Stories of the pre-vaccine days

[dinah77]

I decided to start a new thread to show evidence or stories of just how serious these illnesses can be

And to anyone who disputes the severity of just how serious these well documented illnesses and complications of them are, I would seriously suggest reviewing some of your science courses

From another board I was reading.....

Obviously you are not of the generation of those of us who suffered through these illnesses. We ALL had measles, mumps, chicken pox. Oh, and let's not forget polio. Even an ear infection could result in complications. With the mumps you think you are choking to death. Oh yeah, testicular mumps can cause sterilization. The chicken pox left scars. But with the measles the scariest part was the high fever. I remember that illness in a dreamlike state. I remember the doctor making the house calls, my parents bathing me in alcohol to try and get the fever down. My mom told me I was delirious. Now picture that times the eight kids that were in our family.

Of course, the problem with the high fever is that it can lead to convulsions and other serious complications. I had an older cousin who got the measles at age 16. Her complications led to such severe brain damage that she was left with the mind of a two year old. She spent the rest of her life in an institution.

Because I was curious, I pulled out my Kindergarten and first grade report cards. I was absent 22 days in Kindergarten and 30 days in first grade. I remember as these illnesses would go like wildfire through the classrooms there would be 8 - 10 kids gone at a time. Pretty hard for a teacher to teach when kids are out for long periods at a time.

You can bet that when these vaccines became available our parents got us vaccinated. The Polio vaccine didn't become available until 1963. They did mass community vaccines for that. I remember going to **** School in ***** and standing in long, long lines of people waiting to get it. It was an oral vaccine and I remember they put it in sugar cubes.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Depends on the flavor of anti-vaxxer... some of them actually believe that vaccines don't do much and that diseases like smallpox were headed for extinction without vaccines. Don't ask what mental gymnastics are involved to reach such conclusions unless you have a bottle of ibuprofen at your side for the headache that will inevitably follow

Well, you don't see people get sick with bubonic plague anymore, and we don't vax for it. Therefore, polio would have gone the way of bubonic plague anyway... that's essentially the reasoning. Nevermind that we don't have photos of entire wards lined w/ kids in iron lungs from the after-effects bubonic plague, pre-bubonic-plague vax either.

(I don't believe this, in case someone is seeing this response but not my others!!)

I agree about needing large amounts of ibuprofen for that conversation.

[Emergent, RN]

I suspect Bubonic plague killed off everyone susceptible on such a massive scale that humans evolved a resistance to it. Survivors passed their resistance on to their descendants.

Personal story here: If it weren't for polio, I wouldn't have been born. My birth mother graduated from Berkeley University in CA. Then her cousin Connie (really her aunt but the age of a cousin) came down with polio. Connie had three small children and lived in upstate NY. My birth mom went to help out Connie while she recovered, caring for the children and home. After Connie recovered, birth Mom went to roommate in Greenwich Village in NYC, with her college friend from Berkeley, and worked at a children's museum. While there she had an affair with my birth father who was in the military and stationed there. He was from Florida and already had a law degree, was probably drafted for the Korean war.

And that is the story of my conception. She came back to California and surrendered me for adoption, and here I am. I later found the family, birth mother had died of cancer, but I did get a chance to meet Connie before she died.

[MikeRN84, BSN, MSN, RN]

It seems like every day I see someone on Facebook post something about vaccines. I understand we aren't supposed to believe everything we are told, and should question everything, but the facts are undeniable. Once the question has been posed and the research has been done, don't we owe it to public safety to believe the results? All these misleading web blogs about how harmful vaccines are are infuriating to read and I can't believe people are actually buying into what some mom says from Sacramento instead of what hundreds of scientists and doctors say from tens of thousands of hours of research.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

Well, you don't see people get sick with bubonic plague anymore, and we don't vax for it. Therefore, polio would have gone the way of bubonic plague anyway... that's essentially the reasoning. Nevermind that we don't have photos of entire wards lined w/ kids in iron lungs from the after-effects bubonic plague, pre-bubonic-plague vax either.

(I don't believe this, in case someone is seeing this response but not my others!!)

I agree about needing large amounts of ibuprofen for that conversation.

Bubonic Plague Is Back (but It Never Really Left) - The Daily Beast

Experts raise alarm as plague kills dozens in Madagascar - CNN.com

[Anonymous865]

I'm not a nurse, but I hope you'll let me share some of my stories.

