Chicken pox and MRSA

[Isabelle]

Now that the superbug MRSA is on the lose, is very important to care for any small cut on the skin or bruise with blood accumulated under the skin, if after apply water and soap,band-aid, etc. or even wound saline water if get worse in case of hours showing any sign of redness or swelling, go to the nearest ER might be a case of MRSA

In the news we have a "Child with Chicken pox that died from complications", apparently this common, harmless childhood infection with 300 itchy, open sores leave the body open for the opportunistic MRSA to get in. It's recommended to vaccinate against chicken pox, that child "didn't qualify" for the 1 year old shot or for the 5 year old. There is no explanation why she didn't "qualify".

If you decide to vaccine your child against any disease, do it when she/he in his best optimal health. See if you can keep the child in large amount of vitamin C to boost his immune system (supplements, fresh squeeze orange juice, lime juice in water with a touch of honey, eating oranges, mandarines, kiwi fruit, etc)
Avoid to give too many vaccines at once, see that is thymerosal-free, etc

Apparently, MRSA is not anymore confined to hospitals now is everywhere.
Dr. Michael E. Pichichero made an observation relating to the vaccine Prevnar that with it and antibiotics has created a vacuum that is used by the superbug MRSA.

So take care.

[The Pogue]

Chicken pox is not and never was a "harmless" childhood disease. Three words: post-varicella encephalitis.

[Isabelle]

In my time doctors considered as such. I do not called chicken pox "a harmless childhood disease" because I want to make it so.... perhaps the excessive use of antibiotics had made it dangerous and eventually combined with the vaccine Prevnar and plus with MRSA lose in the community, it has become something that one has to be careful. It was presented by a reputable immunologist and expert in vaccines Dr. Michael Pichichero, search his credentials.
So take care.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

There are two forms of MRSa now. One evolved in hospitals and nursing homes, many years ago.

The second form is called community acquired MRSa or CA-MRSa.
This one is more aggressive and virulent. It appeared in Alaska in the late 90's
It secretes some form of peptide that neutralizes/lysises neutrophils in the host, and hence the bacterium can invade faster.

There is some evidence that Bactroban and bacitracin applied topically at the earliest onset of MRSa can halt it there. Hospital workers have been treated intranasally with either of these two topical antibiotics successfully.

The biggest danger with Chicken Pox and its related Shingles is that the virus reduces immune response which then makes topical staph more serious. This was true before MRSa and remains so.

[LIZARD]

In the news we have a "Child with Chicken pox that died from complications", apparently this common, harmless childhood infection with 300 itchy, open sores leave the body open for the opportunistic MRSA to get in.

Pogue is right-on. Chicken pox is not harmless to everyone, even kids, which is why we now have a vacc for it. Brain infections, seizures, and even death have resulted. It's relatively rare, but it does happen, even to healthy kids.


Just an FYI for everyone!!

LIZARD

[mc4_a]

perhaps the excessive use of antibiotics had made it dangerous
...

No, Chicken Pox has always been a dangerous problem. Before vaccinations tens of thousands of people were hospitalized every year with serious complications and hundreds died. This is not because of antibiotics, this is because it is, and always has been, a dangerous virus.

[Keggy]

But did you know that the vaccine is only a temporay fix? If a child gets chickenpox he/she develops a lifetime of immunity. The vaccine only provides temporary immunity. The vaccine also has had complications. Deaths from chicken pox are rare, I think its about 100 out of 500,000 cases, whereas complications from the vaccine are at about 65 out of 100,000. I am doing this from memory... but the info is out there.
Don't guilt yourself into getting your child a vaccine without looking at all the facts. Getting chickenpox. shingles later in life is even harder to recover from.

[LIZARD]

[QUOTE=Keggy;183668]But did you know that the vaccine is only a temporay fix? QUOTE]

Both my kids just had boosters.


