Chickenpox Lollipops

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by carnation

Y'all make sure you get your shingles vaccines at 60! I've known a lot of older folks who didn't and have regretted every second of that.

AOII Angel, these children are between 11 and 21 and only 1 shot was recommended at the time. Interestingly, all contracted the virus within a year of their shots.

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

I had the chicken pox when I was in third grade or so, over my birthday so I stayed home and played with my new Barbies. I have a few scars but nothing disfiguring. My eldest sister never had it and I'm not sure if she got the shot before she started to plan to get pregnant. I'm slightly concerned about shingles and though the shot is recommended for older people, I get random health problems that my body poorly responds to which could be an unexpected shingles experience in the making.

I have quite a few vaccinations that don't show up on a titre but I had the full amount as a child and have kept up on all my vaccinations as an adult. Since my field work is in Alaska there is no messing around with MMR and TB, so one time I had a short window before flying out and had to get proof of my MMR. Getting a copy from the doctor I had before I left home as an adult would have been a massive hassle, so my doctor did a titre. I was lacking one of the three, not mumps but one of the measles, and it had to be specially ordered instead of just giving me another whole MMR shot (which probably wouldn't have hurt me...).

I had another titre done for the hepatitis series that came back with no immunity and I did that whole series again. I've also had a positive tb test and that was with tines, not Mantoux, probably a false positive, so I'm going to be a bossy pants and demand the TB blood test to avoid a yearly chest x-ray since I'm not keen on exposing my bodacious tatas to any more radiation than necessary. My titres also denied that I had shots for pneumonia, bacterial meningitis, and sometimes DPT. Since I'm "high risk" for tetanus I got one before the 10 year period, and within six months the titre was in denial. This is when the doctor decided it is possible I'm a non-converter and don't show antibodies, like your husband experiences.

Some people also supposedly don't have detectable titres but will actually respond when exposed to the antigen. I had to have an extra Hep B, too. I converted after that. They don't check you later to see if you keep immunity. I've been told that lots of people test neg for chicken pox who aren't really negative...the antibodies are just really low. Oh well...I got the shots.