Fortunately no one in my family developed polio, but my parents talk about how frightened everyone was of polio. They weren't allowed to go swimming in the summer. They weren't allowed to go to movies. They didn't go to church. They were kept out of any crowd for fear of polio.

The Salk vaccine came out a couple of years before my oldest sister was born. My parents said there was a real risk of developing polio from the vaccine, since the Salk vaccine was a live, but weakened virus. There were documented cases of people getting polio from the vaccine. My parents discussed the vaccine and decided to vaccinate their children because the risk of contracting the disease w/o the vaccine was much greater than the risk of contracting the disease from the vaccine. When the Sabin vaccine came out in 1963 every parent breathed a sigh of relief.

My parents were big believers in vaccines. Mom's degrees were in child development and child psychology. She had seen the results of these "minor" childhood illnesses, and there was no way her kids were going to have them if there was any way to prevent it. She kept us out of the church nursery. She kept us out of pre-school and kindergarten. She did send us to 1st grade on. She thought that by then we were old enough to know to wash our hands, don't put anything in our mouth, etc.

We also got every vaccine available. Even with the pertussis vaccine my oldest sister contracted pertussis. She had received the 1st vaccine, but was too young to have received the complete series. Fortunately she had what the Dr described as a "very mild case," since she had received 1 shot. Mom said that my sister would be sitting in her highchair and start coughing. When she coughed she would grab hold of the kitchen table. She coughed so hard this little baby would shake the kitchen table until it moved. Mom said my sister would turn blue coughing and mom said her (mom's) heart would stop until her baby started breathing again. This was a "very mild case."

Amazingly the only other childhood illness we contracted was chicken pox. I was only 3, but I still remember how miserable I was. We too had the pox in our throats, ears, everywhere. Fortunately we all 5 escaped without a scar. I think mom kept us in oatmeal baths most of the day and went through buckets of calamine lotion. I can't imagine why anyone would want their child to experience that misery if they could prevent it.

The rubella vaccine came out when my oldest sister was 13. The vaccine wasn't approved for anyone 13 or older. My parents lied about my sister's age. They said she was 12, so she could get the vaccine. They said they had seen too many children who's mom had had rubella during pregnancy. They weren't going to take the chance that that could happen to my sister when she was an adult.

When I was a teenager I babysat for a boy who had had polio. His parents had adopted him from Korea. He went through surgery after surgery to correct the problems caused by polio. It seemed he was constantly in a cast from his waist to his toes on both legs with a metal bar between the casts to keep his legs properly aligned. It was so sad knowing that had he been born in America, he would have been vaccinated against polio and avoided all those surgeries. (His adopted mom was a nurse.)

My parents raised their 5 kids to be very analytical (everyone's degrees are in egineering, math, or science). We look at data. The data shows that the potential risk of a vaccine is much, much, less than the potential risk of the disease. It's an easy decision to vaccinate. We all keep our vaccinations up-to-date and all our kids are vaccinated.

About 20 years ago the CDC recommended that anyone born after 1956 and before 196? get an MMR vaccination. At my next check up, I asked about it and got my booster.

I make sure I get my tetorifice booster every 7 -10 years. The person giving the shot always asks why I'm getting a tetorifice shot. Have I gotten a puncture wound or a cut. I always explain to them what the CDC recommendation is.

When the CDC recommended adults get a pertussis booster, I asked about it at my next check up. I'm not going to be the person who passes pertussis on to a baby or immunocompromised person. I have an obligation to not only myself, but also to my community.

PBS did a show (Frontline I think) about the vaccine debate. Psychologists explained about why people are more swayed by the story about the 1 person who knew someone who knew someone that was harmed by a vaccine than they are by science and facts. It was interesting. You can probably see it on PBS.com if you are interested.

I get frustrated with the anti-vaxers, but I get really concerned when educated medical professionals express the same illogical reasons for not vaccinating their children. My neighbors are both MDs. They are vaccinating their children on a different schedule because they are concerned that the vaccines might be giving their children too many viruses at one time. Do they not know how many bugs their kids immune systems encounter every day at church, play group, the store, on the 4 family pets, and on mom and dad when they come home from work!

Glad you started this topic. It's been interesting reading.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

I have taken care of a lot of pertussis babies and it's awful.

Here's a news story of a 25 day old in Cali who just died from it.

