Fever in unvaxed kids?

[mamaof5boys]

My LOs have a cold virus that they got from their big brothers.... It made my DH and I curious to know if it's just our family situation, or common with unvaxed kids. I honestly don't remember our older (vaxed) boys hardly ever getting fevers when they got sick. With our twins, it seems whenever they get sick, which is very rarely, they always get a fever. I'm wondering if any of you have experienced this as well? It seems that their immune system is actually doing it's job- by giving them a fever to help them fight off the germs....

What experiences have you all had with this? Thanks for answering my curiosity!!

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by mamaof5boys

My LOs have a cold virus that they got from their big brothers.... It made my DH and I curious to know if it's just our family situation, or common with unvaxed kids. I honestly don't remember our older (vaxed) boys hardly ever getting fevers when they got sick. With our twins, it seems whenever they get sick, which is very rarely, they always get a fever. I'm wondering if any of you have experienced this as well? It seems that their immune system is actually doing it's job- by giving them a fever to help them fight off the germs....

What experiences have you all had with this? Thanks for answering my curiosity!!

I don't have an unvaxed subject to compare with, but my son is vaxed and most definately has had fevers with some of his colds. It's kind of hard to say anything too scientific though.

[Symbi]

Well, I only have one child, and he has had no vaxes yet. He is almost 13 months old and has had low-grade fevers three times so far, twice followed by very mild cold symptoms, and one that just went away after a day or two. He's never acted sick during them. That is all the illness he's experienced so far. I always think the fever is a good thing too. His body is doing what it's supposed to, fighting off an infection and building his immune system.

[MyBoysBlue]

I have one vaxed and one unvaxed kid. They both get fevers but the unvaxed has gotten sick much less. But I am also still breastfeeding the unvaxed kid at 28 months when the vaxed kid was only breastfed for 9 months. He was sick much more often. I often medicated my vaxed child for fevers and I have only medicated my unvaxed child once before I knew better.

I recently read the mothering Article here:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/gr...ng_crisis.html

I found it very interesting.

[Mirzam]

I have one vaxed (not fully) child and two completely unvaxed children and the eldest (vaxed) and my youngest (unvaxed) get less and lower fevers than my unvaxed middle child. My DH also tends to get fevers when he is sick and I think she takes after him. Whereas I rarely had fevers as a child, or now for that matter, and I think my other two take after me.

[MyBoysBlue]

I'm glad my kids are not like me as a child. I can still remember the ice baths at the hospital. I was under 2 and it was so tramatic that I can still remember it. I was in and out of the hospital for my first 2 years of life with high unexplained fevers. So I had a fear of fever to get over. I think that is why I medicated my DS 1 for any small fever that came along.

[mamaof5boys]

Originally Posted by MyBoysBlue

I have one vaxed and one unvaxed kid. They both get fevers but the unvaxed has gotten sick much less. But I am also still breastfeeding the unvaxed kid at 28 months when the vaxed kid was only breastfed for 9 months. He was sick much more often. I often medicated my vaxed child for fevers and I have only medicated my unvaxed child once before I knew better.

I recently read the mothering Article here:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/gr...ng_crisis.html

I found it very interesting.

That article was fascinating! Thanks so much for sharing that! It was interesting how he correlated lack of fever in childhood with a higher incidence of asthma/allergies, etc.... maybe that's why my older kids have those problems... lack of fevers!!

How scary for you to have that experience as a child!! I can understand your fear of fevers. It seems that everything I read there's a different response of how to treat fevers. I don't often use meds, but it's hard to see them feeling so miserable sometimes.

I guess I'm always reading too much into it, but it's one way we're trying to feel more confident about our decision not to vax.

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by mamaof5boys

That article was fascinating! Thanks so much for sharing that! It was interesting how he correlated lack of fever in childhood with a higher incidence of asthma/allergies, etc.... maybe that's why my older kids have those problems... lack of fevers!!

FWIW, my low fever kids do not have asthma or allergies.

[Shilohsmom]

My DS (34 mos) is unvaxed. For the first 12 mos of his life he came with me while I went to my friends house to babysit her triplets (they were 2 when he was born). At 12 mos I started working at a daycare and he came with me. Well, he has always run fevers. A LOT of them. Every time he got a tooth, he ran anywhere from 102-104F. Once we started daycare he got the "crud" and ran a fever on and off for about 10 days. BUT, he always bounced back. He never lost his energy or was anything but a busy little boy...just a busy little one with a fever!

I almost never medicated the fevers. I did give him ibuprofen when he seemed in agony over getting 4 teeth at once but other than that, his body has done its job and fought off a bunch of junk. He's never had abx or any other medicines except for his allergy meds.

DD has yet to run a fever. But, she's only 7 mos old. We start working at the daycare again and I'm sure she's going to come down with stuff...we'll see whether or not that brings fever with it.

[Emmeline II]

My partially vaxed child gets a 104 temp when he has one; my unvaxed dd gets a 102 temp. It doesn't happen with the sniffles though, just with bad colds. Though one day my ds came home not feeling well; he was drowsy and had a temp for 2-3hrs, then he was fine.

[k9sarchik]

Hey Angie~ G always gets a fever with his colds. I don't give him anything except for homeopathic meds.

