpox can prevent you from getting shingles. No, it cannot. Shingles is caused by herpes virus. It has many common immunological and clinical properties with smallpox virus, but it is a different virus. More important is that herpes virus is transmitted vertically, in ovo, from mother to her child, so it is resident virus sleeping in bodies of about 50% of population and activated by common cold or stress. Immunity to such resident virus is always weak and never can eliminate it completely or prevent its activation. No vaccine can protect from this kind of infection.
There were lots of references to “science” in these comments, but it can be misleading. Medicine and other “life sciences” are not sciences in the same sense as chemistry or physics are, because scientific method is applicable to such complex systems as living bodies only partially. These disciplines are half sciences, half arts and also to great extent just philosophies. They are never settled and full of exemptions and only partial truths.
It is also wrong to claim that people who do not want to vaccinate their children do not believe science about vaccines. They believe in effectiveness of vaccines, they do not believe in safety of vaccination – and have good reasons to question it. No medical procedure can be 100% safe, complications after vaccinations are not especially rare and can be very serios and even devastating. They can inflict just the same damage as Neo described about her cousin: meningitus and encephalitus. I also know it from personal experience: my son got smallpox vaccination in 1974, when he was 3 years old, and developed smallpox encephalitus. He recovered, but since then was prone to petit mal epileptic seizures, and his temper and personality were permanently altered not for good. And I personally know at least one epidemic of measles CAUSED by vaccination by substandartly prepared vaccine.
I am one of those who caught the measles at about nine or ten – it was going around, like wildfire, towards the end of the school year. It seemed like everyone was catching it, and so did my brother and I … from friends who weren’t showing symptoms but who were infectious. As soon as the friends came down with it, then we knew it was only a matter of days. And it was: I can’t ever recall being more miserable. It went on for weeks, it seemed like, covered head to foot with a reddish, blueish rash. I couldn’t even read to pass the time. They had come out with a vaccine for measles by the time my daughter was born – and I didn’t hesitate for a moment. No way was my child going to endure those weeks of misery.
Thousands of immigrant children who have never been vaccinated coming over the border and being distributed around the country is a great way to make a desease vector…
There is a shingles vaccine. Apparently, it can help prevent shingles even if you’ve already had it. See here:
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/shingles-vaccine
Sergey writes:
“…And I personally know at least one epidemic of measles CAUSED by vaccination by substandartly (sic) prepared vaccine.”
_______________________________________
Here is what you miss entirely. It was about the year 2000 that the medical community (based upon science) declared that measles in the United States was officially ELIMINATED. That was accomplished by overwhelming success of vaccinations. Nothing else. Vigilance through vaccinations.
Did anyone say they were 100% safe?
No
There is no medication, no prescriptive path which is 100% safe.
There——it’s been said.
BUT—–you do not acknowledge or address this.
You do not acknowledge that this disease which was prevalent in America during the last century was BEATEN by nothing other than…………vaccination. Will some deviations occur? Yes.
But the endgame, eliminating the disease from our country is of little concern to those who focus on the microscopic percentage of deviations and claim that these are unacceptable vis a vis the ability to eradicate the disease.
Tell that to the parents of the 62 cases in this recent outbreak in California.
Tell that to the thousands of Hawaiian relatives who lost their loved ones to this disease, not so long ago.
If one were to take Sergey’s comments as stand alone, this country would be losing far more children to the measles, and to many other infectious diseases that once were unabated. Before vaccinations.
It’s called, “cost benefit” analysis.
Wow…now that I think about it, I wonder whether I can take all my children back to the doctor and reverse their vaccinations. I’m overly frightened now…
Vaccination is one of the true public health success stories we have.
Obviously, it is not perfectly safe, nothing in life is perfectly safe. Early vaccines were more risky, but the ones that have been out for a very long time have been pretty proven.
Yes, there is occasionally someone who has a reaction to a vaccine and that is terrible, but mostly not predictable. Where it is predictable (people with compromised immune systems, etc) it is avoided and that is why herd immunity is so very important. It protects everyone.
