Whooping cough redux; your story?

[nurseprnRN]

All, just got the following from a colleague (identifying details changed):

My granddaughter Sarah has had 8 visits to the doctor's office in the past couple of weeks. She was first diagnosed with and treated for croup, then chronic asthma, and then bronchospasms due to allergies. Last week I took her to the Children's Theater and at intermission I had to call 911 because she couldn't catch her breath and she was getting cyanotic. After oxygen and an albuterol treatment she improved, but just to her baseline. Seen the following day and she was finally tested for whooping cough. The test just came back positive.

It is scary because she feels so ill but never complains and we see no improvement. Now her mother and brother have been diagnosed with whooping cough and the the rest of the family is being treated. I was told today that I should also be treated since she spend a a lot of time with me and am awaiting my physician's call back. In the meantime Sarah is no better and is also having bad headaches, stomach aches, sweats, and general malaise. And we are told it can last up to three months.

And this is why people should have their kids immunized. Physicians who haven't seen a lot of whooping cough since the immunizations became available don't recognize a variant case like this; this kid has been so sick and misdiagnosed for weeks; now her whole family is in treatment. What about other children at her school? What about the kid she got it from?

If you want to start the antivax rant, there are other threads for that, and please take the trouble to go there. Anyone who has similar stories to share, though, this is the place for you.

[klone, MSN, RN]

HPV is given at the age of 11 or 12.

If you are meaning HIB, that is given at 2 months, as 4 doses are needed. And unfortunetely, the most vulnerable is newborns--prior to the time that they can get the vaccine against it.

It doesn't matter if a child is home with Mom or not. Certainly one usually doesn't stay in the house 24/7 without any contact with the outside world.

No, I meant HBV, not HPV or Hib. And the only POSSIBLE way a young child could be exposed to HBV is in a daycare setting, and even that is incredibly rare. Hence my comment about it being completely unnecessary in an infant who's not in daycare. Yet, it's on the schedule to be given at BIRTH. Literally hours after the child is born. Ridiculous.

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

I see nothing wrong with skipping HepB for a newborn, especially if mother was vaccinated with a positive titer known before birth. This is the only vaccine I delayed for my child with the blessing of my son's pediatrician. Some of the post partum nurses kept trying to give him the hbv even though my son'a pedi wrote an order NOT to...

We were required to have proof of TDaP prior to clinical in peds & maternity in nursing school as there were a few whooping cough cases in the area. The health dept offered $2 TDaP vaccines if needed.

[SeattleJess]

No, Mayim Bialik is Blossom. BLOSSOM.

I believe she's been both. (Critical thinking apparently not required for either role.)

[anon456, BSN, RN]

I am a peds nurse and we are required upon hiring to provide proof of *recent* pertussis vaccine or titers.

I have nursed a few babies through pertussis and it's just awful. There's not much we can do. If the toxins have already paralyzed the cilia in the lungs the antibiotics don't do much to fix that. We just give oxygen and suction and keep the kid NPO and provide a lot of emotional support to the parents. I wish that the pertussis vaccine lasted longer. There should be some more regular recommendation for it such as every 2 years, not just for children and pregnant women and old people. The vaccine, as we now know, does not last forever.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

I see nothing wrong with skipping HepB for a newborn, especially if mother was vaccinated with a positive titer known before birth. This is the only vaccine I delayed for my child with the blessing of my son's pediatrician. Some of the post partum nurses kept trying to give him the hbv even though my son'a pedi wrote an order NOT to...

We were required to have proof of TDaP prior to clinical in peds & maternity in nursing school as there were a few whooping cough cases in the area. The health dept offered $2 TDaP vaccines if needed.

I did the same with my kids. My youngest was very sickly and I also felt it was better to spread them out rather than give so many at once. I was not sure she could handle it. But she was roughly on schedule, and caught up completely by the time school started.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

\

Not all vaccines on the schedule are necessary for all children. I see no reason for an infant who is at home with mom to get HBV.

