chicken pox vax help

[MommytoHHH]

I would like for my DD to get natural immunity to chicken pox (for many reasons) and my Pedi is fine with this.

However, I need help with something. I never had chicken pox as a child. I was exposed !!13!! times as a kid, and NEVER got it - not even a mild case. Before we started TTC, I got the vaccine from my Dr. (two doses over the right time period). Once I was pregnant and my OB ran a blood titre, it showed that I have no immunity to chicken pox :. We're planning to have more kids - so what do I do?? Do I try to get the vaccine again and hope it works this time? Is it safe to get while BFing? I know that if DD were to get chicken pox while I'm pregnant (or even not) that it could be dangerous for me. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do about this???

[mamakay]

You're the second poster here in a week to ask that same question.
Chickenpox is a bit unique in that your cell mediated immune system (the part that has nothing to do with antibodies) is more...way more...important than the humoral (antibodies) part.

So I'm almost tempted to think you're sort immunologically unique in some dort of way that provides you some really amazing natural immunity to chickenpox? Maybe?

I dunno. You should have antibodies...
And yeah, if you don't have them, if you were exposed while pregnant it could be bad, especially since pregnancy depresses your cell mediated immunity.

It's a weird situation and I really don't know what to tell you.
Sorry.

[Plummeting]

I wouldn't get the vaccine again. Clearly you don't develop antibodies to chiceknpox for some reason. Why keep injecting yourself over and over again? That seems like begging for shingles to me, since we know that the vaccine often skips right past causing chickenpox and causes shingles instead for many who get it. You've got the virus in your body if you've been vaccinated. Vaccinating and revaccinating again could kickstart the latent virus you've already got and give you shingles. It might not, but it might. I wouldn't do it. Chickenpox is really hard to find nowadays, so it's highly unlikely that your daughter is going to catch it on accident. Most kids who catch it nowadays either got it from their vaccine or got it when their parents purposely exposed them. If you don't vaccinate her and don't purposely expose her, she probably won't get it.

[xmysticprincessx]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Chickenpox is really hard to find nowadays, so it's highly unlikely that your daughter is going to catch it on accident. Most kids who catch it nowadays either got it from their vaccine or got it when their parents purposely exposed them. If you don't vaccinate her and don't purposely expose her, she probably won't get it.

i agree. how many parents on here are going nuts LOOKING for cp and cant find it? some have been looking for a few years. i also agree that it seems like for some reason your body doesnt show immunity to cp, whether the wild kind or the vax. yeah, there's a chance that you could be exposed to cp while pregnant, but i think its a really really small one. but there's also the really really small chance that you could get hit by a bus while pregnant too, kwim?

[MommytoHHH]

Thank you, ladies. That does make sense. I guess I'll just stop worrying about it... I didn't realize that it had become that hard to find CP :

I do know that my mother had a REALLY REALLY severe case of CP when she was just 6 weeks old. I think it was so bad that she had to be in the hospital. She (and my childhood pediatrician) had always wondered if she passed some sort of immunity on to me because of that. It absolutely baffled my pediatrician that I never got CP. There were countless times where I played with someone extensively while they would've been contagious.

[JBaxter]

Originally Posted by MommytoHHH

Thank you, ladies. That does make sense. I guess I'll just stop worrying about it... I didn't realize that it had become that hard to find CP :

I do know that my mother had a REALLY REALLY severe case of CP when she was just 6 weeks old. I think it was so bad that she had to be in the hospital. She (and my childhood pediatrician) had always wondered if she passed some sort of immunity on to me because of that. It absolutely baffled my pediatrician that I never got CP. There were countless times where I played with someone extensively while they would've been contagious.

My sister had chickenpox pretty bad at 14. She was vaxed for MMR as a child BUT when she had titers drawn during her pregnancy she had none for either. She had the shot ( mmr was the only one available then) went to nursing school had blood work and again no titers ( had ANOTHER MMR). Got pregnant 2yrs after again no titers THEN and only then did she tell the Drs to kiss her butt she wasnt getting another shot for anything FYI she refuses to have a hep b titer draw just in case.

[marilynmama]

I wouldn't keep getting the vaccine over and over. Oviously your unique and don't need to worry about chickenpox for yourself. My cousin got the CP vax and then my neice didn't know he had it and he was revaccinated for it like a week or two later and it caused him to break out in chickenpox...LOL. Not a big deal, but not what you want to happen.

I ended up getting my kids both vaxed for chickenpox. We looked for quite a few years for natural immunity and we didn't meet a SINGLE CHILD in over 8 years now who had CP. Ridiculas but true.

[SoCaliMommy]

Wanted to chime in....

I was also exposed a bunch as a child and never got them and when i was pg with my son was reminded i was not immune to them. Then after he was born was told i needed the vax to leave the hosp: so got the 1 shot then was told i'd get another shot at 6wks pp and was never given another shot.

I wouldn't get the shot again either.

[themamayada]

same problem here

oh my. i read your post and thot i wrote it. are you a long-lost twin?

i'm in my 30s and never had cpox despite countless exposures. initially took titre test - negative, no immunity. got 2 doses of cpox vaccine (Varivax) i think 6 weeks apart. had a 101 fever 2 weeks after 1st dose, 101 fever 2 weeks after 2nd dose. thot great - must have worked.

got pregnant 2 years later, they checked for cpox titres again - nada. still not immune. freaked out. refused any more vaccines.

read physician-level stuff on the internet (ok, here's where i only understand it at a high level) that the titre test they use in hospitals/clinics is sensitive only to antibodies produced by "wild varicella" (real chicken pox disease) and vaccine-induced immunity is not always picked up. so they should be using a gpELISA test to detect vaccine-induced immunity, and apparently that specialized test is only available at the CDC and one other place in the US (!). if you read Merck's Varivax info, they mention they measure titres from vaccinated individuals using the gpELISA test and not the standard whatever test in clinics.

with this in mind, i'm hoping that i have immunity, it's just not detectable by the standard titre test :

[Plummeting]

Originally Posted by DustysSweety03

I was also exposed a bunch as a child and never got them and when i was pg with my son was reminded i was not immune to them. Then after he was born was told i needed the vax to leave the hosp: so got the 1 shot then was told i'd get another shot at 6wks pp and was never given another shot.

This is a lie. They can NEVER force you to receive any sort of medical treatment. Telling you your discharge is dependant upon administration of any vaccine is probably malpractice or something, since it isn't actually true. Basically, they're coercing/forcing you into accepting a treatment. They can't do that.

Editing for clarity: I don't mean that you are lying, but that they lied to you.

[SoCaliMommy]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

This is a lie. They can NEVER force you to receive any sort of medical treatment. Telling you your discharge is dependant upon administration of any vaccine is probably malpractice or something, since it isn't actually true. Basically, they're coercing/forcing you into accepting a treatment. They can't do that.

Editing for clarity: I don't mean that you are lying, but that they lied to you.

It was a Kaiser Hospital, they didn't want me to leave,tried to scare me saying how my son could catch something becausei was leaving AMA when my son was 6hours old*the hosp was horrible and i wasn't gonna pay them $400 to stay in a shared cracker jack box with a shared bathroom that was even smaller: *