Possible Vaccine Reation

[ssun5]

Soooo, don't know if I should post this here but will at least start.

I believe my new niece is having a Vax Reaction. Is there anything I can tell her mamma to check for medically to know?

This might be too much info so caution...

She was born healthy with no interventions, full term etc. She was such a happy little girl until day 2 when just before they released her from hospital, she got the Hep B.

She started crying immediatly.

She continued to cry.... then scream, look like she is having some kind of strange freezing, then shaking problem. She sleeps when she is so tired of screaming she seems to pass out. She wakes up SCREAMING her head off.

  This has continued for 4 months!!!!! She has not had ONE day of not screaming her head off every.single.day Constantly! Her mom is beside herself.

All the ped's seem Totally NOT concerned and they even insisted on giving her all of the 2 month shots....

They have tried every drug they can for stomach issues, tried pain killers (which does let her sleep a while). Sent off cultures of poop to lab...

At 2 months (just after her shots) her breastfeed only child started having horrific green/ black poop. 1) her entire body is red, or covered in some kind of '"unknown" rash 2)a different part of her body.. one day arm, next day leg will swell like crazy.

I don't know what to tell her. Everyone keeps telling her that its just colic and she will outgrow it and things like this are normal --blah blah. She has cut everything out of her diet that could possibly be a problem... I mean wow, she is on such a diet!

Thankfully, she is now 4 months and she doesn't want to give her any more Vaccines until she is better.

It never stops... I mean NEVER!!!! I have seen baby girl again and it scares me to no end to see her like this. She looks crazy sick.

She is sis in law so won't take my word for it totally, so she wants to hear "medical" things that she can do to help. She would insist on any test you might know about?

I mean is there anything I can do

[emmy526]

Since vax reactions are so vehemently denied, there is no test to determine if in fact a reaction did occur...it certainly sounds like it to me, that one occurred.  Unfortunately,  there isn't too much you can do, other than provide related articles on the issue, and to encourage her to educate herself about what she is putting in her child's body.  That poor baby!  Is your sil totally on board with the whole vaccine schedule or has she questioned it or made remarks about it at all? Or does she just go with what the dr says?  If she is one to follow the herd, then there really isn't much you can do at all.  

[kathymuggle]

I know from other thread you have quite the family history of vaccine reactions, which may very well be genetic.  Have you shared with her your families history of vaccine reactions?

Let her know you are vax free, it is not that odd or difficult a decisions, that unvaxxed kids can go to school…

I am sorry this is happening 

ETA:  another key message to give out is that she can always vax later (and doctors will open her with open arms if she does so - it will be easy!).  You cannot undo a vax.

Does she understand how rare most VADs are?  The CDC Pink book (one of appendixes) lists just how infrequent they are, if she is open to looking at anything

Edited by kathymuggle - 1/5/13 at 10:52am

[ssun5]

My sil..... well, she knows about "our" family history of what we believe is Vax reactions and some that are even medically documented.

She thinks that it is different because its her family and reactions are Rare. ( I will keep it up though as best as possible as even if its rare, I think there can be a genetic connection and something is obviously wrong, so she needs to be open to the idea)

She is a follow the herd and her family kind of person to a certain extent, but she is willing to at least look at the issue more now as she is living in a crazy type of hell with her little girl! What baby cries 24 hours a day unless sleeping!

Not getting her to vax for her 4 months is a Huge thing to me, her at least being willing to look at other "medical" things she can do is also a step.

Any homeopathic or other treatments (even like, can you get the girl some vitamin C in SA form and maybe some A that I have at my house etc somewhat "fringe" like ) She is "thinking" about it, she is just afraid of making things worse.

Thanks at least for listening!

[Jennyanydots]

Do you have any good naturopathic doctors in your area she can see? She might be more willing to accept "alternative" medical advice if it comes from a licensed practitioner. Perhaps, even if the ND doesn't weigh in on whether this appears to be a vax reaction, he or she might be able to take a more holistic look at the baby's health and offer advice on immune support or even detox.
So sad for the little girl. Good luck.

[pek64]

My heart is breaking for that little girl. I wish I had advice. I am hoping and sending positive thoughts that she gets better soon!