25-Day-Old Baby Dies From Pertussis in Santa Barbara County | News - KEYT

A video of a baby with pertussis. I have nursed such babies through long shifts where they don't seem to get a break to breathe and then start all over with the coughing. I had a dad crying at the bedside once, really heartbroken at what his newborn was going through. The baby caught it from grandma who was not vaccinated.

[gonzo1, ASN, RN]

Great thread

We all need the reminders of how it used to be before vaccines.

[Thought, BSN, RN]

I broke out in chickenpox when my mom was in labor with my brother. I was 1.5 years old, and the vaccine didn't come out until a few years later. Mom said I came to her covered head to toe saying, "I got the poppies." My parents took me to my aunt's house before going to the hospital.

A friend of mine in high school told me her parents never vaccinated her or her brother. The reason? "Our parents don't believe in vaccines, and turned out fine. We've never been sick. Vaccines put chemicals into us that our body doesn't need." She doesn't plan to vaccinate her children in the future as well.

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

I have taken care of a lot of pertussis babies and it's awful.

Here's a news story of a 25 day old in Cali who just died from it.

25-Day-Old Baby Dies From Pertussis in Santa Barbara County | News - KEYT

A video of a baby with pertussis. I have nursed such babies through long shifts where they don't seem to get a break to breathe and then start all over with the coughing. I had a dad crying at the bedside once, really heartbroken at what his newborn was going through. The baby caught it from grandma who was not vaccinated.

Not to derail the thread, but luckily I've never seen a baby with pertussis in my 7yrs as a nurse. Is there anything you can do to support their breathing during those coughing fits? Can you bag them if it gets too bad, or are the airways so clamped down? That would freak me out, I'd feel so helpless! Thank you for sharing the video.

[RNperdiem, RN]

My mother was exposed to rubella when pregnant after giving a ride home to a coworker who contacted her the next day to inform about her illness. Mother never relaxed that entire pregnancy until I was safely born and fine.

One day mom and I tried to figure out how many sick days a mother of an earlier generation would need to take time off from a job if she had a large family and no vaccines. Not all the kids would be sick at exactly the same time. We calculated at least 3 weeks for the measles, plus maybe a week more for slow convalescence. Add in the mumps, whooping cough plus 5 kids, and that is a lot of time taking care of sick kids.

[dinah77, ADN]

My mother was exposed to rubella when pregnant after giving a ride home to a coworker who contacted her the next day to inform about her illness. Mother never relaxed that entire pregnancy until I was safely born and fine.

One day mom and I tried to figure out how many sick days a mother of an earlier generation would need to take time off from a job if she had a large family and no vaccines. Not all the kids would be sick at exactly the same time. We calculated at least 3 weeks for the measles, plus maybe a week more for slow convalescence. Add in the mumps, whooping cough plus 5 kids, and that is a lot of time taking care of sick kids.

Excellent point! The economic toll on a family from these preventable diseases is one not talked about

[anon456, BSN, RN]

Not to derail the thread, but luckily I've never seen a baby with pertussis in my 7yrs as a nurse. Is there anything you can do to support their breathing during those coughing fits? Can you bag them if it gets too bad, or are the airways so clamped down? That would freak me out, I'd feel so helpless! Thank you for sharing the video.

Unfortunately there's not much that can be done. We do a lot of deep suction to clear the mucous because they can't. The toxins from pertussis paralyze the lung cilia so the mucous can't move, so we try to at least keep their upper airways clear when they are able to cough some up.

Their noses get swollen and sometimes they can get nosebleeds, so we try to find that balance between too much and not enough deep suction. If their noses get swollen -- babies are nose breathers-- it can be bad, too. We sometimes do blowby or a whiff of O2 on NC so they can recover faster once they start breathing again.

They are not allowed to eat because there's a huge risk of aspiration. Some of them get ND tubes, but if they work any vomit up they are taken off feeds totally.

That video I posted-- they just do that over and over again. It's heartbreaking.

Sometimes they just get so tired they end up intubated. Once they are intubated it's hard because the little bit of work they were doing to try to clear mucous is now not happening, so their lungs get fuller. It's a bad thing.

And then you'll hear the stories of all those kids raised by anti-vax people who did get pertussis and were fine. If they got it when they were older than about 2 and didn't have an underlying health problem, they have a better chance. It's the babies and old people that do really bad.