LIZARD :)

[mc4_a]

But did you know that the vaccine is only a temporay fix? If a child gets chickenpox he/she develops a lifetime of immunity. The vaccine only provides temporary immunity. The vaccine also has had complications. Deaths from chicken pox are rare, I think its about 100 out of 500,000 cases, whereas complications from the vaccine are at about 65 out of 100,000. I am doing this from memory... but the info is out there.
Don't guilt yourself into getting your child a vaccine without looking at all the facts. Getting chickenpox. shingles later in life is even harder to recover from.
You're characterizing that incorrectly. It's not that the protection wears out it's more we know that in a certain part of the population as single shot is not enough to give life long immunity.

[The Pogue]

Yes, shingles is an extremely painful condition, and is a not uncommon later-in-life complication from chicken pox.

Even for children who don't experience complications from chicken pox, it's still a nasty disease. The headache and itching are horrendous.

[rhyanen]

I sometimes have to work with NICU babies that have MRSA, and it's pretty scary. I have to do the full on contact precaution thing, gloves, gown, etc. I always worry about being in contact with things like that at work. Guess it's just the nature of being a health care worker.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

I had chicken pox as a child, along with every kid in my school and my neighborhood.

I'm not arguing that there aren't some that have serious complications from it, I'm sure that there are...but from all accounts from family members and friends of the family, I had a VERY tough bout of it...infact there are comments in my pediatric records from the Dr that he had never encountered a child that had so many welts or in the places that I did (inside my ears and privates).

Not a complication, but rather just a really bad case of it, the likes of which stories are still told from time to time when long time friends get together...

I remember it well...it did suck, but it wasn't that bad...it was like having a ton of bug bites all at once and having the flu or a cold at the same time. I remember cool baths and drowning in calomine lotion.

I heard of no one within our circle having anything worse than that, and have never heard of anything more serious since...and clearly neither have any of my family members or any of my parents friends.

Again, I'm not debating that there are cases of serious complications...but I gotta wonder how well the medical community would be able to handle those complications with todays medicine...I mean couldn't they be prevented or managed or whatever today?

The vaccine still seems like overkill to me, like the flu shot...course I DO recognize that the flu for some IS serious, and I think those people should seriously consider immunization for it...but I think it's overkill to give every single child the flu shot regardless...

I could be WAY wrong, but it just seems like the chicken pox and the measles and the mumps are in that same category to me...growing up, it was just one of those 'things' we dealt with, just like suffering through permenant teeth, OR OMG! growing pains...now THOSE in my mind were FAR more painful...got a vaccine for that? Those things lasted years and crippled me beyond belief! Not to mention prevented me from participating in activities on a frequent basis!

[AKF]

I agree that we vaccinate for far too many things. And even though there are sometimes serious complications from chicken pox and mumps, there are also sometimes serious complications from the vaccines.

I personally never had chicken pox, but tended to both my boys when they had it, and didn't get sick. Maybe I have some natural immunity or something. I hope so!!

I now question my wisdom in giving my daughter the vaccine, because if she gets it now (she's 11) it will be much worse.

[mc4_a]

I heard of no one within our circle having anything worse than that, and have never heard of anything more serious since...and clearly neither have any of my family members or any of my parents friends.

Just because you don't know anyone who was personally affected more significantly than you does not mean that people are not hospitalized with the aliment and die.

The vaccine still seems like overkill to me, like the flu shot...course I DO recognize that the flu for some IS serious, and I think those people should seriously consider immunization for it...but I think it's overkill to give every single child the flu shot regardless...

When the outcome is possibly missing days or weeks of school or possibly needing antibiotics to combat a bad infection, I have to disagree.

I could be WAY wrong, but it just seems like the chicken pox and the measles and the mumps are in that same category to me...growing up, it was just one of those 'things' we dealt with, just like suffering through permenant teeth, OR OMG! growing pains...now THOSE in my mind were FAR more painful...got a vaccine for that? Those things lasted years and crippled me beyond belief! Not to mention prevented me from participating in activities on a frequent basis!

Apples and oranges. I've yet to hear of a single person dying from "growing pains".

[mc4_a]

I agree that we vaccinate for far too many things. And even though there are sometimes serious complications from chicken pox and mumps, there are also sometimes serious complications from the vaccines.

