autoimmune disorders + vaccines

[nilatti]

My husband's family has a strong history of serious autoimmune problems. His sister had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and his aunt had some kind of autoimmune disease that the best doctors in the country couldn't figure out (she was written up in JAMA twice). After suffering for 18 years, she died at 50. Other family members have arthritis and type 1 diabetes. I'm really scared of my son developing any of these illnesses. I also read in the Dr Sears Vaccine Book that live-virus vaccines have a more serious risk profile for people who have autoimmune disorders.

At my son's one-month check-up, I told the doctor about my concerns. Specifically, I want to delay the MMR until he's 4--give his system more time to develop. The dr said it's up to me, but he doesn't think my son is at any increased risk, even given this history.

I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts or experience with this.

[wholewheatchick]

Aviva Jill Romm's book Vaccines: a Thoughtful Parents' Guide has lots of thoughts and information on this concept. I found it to be really informative.

My personal opinion, and one that is echoed by some of my friends and is in Romm's book, is that vaccines trick the immune system. And when you try to trick your body, negative things have a higher chance of happening. The thought, as you probably know, with autoimmune stuff, is essentially that the body is working so hard to fight off those vaccines "germs" (which is what it is supposed to be doing) that either gets tired, or gets confused, about what is good and what is bad. Obvioiusly, that's a simplified version. If I were in your shoes, I would also be hesitant; it seems like you have good reason to be, in my opinion.

Good luck!

[MountainMamaGC]

I have to disagree with your doctor. Myself having severe crohns disease and severe allergies, played heavily in my decision to stop vaccinating. You are injecting adjuvents into an immature immune system. Chemicals that are designed to create a hyper immune response, with proteins that may look like ones in your very own body. There are numerous autoimmune reaction warning in the inserts of the vaccines themselves. So yes I would think if it runs in the family, that it would put your child at greater risk.

I am on a crohns support forum, and I found many people claiming to having their first flare around the time they got vaccines required for their job. especially Hep B vaccine.

I think its russian roulette. Its not any particular vaccine that causes it, and you wont know which one will trigger the disorder.

Here is a list of studies and papers regarding the link.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/search/n...s%20autoimmune

[MountainMamaGC]

Here are some more studies, dealing with arthritis specifically.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/48775?dopt=Abstract
http://www.encognitive.com/node/1390
http://www.vaccines.net/lupus.htm

[MountainMamaGC]

Vitamin D deficiency has alse been linked to type 1 diabetes, so you may want to look itnot supplementing with vit D.

[firsttimemama]

This is my experience..
There is a very significant history of autoimmune disease in my family.
I started out planning to delay vaccines in my son, but the more I read the less I wanted to vax. He received zero vaccinations. At age 2.5 he was diagnosed with autism. I feared he was at more risk for autism, and he was. Peds thought I was crazy, I was right. Some people have wrongly assumed that this proves vaccines don't cause autism .. I don't tell those people that I actually think my son would be much more affected with autism and/or much more injured than he is, had we vaxed.
It is a difficult and personal decision. Read, read, read. Listen to your heart and your gut. You will know what is right for your child, and it may be different than what was right for mine.
Best of luck to you. and if you haven't already - go green (natural cleaning, clean food, etc), address any suspected food sensitivities early (especially dairy/gluten), give Vitamin D3, avoid antibiotics and Tylenol.

[Shoonasasi]

My husband has MS, so according to the 'experts' our son as an approximately 4% chance of inheriting the disease. Having no idea about the dangers of vaccines (and the right to even refuse them) until our son was almost a year old, we immediately stopped all vaccinations at that time.

I found it incredible that on the insert that comes with the MMR, it states that people with an auto-immune disease should not get the shot, but the nurses at the health center told me if was fine for my son to get since he didn't have MS....as if they'd know. It's scary to think that I would have given him the MMR if I hadn't bothered to do the research myself.

We have decided not to get any further vaccines for our son, especially any live vaccines such as measles and chicken pox. I didn't want to risk anything, especially since the MMR was counter-indicated by the manufacturer themselves.

[2boyzmama]

I was just reading about this, unfortunately the article is on my work computer, so I can't link here. I don't even remember the title at all.

Anyway, one thing that I remember specifically was that it talked about how there is evidence to suggest that there may be a link between vaccinations and autoimmune disease, although no studies proving anything either way. However the article goes on to say that once you DO have autoimmune disease, your chances of a flare-up or exacerbation of the disease are greatly increased by natural illness, and NOT by vaccination (I honestly can't remember if it differentiated live and "killed" vaccines...) So in other words, you might be smart vaccinating very carefully and deliberately if you have a history of autoimmune disease, but if you actually are diagnosed with a disease, then you absolutely should vaccinate because chances of the disease becoming worse are increased by illness moreso than vaccines.

I didn't like that thought process. It's like being backed into a corner. The vaccinations *may* be leading to increased risk of autoimmune disease, then once you have autoimmune disease, you NEED to vaccinate to protect from exacerbating the disease that the vaccines may have caused! See the circular logic? SO frustrating!

I have one son with a Primary Immune Deficiency (decreased t-cells, selective IgM deficiency, low antigen-response) and I have one son with an autoimmune disease (Celiac). Vaccine decisions are REALLY hard in this family!! I am constantly reading and researching and reading more. Ugh.

If I find the link to the article (it really was fascinating, but rather technical talking about how the antigen response works in different vaccines, and how that compares to natural immune response) I'll link to it.

[MountainMamaGC]

Having a severe case of crohns I no longer vaccinate myself for fear of it ending my remission. I know on my support forum that a few people complain of flaring after their H1N1 shots, I also read an article that swiss researchers had warned against giving flu vaccines to autoimmune populations, because it has never been studied in that population. They said there is no way to know if an autoimmune person will react badly to adjuvents.

I found it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60J1X120100120

[lebrbria]

Wow. I'm so glad I stumbled upon this thread. I'm going through the whole autoimmune thing right now- hypothyroidism and I was just at the rheumatologist yesterday because I tested positive for lupus (rheum thinks it's either lupus, Sjogren's syndrome, both, or mixed connective tissue disease). I found it interesting that he asked me if I've been vaccinated and I said yes. He asked what vaccines I've received. I told him I'm fully vaccinated to my knowledge, with the exception of the H1N1 vaccine. I didn't think to ask what the connection was, but I plan on it when I see him again on November 12th.

Also, I've been talking to DH a lot lately about delaying, refusing, and selectively vaccination with our DS (DD is fully vaccinated- I didn't do the proper research and wish I had). He doesn't seem to want to hear anything I have to say. But with this new diagnosis for me, he's really freaked out. So I'm wondering if he might hear me out with this.

[LiLStar]

My dad has MS (SEVERE! As in, he can manage to slowly, clumsily feed himself IF you pry his hand open and slip a fork in there) and my mom had guillian barre years ago. So.. what with the severe, paralyzing autoimmune disorders from *both* sides of my family... that played a huuuge part in deciding not to vax my kids. Decided it was a beehive I'd rather not chuck rocks at.