[tmaue]

My ds, who was vaxed up to 1 yo, gets high fevers, ususally 102-103. It is not unusual for him to have 4 nights of fever, with the fever lowering during the day.

My dd , who is unvaxed, rarely gets fevers, and when she does they are mild and don't last long.

Neither of my kids have allergies/asthma. I do not use fever reducers anymore, even with the high temps my son gets.

I do not get fevers, that I know of, when I am sick. I did have a fever back in 1995 when I had mono, but that is about all I remember. I also have never had any flu type illnesses, just colds (which do not come with a fever). I do not have allergies/asthma. I was vaxed as a child, with fewer vaccines of course.

[japonica]

Both of my children are not vaxed. My son is almost 10 months old and has not had a fever yet, and only one bout of a cold/upper respiratory bug which was gone in two days, thanks to lots of home remedies.

My daughter is 4 and has had maybe 3 or 4 fevers total in her life. Usually never above 103 and I never medicate for them. They always break by the morning and her symptoms are much better by then, like the germs all burned up in the night. It's remarkable. The last bug that went through our house, she was better the day after her fever. I caught the same thing, wished I could have gotten a fever as the virus hung on and on with me for a whole miserable week.

[writteninkursive]

I have one almost-fully vax'ed 3-year-old and a halfway-vax'ed 17 month old (and what will be a completely unvax'ed baby in August). My oldest one doesn't really get sick. She gets colds, but is a very strong little girl and illnesses seem to manifest more in tiredness and sniffles. My youngest gets EVERYTHING, and she gets high fevers when she's sick. She's always been more prone to getting sick. When she got her first vaccine, she had horrible wheezing episodes (as a newborn! - scary) for weeks. It's all about that particular kids' immune system and oxidization levels. It's pretty likely that your kids are all just fine, and your unvax'ed kid probably will end up with an awesome immune system at the end of the day when he's actually had a chance to build it up!

[angie7]

My almost 3 y/o completely unvaxed twins have ran very few fevers with their colds. Granted they have only been sick a handful of times in their life but have only ran maybe 2 or 3 fevers out of 5 times being sick? The highest being 102. I think it depends on the cold whether or not a fever is present. We never treat a fever, we always let it run it's course as well which might be why our kids can kick a cold in just a day rather then a week like most of my vaxed friends kids.

[rlenk]

Hmmm. I had the exact same observation as the OP. My first two older vaxed kids almost never ran fevers. My younger vax-free child ran high fevers for the first 2 years of his life with every tooth, cold, illness, ect..... I too thought it was due to the vax status, maybe not. My older two both have allergies/asthma and the younger one does not. I also thought maybe it had something to do with the Roseola he got as a babe which the older two never had.

[ChampagneBlossom]

So far only our vaxed kiddo has had a fever (one so far, he's 24 months). The nonvaxed one hasn't had any yet - maybe slight temp elevations but not a real fever.

[marlne]

Both my girls were completely vaxed when younger and had several fevers.
My son who's only had a select amount of vaxes with them delayed before we stopped altogether, has maybe had one low fever so far in his 3yrs.
He definately seems more healthy to us in comparison to his sisters.

[Gitti]

I believe it depends on the child. Every human being is an individual and handles diseases in their own unique way. That 's why vaccinating everyone with the same dose at the same time makes no sense at all.

I have one partially and two completely vax free grandchildren. All three run fevers when they get sick. My son always ran high fevers when he was sick while my two dd did not. All three had had some (very few back then) vaccines.

[In Exile]

Originally Posted by Gitti

I believe it depends on the child. Every human being is an individual and handles diseases in their own unique way. That 's why vaccinating everyone with the same dose at the same time makes no sense at all.

I have one partially and two completely vax free grandchildren. All three run fevers when they get sick. My son always ran high fevers when he was sick while my two dd did not. All three had had some (very few back then) vaccines.

:

It really depends on the person. Both my brother and I were completely overvaxed- and my brother ran really, really high fevers as a small child. That was his bodies way of coping with it. I always remember him having higher fevers with colds than I did.

My dad on the other hand is always COLDER with a cold- his body does not seem to produce enough of a fever- and he has a harder time shaking "bugs" because of that. He is prone to infections that he has a hard time getting rid of.

I found it interesting to watch my DS and his fever. I let it run it's cycle-after I while I could even predict when the fever was going to rise and fall again- his fevers are like mine, his fevers rise around the same time of day when mine would as a kid- that's fascinating.

I watched him closely and tried to get my cues from him- sometimes he wanted to be really, really bundled up and other times he needed to sit around half naked- his body was telling him what to do and I tried to go along with it.

My major concern is that most Doctors lost the "knowledge" about fever, i e the rampant use of Acetaminophen for every bit of a rising temperature. Most Docs simply would not know how to treat let's say a sick child with measles- where forcing the fever down artificially can do some real damage. Measles need a certain temperature in you body so you body can rid itself of it.

The body usually does a JOB with the fever in an otherwise healthy person- somebody with the fever and loads of Tylenol with have a even higher fever as soon as the medication wears off- the body trying to "catch up" and produce a fever.

Off course you always have to watch the general responsiveness of a sick person- if my child was about to complain about a stiff neck and light sensitivity- than THAT would be way more important than the fever itself.