Chicken pox vaccinations are rare and usually are on the order of soreness, swelling and/or fever. That's very mild compared to the complications from not vaccinating.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

I understand that just because I know of noone that it doesn't mean it doesn't happen...I said that...I'm just saying that it's rare and it seems to me that giving every single child on earth a vaccine for something that is so rare seems like overkill.

And I was being sarcastic about the growing pains...from my perspective it seems like something FAR more worthy...and if we take that appraoch, where we give EVERY one something that's important to a few...which seems like that's where we are heading...big pharma will be REALLY rolling in it...and have even more power than they do now...

Christ, there were like 5 vaccines when I was a kid...poor Coley has already had like 30 or something like that (I counted once and it was outragous!)...WTF! That's a bit much!

There has got to be a way to figure out who is really at risk or something...I dunno! Honestly his reaction to the vaccine was FAR wprse than the actual sickness! We ended up in the ER 2x w/i 8 days hooked up to an IV, he lost 2 pounds in that time, was covered head to toe in a horrible rash, fell several times because his balance was all off and narrowly missed major injury, had a high fever....and according to the Dr that wasn't bad enough to call an adverse reaction & report it...it was within normal reactions...sorry, that doesn't make sense to me...the normal reaction to the vaccine being worse than the average bout...

Plus, I'm pretty sure that nature has already figured out how to deal with viruses...I just wish gov't would stop pretending like they know better than god!

[LIZARD]

I agree that we vaccinate for far too many things. And even though there are sometimes serious complications from chicken pox and mumps, there are also sometimes serious complications from the vaccines.

I personally never had chicken pox, but tended to both my boys when they had it, and didn't get sick. Maybe I have some natural immunity or something. I hope so!!

I now question my wisdom in giving my daughter the vaccine, because if she gets it now (she's 11) it will be much worse.

The disease would be much harder on her than any effect from the vacc, especially as she gets older. My 16 yo daughter just had a CP booster a couple of weeks ago. She had no serious effects. Conversely, I'll never forget my father (35 at the time) coming down with mumps when it hit the house (and, miraculously, missed me, the family sick kid :rolleyes: ). My mom, who had had it as a child, was preg with my brother (no bad effects, thank God); my sisters each got it on one side. I remember thinking Dad would never get out of bed. :( He has since told me he wasn't as sick as he looked, but I know it wouldn't have hit him nearly as hard if it hadn't struck him in adulthood. I later had an MMR and a booster and have never had any serious effects from either.

LIZARD :)

[tgrimes]

...growing up, it was just one of those 'things' we dealt with, just like suffering through permenant teeth, OR OMG! growing pains...now THOSE in my mind were FAR more painful...

Wow my son complains about this all the time, his legs feel 'stretchy' he says. I wonder how he'll deal with aging pains when he grows up!

My daughter also had chicken pox 'inside' even in her mouth, and even so developed shingles twice since then, during periods of stress (teenage years and after boot camp). I thought you only got shingles when you didn't get 'enough' of the chicken pox, but that didn't seem to be the case.

[mrsjerome]

Is chicken pox a dangerous disease? I guess it ‘s how it afflicts different people.. I had chicken pox as a young girl. The most I remember is not so much being sick but the nasty itching from it. and of course not being able to go out of the house. In those years they used to put a quarantine sign on your front door. Now all 5 of my kids had it. They all did not get it at once either. It was like a 2 to 3 weeks span between them They also were not that sick just complained of the itching and having to have these oatmeal and baking soda baths to relieve the itching. 2 of my granddaughters had it too. The same with them It was the itching that bothered them the most. Like any disease someone sensitive enough can develop a secondary reaction to it and can get deathly sick from it. Another strange occurrence happened to my oldest granddaughter that had the chicken pox when she was 18 months. At 17 years old she developed a case of shingles. Now shingles is generally associated with an older adult. I found it rather odd at the time but since then have learned it can occur to younger people too. So like anything else in life it all depends on the individuals immune response. Some will not have as severe reaction as others can.
In regard to the overuse of antibiotics, I think this was meant for the mrsa staph infection. Because of the many pox lesions ,mrsa could prove deadly if one with chicken pox were to get it..

