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.
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.
And the cough in infants isn't the "whoop" sounding cough that you'd (well someone with no medical knowledge) know. It was like you said, a "strangled gasping sound". My son was coughing like that and gagging but I didn't realize he was gagging as it wasn't a typical "gag" sound if that makes sense? Something I'll NEVER forget!! Horrible.
I hope the wisdom spreads to all the states. You don't vaccinate, keep your kids at home.
The story touches on the whole 'religious exemption' thing. Wonder when that one is going to be called for what it is, a load of bunk? They try to get exemptions simply because they don't want to vaccinate. When that gets declined, they say "there's medical reasons Johnny can't have them". Then THAT gets tossed out as garbage, and suddenly "it's against my religious beliefs". Really? Which religious beliefs would those be? Unless you're standing in front of me in Amish garb with a buggy out front, I'm having a hard time with that one. People tend to send their kids to school within their home communities, where people know one another, so that's a lie that's often pretty obvious. Especially when the parent is known full well to have no particular religious convictions...unless, of course, there's a handy one to borrow that gives them permission to skip the vaccinations.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
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.
With all due respect...the 2 month vaccine recommendation is DTaP, Hib, HBV, Rotavirus, IPV, and one more that I know I'm forgetting. That's 8. The 6 month vaccine can be as many as. 9 at once if it's the flu season. And I've never seen a 2mo infant who caught HBV from the community, due to not being immunized. Not sure what makes you think I've never seen a child with a vaccine preventable illness.
With all due respect...the 2 month vaccine recommendation is DTaP, Hib, HBV, Rotavirus, IPV, and one more that I know I'm forgetting. That's 8. The 6 month vaccine can be as many as. 9 at once if it's the flu season. And I've never seen a 2mo infant who caught HBV from the community, due to not being immunized. Not sure what makes you think I've never seen a child with a vaccine preventable illness.
I still don't feel that there is any basis for parents to wait. The immune system is bombarded from the moment you're born. It is better to be exposed to a vaccine than the actual pathogen any day.
I also am more pessimistic. What if your kid gets very sick, or something goes wrong and they need a blood transfusion? Hindsight is always 20/20, and I would rather not have to choose between a needed blood transfusion and a lifelong illness. Just vaccinate your kids people.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I will definitely keep this on my radar in seeing kids with these symptoms so it doesn't take forever to get them diagnosed. I gave immunizations for so many years when parents didn't question the recommended schedule (not saying that is necessarily a good thing either), I think we have to fight a sense of complacency in our colleagues who like me, never expected to see this happen. Thanks, Grn Tea.
I think the problem with a lot of parents in "my" generation (born in the 70s and later) is that we haven't lived to see these pandemics that our parents may remember. I remember a friend's dad who'd contracted polio in his youth and the physical damage that had done to him, but I can thankfully say that I didn't have to grow up in a generation where we were surrounded by what are now preventable diseases. I think many people take these diseases for granted, and don't realize the devastation they cause. They seem to think that these diseases can be likened to the common cold, or that we somehow develop "natural immunity" (which in reality can only be obtained through exposure to the pathogen).
I live in an area with a high population of anti-vaxers, and it's SO frustrating. My son goes to school with a lot of these kids, and I just have to shake my head sometimes. I'm on a school board committee regarding health policy in the school district, and it AMAZES me the lack of knowledge and critical thinking in some of these parents. They don't seem to get that there is as much misinformation online as there is information, and were seriously surprised when I said this. Thankfully I'm not the only medical person on the board, and she and I back each other up a lot, and these parents actually listen to us, for the most part.
Our generation can no longer live in blissful ignorance, when disease outbreaks are exploding left and right. I think another part of the issue, however, is as I mentioned above; people don't know how to sort out the truth among the rubbish. They don't know how to vet out a website or resource, or even how to tell if it's slanted in one way or another (which even reliable resources are). This is one step I've been trying to work on with some of these other board members, and I've had discussions with patients about this as well. It's always amazing to me the misinformation people spout as gospel.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
That was a joke. I'm just feeling old.
Blossom is just a little before my time If you are feeling old, klone, I am feeling a tad bit young. NPH is Barney to me & George Clooney is just old... kidding! Sorry to hijack the thread.
Please go back to the pro vax conversation!
No, you're talking about Bette Midler, when she was a kid, in that movie Beaches. Bette MIDLER. Seriously, I never saw Blossom. Or Felicity. Loved Clarissa, though! Sorry for continuing the hijack.
Seven years ago my 16 year old traveled to a larger city for the weekend and then came down with whooping cough about a week and a half later. Except that we didn't know it was whooping cough - we thought it was just a bad cold with the worst cough he had ever had. All my children had been vaccinated, including him. One by one, my older children caught it from him, including two that had asthma. We inadvertently exposed my newborn grand daughter to it as well when one of my apparently-healthy daughters went to stay with her sister to help her with the new baby and then came down sick while she was there. I remember laying awake at night listening to my household coughing and coughing and being SO frustrated that nothing stopped it. After some research (I was not a nurse back then) I finally realized that they had all the symptoms of whooping cough and got it tested. Then our practitioner gave the treatment to everyone, plus prophylactic antibiotics to my husband and I and any family that hadn't come down with it.
My two children that had asthma coughed for six or seven months. My 16 year old, previously very healthy, now coughs for a long time whenever he gets a cold. My newborn granddaughter survived after a couple weeks in a large children's hospital, but ended up with some damage to her lungs. I know first-hand that immunizations are not 100 percent, and also that they wear off. Once the cough sets in, the patient is stuck with it for a long time (it used to be called the 100-day cough), but they should still get the antibiotic treatment so they don't continue to expose others.
Does anyone know how long immunity lasts after you have had the actual disease whooping cough?
When I entered nursing school, I had a TDaP. My physician had to order it from the pharmacy because his office routinely gives DT boosters still. The hospital where I did my OB rotation offers a TDaP voucher to all partners of delivering women so they can be vaccinated.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Research has found that naturally acquired immunity is similar to that of the vaccine, in that immunity begins to wane after about five years. It is recommended to get the Tdap vaccine every five years. Especially for members of the household that have a newborn. That is called cocooning. And it's recommended that every pregnant woman get the vaccine starting at around 28 weeks, regardless of when her last pregnancy or vaccination was.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
or something goes wrong and they need a blood transfusion? Hindsight is always 20/20, and I would rather not have to choose between a needed blood transfusion and a lifelong illness.
What on earth do blood transfusions have to do with this topic? I'm confused...
If you are feeling old, klone, I am feeling a tad bit young. NPH is Barney to me & George Clooney is just old... kidding! Sorry to hijack the thread.
RED1984, BSN, RN, EMT-P
370 Posts
And the cough in infants isn't the "whoop" sounding cough that you'd (well someone with no medical knowledge) know. It was like you said, a "strangled gasping sound". My son was coughing like that and gagging but I didn't realize he was gagging as it wasn't a typical "gag" sound if that makes sense? Something I'll NEVER forget!! Horrible.