Clarityseeker: You need not persuade me about effectiveness of vaccines which I never doubted: I am (or, rather was) an immunologist (many years ago). I worked in the leading Russian institute in the field (Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology) and 10 years ago was scientific editor of official Russian translation of the main WHO document on the subject: monography by Anderson and May “Infectious diseases of Humans: Prevention and Control”. Chapters on mathematical epidemiology and risk-benefit analysis I translated myself. My point was that there is still a problem with vaccine safety and there is a large room for improvement, but this mantra that vaccines are safe seriously hinders work in this direction. We need new generation of vaccines, without live viruses and ballast proteins in them, without mercury-based preservatives, only with target antigens and harmless, non-allergenic proteins as adjuvants. This all is possible with recombinant DNA technology, but somehow there is no sense of urgency and no funding of work in this direction.
I hope that this “epidemic” of refusal from vaccines made by 19-century technology (no real change since Pasteur!) will make medical establishment change their attitude and adress at last the real problem instead of denying it and shaming parents.
IgotBupkis @3:32 am:
Yes, what I posted is simplified; not everyone here is an immunologist or epidemiologist. The idea of “reduce” vs. “prevent” proves that. The idea that a vacccine can prevent shingles “even if you’ve already had it” is demonstrative. What % of post-shingles get shingles a 2nd time? Want to organize a clinical trial around that?
I don’t know why you’re responding to someone other than me, since I’m the one who mentioned the shingles vaccine. Getting shingles is not the same thing as having the virus. The fact that you don’t seem to understand that shows how little you know.
Don Carlos: These issues were well studied and it was found that almost all people who get shingles have only one attack in their lifetime. Anti-shingles vaccine exist, it is really heavy-dose of chickenpox vaccine, but for unknown reasons it helps only to half of vaccinated, preventing or reducing severity of the disease. For other half it has no effect at all.
Another mystery of shingles that while it is not contagious, that is it can not transmit virus to uninfected person, it can activate dormant virus in infected persons at contact.
Sergey: thanks, I found your comments very interesting and informative. You make an especially important point about the close-mindedness on even discussing some of the issues on vaccine safety. I’m surprised to see so many on the right treating this discussion like the left treats “climate deniers”. Having some questions does not make you Jenny McCarthy.
Shingles can be strange. I am under sixty and have had two very mild outbreaks about two years apart. The first time I had only two blisters and it happened within a few months of my spouse getting the shingles vaccine. The second time was a little worse but I still only had about six blisters. I think this is pretty unusual and hope I don’t get them again. I can see how it would be pretty bad to get a severe case.
I read that if you do get them you should wait a year before you get the vaccine. And if most people don’t get them a second time, I wonder why they still recommend taking it.
I had planned on getting the vaccine, but now that I’ve had shingles lite and know that it is a live vaccine, I might not.
KLSmith, I had exactly the same experience: two very mild outbreaks two or three years apart. Both times I recognized it early, scooted to the doctor and got treatment, and both times the outbreaks promptly subsided.
I’m in the middle of deciding, right now, whether to follow my doctor’s advice to get the vaccine. I’m leaning toward not, as the prior outbreaks were so mild and the vaccine is expensive and provides only 50% protection — but haven’t decided yet.
Obviously I haven’t conducted any studies on how many people have more than one outbreak, but I know several people who’ve had it more than once. That seems improbable if it’s really that rare.
Here’s some info on shingles recurrences, apparently not so rare after all:
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/news/20091102/shingles-recurs-more-often-than-thought
Mrs Whatsit: Thanks for the link. If you look at the other related articles at the bottom and read “can shingles come back?”, it says there is only about a 1% chance of it recurring in 2-3yrs. The chance of recurrence increase with time. I believe it did say it was more rare to get it a third time. This is a relatively new vaccine and there is probably more to learn about it.
Do you know if you were exposed at the time to anyone with the disease or that had been recently vaccinated?
KLSmith, as far as I know I didn’t have any exposure either time. I remember puzzling over why I got it, as I wasn’t under any particular stress beyond the normal, hadn’t been ill, etc.