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

My brother had a VERY mild case of chicken pox, my mom was worried that he didn't have them at all. She used to say I got his too. But the ped assured her that it was impossible for him to live under the same roof as my sister & I who both had it, play with the kids in the neighborhood, who also had them, and be exposed to virtually all the same kids at recess as I did and NOT get them.

When he was 18ish he worked in an ER overnight as an orderly (or something like that) and developed shingles. He ended up having to take weeks off from work without pay and tried to sue for workers comp coverage, but the ruling was that it had nothing to do with exposure there or his 'mild' case as a child.

The doctors in the case stated that once exposed to a virus it is ALWAYS in your system. You develop antibodies to keep it at bay. If you develop an infection (welts or shingles in the case of chicken pox) then you can expose another person, but other than that it is up to your immunity to keep it at bay (the exact same thing applies with a vaccine too). It was determined that it was my brothers own lack of personal care (not eating well, not sleeping enough, partying too much, working too much, etc) that led to the opportunity for the infection.

My mom kept saying, NO! That she always learned that if you didn't get the FULL thing that you could still get it and if you got it as an adult it was WAY worse...she kept saying "I KNEW IT!" and was PO'd about the whole thing.

Well not too long after that my grandpa developed shingles, a terrible terrible case of it too...he was in his early 70's....and he had chicken pox and all the rest as a child...baffled by that my mom questioned his doc, particularly since my brother had recently had his case...

The doc sent him for blood work and some other tests, turns out he was battling pancreatic cancer and aspestostisis (sp)...the long & short of it was that his doc echo'd the same exact thing that the other docs said about my brother's case.

And I might add that my grandpa was written up too, cuz pancreatic cancer is so terminal...the docs kept telling us he would never make it to the next phase particularly at his age (through prep, through surgery, then recovery, then out of the hospital, etc, etc) he was written up because not only did he make it home but he went back to work and survived another 3 years....that is unheard of with pancreatic cancer, and unbelievable at his age...it's just a testiment to his strenth...but it also says something about how strong that virus is if it managed to weasle it's way out of such a stong body.

I always thought herpes was the only virus (or common one) that hung out in the body waiting for an opportunity to reimmerge...apparently they all do. It just boils down to if you have a good first line of defense your case will be a milder one...which makes perfect sense in my case too since I was already battling a chronic infection that even countless rounds of antibiotics was not eliminating.

It is true though that if your first exposure is as an adult it will be much more severe and I think this is the confusion. But you can ALWAYS become reinfected and it has nothing to do with exposure (as long as you have the titers) it's all about your own health status. The vaccine, even getting boosters, does not insure that you won't get shingles.

Grimey, you would not believe the places I have scars!:eek: I feel for your daughter!

My growing pains were SO bad, I was actually tested for arthritis...I couldn't sleep at night, I would vomit from the pain...it was horrid! Seemed like my knees were always swollen...I just couldn't run or jump rope or any of that stuff...it made me SO sad...and seemed to go on & on & on...and nothing helped! I hope to GOD that it's not a sign of aging pains (in the same way toddlerhood is a reflection of teenage years)...I'm banking on the worst of it already past me...I hope!:confused:

[mrsjerome]

Kristin
What a strange co-incidence, my granddaughter works part time as a C.N.A. at her local hospital. She was working there this summer when she contacted shingles. They also would not let her work.
My granddaughter first thought they were just bug bites. She showed them to my daughter and my daughter said immediately that those were not bug bites. She took her to the Dr. and he diagnosed shingles. He prescribed Fanvir for her. Getting her to the Dr. quickly and being treated with Fanvir lessened the severity of it.
Even though the pox had crusted the hospital didn’t let her return to work until a certain amount of days from the drs. Diagnoses. When she returned she had to show them the area for them to okay her to work .Also she had to keep that area covered. By the time she did return the rash was already fading away.
I thought too at the time that she had got something from the hospital. My daughter told me that probably wasn’t the case. My daughter thought it was maybe because she was so young at the time she had chicken pox. But then you know she has a sister that had it at the same time and was only 5 months old when she had it. She never got anything.
So I don’t know if it was just stress or whatever that caused it
From what I understand shingles is not contagious. The only way for it to spread from person to person one would have to come in contact with the open lesion. For one not vaccinated against chicken pox if they came in contact with the unhealed lesion in that case the result could be chicken pox.
This is what my daughter has told me.

