Varicella vaccine - what an awesome thing.

[trotsky]

We opted for it with both our kids, and I'm so glad we did. They say that up to 25% of those vaccinated can still get the chicken pox, but it is usually a mild case. Well, my son was in that 25%, and let me tell you, what he had was so mild I'm surprised it can even be called chicken pox. When I was his age (7), I suffered two weeks of itching, burning, fever, lethargy, ugh. He had his first spot on Wednesday, stayed home Thursday and Friday, and is back in school today. He developed all the spots he was going to have by Wednesday night - less than a dozen, and they were scabbed over and healing by Saturday morning. He never got a fever, never felt tired, and the spots only itched enough to do something about them on Thursday morning - a dab of Benadryl on each one took care of it.

Man, am I jealous. And nice job, vaccine developers. Who ever heard of missing just two days of school with the chicken pox?

[SoCalDem]

1. Wow.. that's great..

I had 3 boys (1973-77-78) and when the neighbor girl came down with them, I and my neighbor decided that we wanted ALL the neighborhood pals to get chicken pox at the same time, or we would have a steady stream of cases all summer long, so we had an "exposure" party.. Our little corner of the neighborhood was full of itchy kids for a while, but we got it out of the way before any of them went to school, and they all could still play with each other since they all had it together :) The other neighbors willingly participated in our "experiment".:)

[trotsky]

2. Oh, we tried to make sure our son was in close contact with his sister.

For that very reason. Chicken pox doesn't come around every year, and there will never be a "good" time to get it over with, so I hear ya.

[Ilsa]

3. My kids are vaxed for it, but I am still conflicted about it.

My son got it anyway, but yes, it was a mild case. I'm conflicted about how long kids will need boosters to avoid it as adults, and what happens if a woman is vaxed and is pregnant unknowingly, etc.

[trotsky]

4. Reasonable concerns.

Boosters might indeed be necessary - but probably wouldn't be more frequent than every 10 or even 20 years in adulthood. They might just combine it with tetanus, who knows.

I have a coworker whose mother got chicken pox when she was pregnant with my coworker's sister. Now that is what's really deadly. Fortunately in this case mom & baby did fine.