Oh Noes! A Vaccine Didn't Kill Me!

[joreth]

OMG did you know that millions of people are NOT DYING from vaccines every day!

Srsly!  And, like, most of them don't even experience the side effects that the vaccine companies WARN YOU ABOUT!

It's scary!  I mean, like these scientists are all like messing around with viruses and stuff and looking at them and analyzing them and cutting them up and rearranging them and doing spooky things with them!  They totally take them apart and then build these chemicals that trick your body into thinking it has the virus when it really doesn't so that your body makes its own ANTIBODIES against the viruses.

They actually put these chemical mixtures into your body at FRACTIONS of the potency of the REAL VIRUS!  And your body BELIEVES it and starts producing ANTIBODIES!!!!!  They're, like, building this microsopic army INSIDE you, using YOUR OWN IMMUNE SYSTEM!

And some people even have REACTIONS to them!  Really, I'm not making this up guys, they even ADMIT it!

It's totally freaky what science is up to these days.  I just had the Hepatitus B vaccine and I was told to expect soreness around the injection site and maybe even a light fever!  Then, they even said, right to my face, that I should call them if I got a fever over 99 degrees or if I was vomiting!  How scary is that!  I'm totally going to avoid dying of a virus that causes painful and prolonged liver failure, but I might get a fever instead!  That's just whacked!

What's even more crazy, tho, is that I'm totally not sick or sore or anything!  And that happens to thousands of people ALL THE TIME!

Dude, science is scary and has just manipulated my body into being all defensive and stuff against a deadly virus.  That's totally wierd!

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I'm in a weird position. I have had chicken pox... but I was a very young baby and breastfeeding. I had a case so mild that my mother says I didn't seem bothered by it in any way. There is the possibility that I was getting immunity through her breast milk. The question is, did my immune system, so young and still developing, actually manage to create an immunity of its own? I've been told there is no way to know without getting tested to see if I have the antibodies, so that's my intention. I have so many severe health problems that I have trouble remembering to deal with the normal stuff. But on my to-do is asking a doctor to test me for immunity or just give me the vaccine.

I also do wonder about the possibility that what I had wasn't actually chicken pox. I don't know how possible it'd be for something else to get misdiagnosed as it. Especially given that I apparently had a very small number of pox (fewer than 10). I've never seen chicken pox, so I don't know too much about it. I'm the youngest of my siblings, and the rest all had it before I was one year old.

Just a weird situation. But since there's a vaccine these days, it seems like a good precaution.

[firerose10.livejournal.com]

While, I am no medical doctor, between my current nursing classes and my own medical issues, I've learned quite a bit about immunities and diseases. IMO, if your insurance will cover the testing - go for it, but I'll bet you won't have sufficient immunity to keep you safe if you get a good exposure. If it won't - the vaccine will do nothing bad if you already have the immunities...

And it is possible to misdiagnose - the pox are just small, scabby, itchy spots. There are fungal infections that would look the same, other viruses that can present with similar symptoms, as well as the possibility of a bad case of skin rash that can mimic the pox. Not knowing your age, also a lot of doctors would just jump to that conclusion if it even looked like it was pox for many years. It's only been in the last 15 years (with the advent of of the whole vaccine stupidity) that docs are regularly testing to verify the diagnosis.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm nearly certain I wasn't tested. I find it massively likely it was just a visual diagnose, possibly influenced by who else I'd been near had chicken pox. I don't really know details, and I don't really trust my parents' memories. They've told me things before about my medical history that I am sure were actually one of my siblings. We're a large family and it's an understandable mistake, but not ideal for actually being sure of one's data.

I don't know if insurance will cover it. If not, I can probably pay for it out of pocket at some point, but I'll need to budget it. But it can be done.

I really wish doctors had been more direct with me when I was a young child. I actually remember a great deal of what I was told and what my medical experiences and history were. My records have been lost, and my parents are often in error. But I have no memory of being a baby. Any medical issues within my first few years all have a good heaping of doubt mixed into them.

It wasn't really that relevant when I was younger, because the chicken pox vaccine either wasn't around or wasn't used much, so I just hoped for the best. But now I'm hoping to get myself any vaccination I might have need for. I forgot to bring it up the last time I was bringing up vaccinations with a doctor, which is why I only ended up getting the hepatitis b vaccination. They were having a shortage for the tetanus vaccination, and they thought I was good on everything else. I didn't think of chicken pox at the time. But I am quite pleased with the hep b vaccination. One less horrible disease to worry about.

[firerose10.livejournal.com]

hear hear! There's a reason I'm working on getting the kiddo the full dose of Gardisil while she's not had any exposure to HPV.

Insurance usually will cover vaccines even when they won't cover the testing to find out if they are necessary, so if you have any chance of being exposed to the pox, go for it ASAP.