[LauraP]

My mom had all the childhood "plagues"--whooping cough, diptheria, chicken pox, mumps, measles, and rubella. And, as a young college student, she got shingles too, although only once. But she still remembers how miserable she was.

I too never knew personally of anyone whose childhood chicken pox was severe enough to warrant hospitalization or who died--I'm sure it did happen, because there are documented case fatality rates for decades. I recall my mom describing the "Plague Parties" the other moms would have in the summer when a neighborhood kid got the pox--everyone brough the kids over to the basement "rec room" to play and hopefully, contract it, so that all the kids got it at the same time, there were other kids to play with when you were under quarantine, and so that summer vacation (always in August) wasn't spoiled with sick kids. I got it when I was 2, at a plague party, and have a couple of pock marks from it still.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

From what I understand the virus is the same (pox or shingles) it just presents differently according to age...I would guess that has something to do with hormone or endocrine levels or something... not so much first exposure versus second...

You know what likely added to the 'stress' in both cases, being in a 'sick' environment...I'm sure their bodies were both working overtime with all the bugs they were exposed to at each shift...it may not have had much to do with sleeping, eating, etc....I know my brother wasn't THAT bad...but because he was doing the overnight, AND he was in his teens...he pushed himself beyond what an adult would consider responsible, but what 18yo doesn't ya know?????

But then again, ya gotta wonder if it may have been a 'new' strain or somthing too....but I guess more 'employees' would have gotten sick if that were the case...who knows!

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

We never had those parties, but I've heard of them...that's kinda crazy, but I guess it amounts to the same thing as a shot...only wihout all the preservatives & such....

[frogmama]

Once again, it is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I had a cousin who died from complications of chicken pox, she was 3. She developed encephalitis, spent 6 months in a semi-vegatative state and DIED. So there is the damned if you don't...

Now for the damned if you do....On my DH's side (his brother's wife's sister's son, figure that one out! :rolleyes: ) had a documented adverse reaction to the vaccine, and not sure of the whole story and exactly what order things happened in but he wound up in the hospital and on a ventilator before he recovered. He's still partially deaf in one ear.

The varicella vaccine might be great if it worked as advertised, my oldest got the shot at 7 (right after it came out) and I thought it was a good idea (my baby cousin fresh in my mind), Matthew got his at the same time (18 mos). Now fast forward 6 years, my DD gets chickenpox at daycare (she's 2 1/2 and did not get the vacc, I was giving all hers late), she's sick for maybe 4 days, probably 15 pox total, barely a fever. My DS, now 13 gets it too! MISERABLE, SICK, high fever to the point of hallucinations, pox in his foreskin and urethra OMG, it was horrible!!! Dr's excuse? None..."He shouldn't have gotten it, hmmmmm:confused:"

So you do the best you can with what you've got. and pray. alot.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

YUP! Which is why I think it should be a choice! And one left to NO ONE other than the parents!

The fact that the system may not work if everyone doesn't comply just tells me that they need to go back to the drawing board, because eliminating someone's freedom (particularly if there is a VALID reason) should not be an acceptable casualty of any program!

And it just pisses me off to NO end that gov't can enforce it to the extent that they do, like making it impossible to enroll your kids in school without them.

Wouldn't it be nice if those parents that felt their kids couldn't handle a particular virus could vaccinate and those that wanted to go the more 'natural' route could be exempt, WITHOUT either decision affecting the other...

