of course, my opinion here is resulting from personal experiences, so here's my 2 cents....
My older 4 children were fully vaxed on the 90's schedule until DS2 had a severe reaction to the MMR at 15mos. Febrile seizure, measles-like rash at first... Then he kept having ongoing, unexplained high fevers....blood tests would repeatedly reveal elevated WBC count with no known cause. Ped said the 2nd dose of MMR would be contraindicated for him, so we skipped it. The 2 siblings directly after him had all vaccines with little or no reaction. It wasn't until I was pregnant with my 5th child that i started researching and found information that truly frightened me and made me realize how lucky DS2 really is that he doesn't have any known lingering vaccine damage. At first, I thought that I would just delay vax and especially the MMR. Just recently we discovered that my son has Gilberts Syndrome. It is a benign metabolic disorder that impairs the body's ability to eliminate biliruben efficiently. unconjugated Bili is reduced to about 30% of function. Therefore many toxins are not removed from the body correctly. This is an inherited recessive trait from both parents. My concern is that this is the reason for his reaction to the MMR. My purpose for introducing this point, is that Gilberts occurs in as much as 3-5% of the population with some studies saying up to 8% or more. How would you know if your child has it? how do I know if my other kids do? It is not something tested for in infancy. most people don't even know they have it or show signs. For males it often appears during puberty, or after an illness. In his case, his eyes became yellow and the doc suspected liver disease...liver panel was fine, just elevated biliruben.
So, for me....I CANNOT take the risk of injecting my youngest with any toxins. The benefit does not outweigh the risk. I had both 3 day measles, and mumps as a child, and my mother says it was no big deal. I'm not afraid of HIB either. FWIW...my completely unvaxed child is by far the healthiest of the 5 and she was the only NON-breast-fed baby.( not for lack of trying) Go figure...?
I'd say just hold off on that MMR a while longer until you feel 100% convinced that it is in your child's best interest. Good luck with your decision making.
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