As for third cases — interesting question. I guess you and I may be the guinea pigs for that!
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that before widespread vaccination began in 1980, 2.6 million people a year died from measles. About 400 people a day still do.
What reduced those numbers?
Vaccines. Period.
Mrs Whatsit:
Did you get the rash twice, or the rash once and the pain twice?
Was the pain and/or rash in the same distribution each time, or a different distribution?
Neo: hopefully Mrs Whatsit will weigh back in. Mine was in a different place the 2nd time. and thinking about it again, when I said mild I meant in regards to how many blisters there were. I had a complication of cellulitis and a high fever.
KLSmith:
I wonder whether both of your attacks were actually shingles.
I have a theory that some of these double attacks actually involve a case of shingles and a case of something else. But who knows?
Neo: I had some scarring left (now fading) after my second episode. While at a dermatologist for a different issue, I asked her to look at the scarring. She said, oh yes that was shingles because you can see where it followed the dermatome. And the blisters and itching of the first case was like the first, just not as bad. If you go to webmd, there aren’t actually too many things that cause a blistering rash. It didn’t weep like poison ivy, wasn’t contact dermatitis because of location, chicken pox is usually all over not just following a dermatome.
I guess it was just fairly atypical. Hopefully I won’t get it again. If I do, I won’t wait to go to the doctor. You have about 48 hrs after onset for a drug that can help lessen the severity.
Neo: I am 99% positive that it was shingles both times for me. Both cases were identified as shingles by an RN in my family and then diagnosed as such by my doctor. Both times, the acyclovir was effective in dispelling/minimizing it (or seemed to be — of course in any individual case it’s hard to know for sure), which it wouldn’t have been on a bacterial infection or some sort of contact dermatitis. Finally, I have had cold sores (different variant of the herpes virus) on my lips on and off throughout my life and am very familiar with the odd tingling, burning prodrome pain that can often be felt running along the involved nerve before an eruption can actually be seen. I recognized the same feeling in shingles, only in the different — and diagnostic — location of one side of the back and/or ribs.
As for your earlier question, it was the same side both times and the same general area, but I am not certain whether it was exactly the same distribution. The first time I had a mild rash with the typical blisters. The second time, a much smaller rash with only a few blisters — I had gotten on the acyclovir so fast that it didn’t seem to have time to erupt — although the pain persisted for a while.
I am actually curious as to whether I may have had several MORE episodes of shingles on the skin near the outside of my eye when i was younger, all of which I identified as cold sores like the ones I’m used to around my mouth and treated as such — that is, by waiting them out. I only recently learned that shingles can emerge around the eye and can affect the eyeball itself, which fortunately didn’t happen to me. So can cold sores, though, apparently, so who knows?
Neo: I didn’t completely answer your question. Pain and prodrome both times, much more marked than the rash — but nothing like the debilitating pain I’ve heard many people describe in more severe attacks.
KLSmith: yikes as to your complications! Glad that resolved well in the end.
These two viruses of the same family – herpes simplex and herpes zoster – result in almost identical blisters and other symtoms. The only difference is their preferential locale. Herpes simplex most often cause cold sores of lips, but can also cause painful inflammation of face nerves around eyes and blisters on male genitalia. Herpes zoster cause chickenpox in infants and shingles in adults, most often around the waist, but also at the chest. These blisters as a rule are multiple. Both are succesfully treathed by acyclovir, but can lead to sores at cornea and even to blindness. Never touch your eyes if have even mild symtoms of these infections.
i suppose, when it comes to herd immunity, the anti-vaxxers are protected against sense, being in a herd already immune to sense.
Wondering if their upbringing is relevant. If a parent makes sure no idea, however loony, has a negative outcome, there’s no downside to having loony ideas. There’s no vax against loony ideas.
The other herd issue is that their herd is superior to the other herds and proves it by doing what the lower orders don’t do, or vice versa.
Mrs Whatsit:
That does sound like 2 separate attacks, although it’s hard to know for sure of course.