[RathyKay]

I guess I went to a "plague party" but I never heard the term until today.:D My neighbor got chicken pox first and my brother and I went to her house to play. It was kind of fun. I also had mumps as a child. I don't remember much about it, other than I had it. Mr. Kay had shingles in college, right before exam time. I always thought it was a stress deal.
There has got to be a way to figure out who is really at risk or something...I dunno! Honestly his reaction to the vaccine was FAR wprse than the actual sickness! We ended up in the ER 2x w/i 8 days hooked up to an IV, he lost 2 pounds in that time, was covered head to toe in a horrible rash, fell several times because his balance was all off and narrowly missed major injury, had a high fever....and according to the Dr that wasn't bad enough to call an adverse reaction & report it...it was within normal reactions...sorry, that doesn't make sense to me...the normal reaction to the vaccine being worse than the average bout...
This isn't right. According to their website, *you* can report directly to VAERS (http://www.vaers.hhs.gov/vaers.htm). I'm not sure if they have a time limit (as in, is it too late for you to do this?). We had a couple of vaccine-injury threads over on Child Neuro (lost to the crash) and I remember someone (Bec?) posting that doctors are taught adverse reactions are rare and assume they will never see one. So, when they do see one, they're kind of blind to it, or wanting to blame it on something else. And then they still don't want to report it!

[The Pogue]

It's been 13 years now and my daughter still hasn't recovered.

No idea if the disease could have caused her some genetic damage that she'll pass on to any future children. If vaccines can cause genetic damage, so to can diseases.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Kathy, thanks for your encouragement on it...we no longer see that Dr, for a whole host of reasons...the final straw was him ignoring the neuro's report of seizures and him not taking Coley's reaction to the tegretol seriously...so it's hard to say where the problem lies...

Coley ended up having a stomach empty test at CHOB around that same time, the techs were HORRIFIED at his condition, notified the ER and contacted his ped... His ped wasn't available that day but another from his office was...and they were on the CHOB campus so we were urged to see him...he told us at that point that it was likely "a virus" course not the one they pumped into his body, another one that coincidently hit him at the same time and started out as described by the documentation for it....whatever!

And what's the point of reporting it now, ya know? I never want to have to debate with anyone whether his reaction was the vaccine or another virus or some combination...how the heck would I know that anyway! I'm sure it wouldnt' come to that...but how seriously can they take any of these reports when they can all be dismissed away...why bother?

But still if you read the 'normal' reactions to the vaccines on the little pamphlets they give out...I mean it's like the stupid drug commercials you hear...let's see you can get rid of your migranes, but replace it with the runs, infertility and double vision (exaggerated)...it's crazy! I guess for some people their migranes are bad enough that it's worth it...but what about for those they are not, they have a choice, so why don't we?!

[gizmogirl]

search yesterday's new york times or look at left in Science Weekly. They are saying that growing pains are not. They are usually agonizing because they are actually brittle bone from overuse, and occasionally from deficiencies.

Viruses can go dormant and chickenpox can develop soon or much later into Shingles which can be about as painful as any chronic pain can be - definitely is severe central sensitization.

I think I would vaccinate and booster my kid after having seen the effects of shingles on my grandmother in law.

Good luck

[mrsdoubtfyre]

There are different strains of chicken pox. The vaccine is made from the OKA
strain.

Many confusions occur with vaccinations. Here is one example:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/106/2/e28

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Nice!

And yet they still find it SO easy to dismiss a "reaction!"

[gizmogirl]

The Claim: Growing Pains Are Caused by Growth Spurts
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By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: November 27, 2007
THE FACTS

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Leif Parsons
The aches and pains strike in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. For decades, doctors have dismissed them as normal signs of growing in small children, and said the pain was harmless.

Most textbooks attribute these “growing pains” to the stretching of leg muscles, caused by the rapid growth of bones.

But despite widespread acceptance of this claim, there is virtually no evidence that it’s true. Most studies have found instead that the pains — which can affect nearly half of all children — result from brittle bones and physical activity, in particular overuse from running, climbing and jumping during the day.

In 2005, for example, a study in The Journal of Rheumatology recruited 39 children with symptoms of growing pains and compared them with a control group. After ultrasound tests, the researchers found that the children in the pain group had decreased “bone speed of sound” — a measure of bone strength and breakability — suggesting that they suffered instead from “a local overuse syndrome.”

Other studies have had similar results, and some have also found that restless leg syndrome and other conditions are sometimes confused with growing pains. Researchers say that rather than dismiss the pains, parents can alert their pediatricians or try massages and a pain reliever.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Research suggests that growth spurts do not cause pain.

scitimes@nytimes.com