[Taximom5]

I wonder if it might be a good idea to send a pm to MDC member Michael Belkin here.  He actually LOST his infant daughter to the hep B shot, and has done quite a bit of research on the kind of reaction you describe.  

http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Hepatitis-B/fatherstory.aspx

http://thinktwice.com/hepb.htm

I don't mean to scare you any more than you've already been scared, but as the parent of vaccine-injured children myself, I say that the parents are going to have to decide how much they are willing to sacrifice their daughter in the name of "herd immunity."

If I were in their place, knowing what I know now, I would do WHATEVER I COULD to make sure that 1) she gets the help she needs (which means not from doctors who deny that a vaccine reaction is a strong possibility here) and 2) she never gets another vaccine again until they can guarantee no severe adverse reaction.  Which they can't.

Is your SIL breastfeeding?  If so, I would suggest that she stop eating the common food allergens (nuts, gluten, dairy, citrus, strawberries, and I think there are some others). The adjuvants in vaccines cause the immune system to hyper-react, supposedly against the antigen in the vaccine, but for some, it seems to hyper-react to anything and everything.  And all those allergens DO pass into mom's milk.

If she's not breastfeeding, I would suggest that she consider trying to pump and relactate. That is a huge, stressful undertaking, so it might not be worth it--but the moms I know who have done that have felt that it was worth it (because for them, it worked). I have read, however, of moms who have tried, and all it did was stress them out more.

Otherwise, if baby is on formula, it's time to consider another formula.  If the doctor hasn't considered this, time to switch doctors. (Sounds like it's time to switch, anyway, because the doctor obviously isn't helping if he or she is denying the possibility of a vaccine reaction.

The current schedule of pediatric vaccines has not EVER been tested in children with severe autoimmune disorders, and it sounds like that's what may be going on with your poor little niece.  Colic is not "crazy sick."

My middle kid had a horrific red, blistering rash all over his body 24 hours after his 4 month vaccines.  Our pediatrician took it very seriously, and sent us to a dermatologist immediately.  The dermatologist said that it was clearly a vaccine reaction, and the they (dermatologists) see a lot of them.  (Her words: "we get a lot of business from vaccines.") She told me not to feed him anything else but breast milk until the rash went away.  

8 months later, it had not yet gone away.

Over several years, it eventually faded and receded, until only his arms, behind his knees, and face/neck were affected.  We were given stronger and stronger steroid creams to rub on, but all they did was make my fingers numb.  They didn't do ANYTHING for the rash.

I tried going on an "allergen-free" diet, as I described to you above, and that didn't seem to help him any, either.

When he was a year old, we started giving him solid food, but very, very slowly and carefully, and we couldn't tell that anything was affecting him there, either.

But when he was 7, we found out he had celiac.  When he stopped eating gluten, the rash completely disappeared (as did the occasional tummy aches).  When we hid gluten in his food (twice), both rash and tummy aches came back with a vengeance.

Thankfully, both the pediatrician and the dermatologist said it was obvious, and that no further tests were necessary.

And he's fine now. He doesn't eat gluten, and our pediatrician has exempted him from further vaccines.

Oh--one other thing.  As an infant, he screamed his head off--unless he were held.  24/7.  We could not put him down.  EVER.  But he was perfectly happy when he was held.  I assume your SIL tried this, and it didn't work?  

Edited by Taximom5 - 1/5/13 at 12:53pm

[ssun5]

Thanks Taxi, I think I will.   Now if only my SIL will listen!

She was already on a gluten free diet (my sil stays on one always) and is already off every allergen they can think of.

The baby is Exclusively breastfeed and has been since day one.

There are no alternative friendly anyone in this city. You have to travel at least 45 min to get to my doc and further for any specialist that I would deem good.(Someone willing to be respectful and will really listen etc)

EVERY and I mean EVERY Pediatrician and almost every GP refuses to see anyone without full vax schedule with out any delay/ etc or they just kick you out. I hate this place when it comes to doctors. Its like all the fanatics on the side of only drugs cure illness moved here and they have literally kept a campaign up trying to send anyone to jail if they try to bend the rules at all.  Its nuts. She will get 0 help here because of it, and I have tried to tell her she needs to travel, but at this point she is reluctant.

Oh and yes, they try holding, moving, not moving, in a wrap, out of a wrap, laying flat, every position known to man. She screams through it all. In fact the time she screams the WORST is in the car seat when they drive. Nothing helps short of druging her with pain killers so she will sleep.

She still isn't convinced at ALL that the vaccines have anything to do with it. Sigh..... I hope she can at least figure it out soon!!!
 