Why delay it?

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

My error--I didn't recognize HBV as the Hep-B vaccine.

Hep B can be contracted from far more than daycare. From a family member who doesn't know they have it, and it lives on surfaces....

I just don't see the downside in all of this--however with your child's MD's blessing, so be it-- However, as kids get older they KNOW what they are going to the doctor's for...and to have to bring them every month for a shot, when every 2 or 3 months the scheduled immunizations can be given all at the same time, with no ill effects.

I am of the time of the little blue book. You made your appointments, you gave the child tylenol (or Mom gave you tylenol) you got your shots, then the next appointment was made and so on.

I guess I am old school. I am just not seeing what the big deal is. Especially when few parents can say that their parents did not immunize them.

[DeeAngel]

Great news in New York:

New York federal judge rules that schools can suspend unvaccinated kids from class during disease outbreaks.

I hope the wisdom spreads to all the states. You don't vaccinate, keep your kids at home.

[OCNRN63, RN]

This happened to my son at 7 weeks old after 8 trips I he doctors office, a diagnoses of "reflux", then "asthma", then a "common cold".... I took him back every.single.day and had my concerns minimized by physicians. I even asked "could it maybe be pertussis?" After seeing the sounds of pertussis commercials on TV.... The reply I got was "I really wish they wouldn't play those things-makes parents worry too much!" Ya. Ok. So the evening of the 8th doctor office visit, my son quit breathing in his sleep!! I am so lucky that I woke up and noticed- he was cyanotic and flexed with his back arched. I immediately scooped him up and started screaming for my husband and my son gasped so loudly and let out a blood curdling scream- instantly took him to the ER Which was 3 miles from our house. When I explained what had happened to the triage nurse, social services was called! Apparently they are called for every ALTE. Anyways, after a night of monitoring in the ER they tried to send us home with no rhyme or reason to what had happened. I refused to leave and after talking to the head of pediatrics, was transferred to the ped floor for continued monitoring and tests (including a spinal to rule out meningitis) everything came back negative and once again, they tried to discharge him. Once again I refused and while waiting for the head of peds to come back into my sons room, he started coughing and was getting to be cyanotic so I got on the call light and called for the nurse- just then the head of peds walks in he room hears my sons cough and starts shouting "don masks" "get gowns" etc... "He has PERTUSSIS" OMG so long story short, well not so long.... He was admitted to the PICU and we stayed for 16 days.

*** please excuse the typos/poor structure as I am on my phone FYI I was not a nurse at that time and had no medical/nursing knowledge beyond the scope of the average human :)

I worked in peds many years ago, and I live in an area with a lot of Amish families. They do not vaccinate their children, so we had more than a few infants and toddlers who came in with pertussis. Let me tell you, as a nurse, the sound of a child with pertussis making that strangled gasping sound made my blood run cold.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Great news in New York:

New York federal judge rules that schools can suspend unvaccinated kids from class during disease outbreaks.

I hope the wisdom spreads to all the states. You don't vaccinate, keep your kids at home.

It is, in every state I've lived in as a parent (MN, AZ and CO) - in every state, if you waive or defer vaccines, you must sign a statement saying you are aware that in the case of an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable illness in the school, the unvaccinated child must stay home.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Why delay it?

Because many parents feel that giving 8 vaccines all at once can be overwhelming to a child's still-forming immune system, and that it's better to spread them out a bit, giving the vaccines that are more important in infants, such as DTap and MMR, and waiting on the ones that are more important when they're older, such as varicella and HBV.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

With all due respect, klone, we are not talking 8 vaccines at once. (I am not sure my children EVER received 8 at once!)

And unfortunetely, a child's still forming immune system can contract any number of illnesses, that can be preventable.

And until you see a child who is suffering from an illness that a vaccine could prevent, well, we can argue the immune response until the cows come home.

However, not many parents will experience the illness themselves and have to suffer because--yup, they had the vaccine in childhood.