kins

Thing is you can't just base these decisions on your personal experiences alone. My first-hand experience of vaccinations is that one of my children was nearly hospitalised after her DTP, and needed antibiotics to recover. But I know this was a very rare occurence, and that the diseases she was vaccinated against are likely to be much more serious, so I continue to have my children vaccinated even though it scares me silly each time.

Mine had chickenpox and felt a bit poorly and itchy for a few days, which is the typical experience. Chickenpox causes serious complications in extremely few children.

On the other hand, if my children hadn't had chickenpox by the time they hit their teens I'd consider suggesting the vaccination to them then, because it is a much more serious disease the older you get.

Ozzidoc

Interesting...shingles vax isn't used in the UK or Europe to my knowledge. I hope that you never get shingles again - it looks like a painful condition, and can be very dangerous to the eye and eyesite.

(Shingles is the reactivation of the chicken pox virus which has been laying dormant in the body's nerve root.)

Ozzidoc

Hmmm this sounds quite strange. I would suspect immunospression if it were one kid, but it's unusual for it to happen to several ie for several kids to be immunosupressed.

Ozzidoc

Gardisil prevents ovarian cancer??? Have you evidence for this? It's used to prevent cervical cancer

Hep B is passed in blood, semen and saliva. When I worked in Oz as a waitress, it was strongly recommended that we were vaccinated against it, due to the contact with glassware ergo saliva.

I saw an 18 yr old girl need - and receive! - a liver transplant six weeks after she first had her first sexual encounter with her first boyfriend, as he had (unknowingly) Hep B.

There are some parts of the world where Hep B is endemic (ie it's present in a large proportion of the population). I'm not familiar with it's prevalence in the US, but I think that it is in some populations in the south/south west. Not in the US as a whole...same as in Oz, where it is endemic (or close to) in the aboriginal population.

snowbunny

I had shingles aged 11, which is rather young to get shingles! I don't think there is a shingles vaccinations as such; shingles is caused by dormant chickenpox virus (varicella) which re-erupts from the spinal nerves where it lives for someone's whole life after exposure to either chickenpox OR the varicella vaccine.

I have heard that the vaccine's varicella strain is "less likely" to re-emerge than garden variety strains of varicella.

However, after hearing coworkers mention that shingles is rare in India, I did some Googling and found research which indicates that re-exposure to other people who are currently have chickenpox seems to re-boost the immune system and help prevent the virus from re-emerging as shingles. If this theory is true, then possibly receiving the varicella vaccination as an adult might help prevent shingles -- but haven't heard of anyone actually having this one.