[sassyfirechick]

So sorry and I feel yours and her pain!  My DD was very similar after her shots, and we stopped after 4mos.  We had the screaming, colic, MAJOR diaper blowouts (you could hear her pooping from the other room, it sounded like a canon going off!), on/off low grade fevers with no other 'illnesss', and a lot of spitting up.  She was/is EBF and didn't start any solids til 7mos, and didn't really take to them til 9mos or later.

There is light at the end of the tunnnel.  I absolutely can't stresss enough getting your SIL to find a good ND.  On my own I got off dairy at 12wks which helped about 95% of the colic issues by the time she was 4mos.  My ped denied it had anything to do with dairy.  We've been seeing a chiropractor since she was 6wks and that is who recommended a great ND.  From what I was told, the major screaming is most often related to swelling in the brain.  I wanted to cry when the ND told me that, I couldn't imagine my baby being in that much pain!  She was able through testing to verify that yes, she has a dairy intolerance, along with oats, and she had residual issues from what she narrowed down to the DTaP and Hib, and we've been detoxing from those.  The ped isn't really on board wih no vax, BUT we sign a waiver and I was very firm in my position that we will not be vaxxing anymore.  The ND agrees that unless I felt compelled to vax for a particular reason, that based on the reactions, she wouldn't recommend doing so without consulting her first and planning on a long detox period afterwards. 

Today I have a very happy, very robust 14mo who with a little supplementation is expected to be over her oat issue by 18mos and dairy shortly thereafter.  She's still got a faint 'rash' on her cheeks, remnants of the issues that are still passing through her system, but every day it gets better and I couldn't be happier with the support I've gotten from the ND!  Good luck!

[ssun5]

As an update. SIL's mom came into town to help her and at least is going on and on to the medical staff that this is a sick baby in horrible pain and what the blank is wrong with them- this isn't colic. She does have a VERY red rash on her face that hasn't gone away since month 2 shots. She swells, etc. She is DEMANDING all kind of tests. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. 

She isn't extremely crunchy but seems to at least be trying to get some kind of ball rolling. Will see what comes of it. I tried to at least mention Vax reaction and she laughed in my face so.... I just wish little angel would get better!

[boomer78]

OP - I'm so sorry they're going through this.  There is no way to figure out whether this was a shot reaction but I wouldn't rule it out - which means she has to defend her position and stand against doctors who will pretty  much say it's just a coincidence regardless of the real cause.  Our daughter most likely had a bad reaction to the hepB shot (the only shot she ever received), the screaming was so bad I thought I was going to jump out the window.  It also lasted many weeks and started right about a day after she got the shot and slept for most of that day.  Next day - a disaster started.  Of course our pedi said it was just a colic.  We only went in twice, then stopped going completely (we were fired for not wanting to do another hepB shot at a month old), but I'm sure she would still insist on the colic otherwise.  I don't think it was a colic.  When a baby screams (not cries, but screams her little head off) constantly, does weird things and then passes out from being exhausted only to wake up screaming a little while later...for a long time...over and over without a break...there has to be a problem somewhere.  Nobody even knows what colic really is - so I really hate that term now.  When we don't know - we'll blame it on the colic.  We didn't learn about that being a possible vax reaction untill I started researching vaxes more.  Sorry I can't help but I sure hope the baby will get better soon.  And I sincerely hope the baby won't be given any more vaxes in this condition.

[sassyfirechick]

Originally Posted by ssun5 

As an update. SIL's mom came into town to help her and at least is going on and on to the medical staff that this is a sick baby in horrible pain and what the blank is wrong with them- this isn't colic. She does have a VERY red rash on her face that hasn't gone away since month 2 shots. She swells, etc. She is DEMANDING all kind of tests. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. 

She isn't extremely crunchy but seems to at least be trying to get some kind of ball rolling. Will see what comes of it. I tried to at least mention Vax reaction and she laughed in my face so.... I just wish little angel would get better!

Unfotunately the type of tests that a traditional/conventional doc would run won't help.  My DD has residual face rash, getting very slowly better as the ND detoxes her but it won't happen overnight and that's the only visual indicator we have to know when she might finally be 'ok'.  Some people will never learn.  They believe the crunchies are all nut jobs and will continue to fall deeper and deer into the medical rabbit hole searching for answers that traditional medicine just isn't capable of giving.

[Taximom5]

You might try printing out one of Michael Belkin's pages (links upthread) and hand it to your SIL's mother.