Warning About Whooping Cough

[uchu]

Antivax is the new normal, sadly.

 

[old RV guy]

Antivax is the new normal, sadly.

One of the tenets of authoritarianism in Orwell's "1984" was "ignorance is strength"

Authoritarianism 101: A. Idiots are exponentially easier to control than the informed.
B. Appoint imbeciles to positions of authority, they'll love you for it and follow orders without question.
Hannah Arendt's observation after covering the Eichmann Trial in Israel was " They simply and willingly, didn't think".

 

[Sunnyfalls]

Think? We will have none of that. Just use social media to stimulate your emotions and thereby program all your opinions and thoughts.

Gayle & Bob
"Los Gatos Casita"

 

[old RV guy]

Think? We will have none of that. Just use social media to stimulate your emotions and thereby program all your options and thoughts.

Gayle & Bob
"Los Gatos Casita"

You do know you're on social media?

 

[Sunnyfalls]

You do know you're on social media?

Not for much longer...and history has shown it is best to leave early...and we are fortunate that we can. Have a blessed and great day and happy trails!

Gayle & Bob
"Los Gatos Casita"

 

[old RV guy]

Not for much longer...and history has shown it is best to leave early...and we are fortunate that we can. Have a blessed and great day and happy trails!

Gayle & Bob
"Los Gatos Casita"

In the deep south when you finally got up to go the family you were visiting always said "Ya'll don't rush off now". It was like the church lady hug, full of meaning.

 

[RayIN]

Measles was eradicated in the US meaning the only (extremely rare) cases were those that came from overseas where vaccinations are not always available. That has turned around due to the anti-vax sentiments. And I must be significantly older than you because MMR vaccinations came well after I had both “red measles” (the second M) and rubella. When I was pregnant, my titers were checked and it confirmed those. I never had a significant case of the mumps, but my mom thought I had it. But I know people my age who became blind after having measles, a boy who a teenager with me in agony with mumps, and a man my age who was mentally challenged due to his mother catching rubella while pregnant. I also know people who had polio. Note the ones I know were the lucky ones who survived.

MMR= Measles, Mumps, Rubella.

 

[RayIN]

That is definitely smallpox. I got my first smallpox vaccination when I was about 7, but I got mine at the doctor's office. My doctor used to give the vaccination to boys on their arms, while girls got it high up on their hip so it would not show with sleeveless clothing!

Smallpox vaccine was not an injection. They had a needle that they poked into a vice of serum and then tapped the needle onto the skin several times. It was just a series of pinpricks, not deep at all, but it would get bigger during the next week and form a big crust which itched like crazy and fell off after a week or two. I remember staying home from school for a couple of days because mine got so red and inflamed.

Way back in the 50s, almost everyone had a big scar from a smallpox vaccination on their arms. Now almost no one gets the vaccine because the disease is supposedly gone worldwide.

And, since I am a full-timer, I am always RVing, but I am really taking it easy.

I thought that was the polio vaccination. I can still see the scar on my right arm, but I know where to look. The TB vaccination was given on my forearm, it too with the needle prick/stabbing thing.
I didn't have all of those childhood shots and as a result contracted measles in the 40's, then mumps in 50's/ high school. When I was drafted I got everything again, plus a plague shot and others I never knew the names.

 

[John From Detroit]

I thought that was the polio vaccination. I can still see the scar on my right arm, but I know where to look. The TB vaccination was given on my forearm, it too with the needle prick/stabbing thing.
I didn't have all of those childhood shots and as a result contracted measles in the 40's, then mumps in 50's/ high school. When I was drafted I got everything again, plus a plague shot and others I never knew the names.

Polio was an oral vaccine. Sugar cube in fact. At least for me.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Polio was an oral vaccine. Sugar cube in fact. At least for me.

The Sabin live virus sugar cube polio vaccination was introduced in the early 60s, before that the Salk dead virus vaccine was delivered via a shot. I was born in 1953 and wound up getting both - the Salk shot and then the next year the Sabin sugar cube when it became available. Both were administered to all the students at my school.

 

[UTTransplant]

Lou, I am one year younger, and I had both the shot and the sugar cube. I remember my grandmother, our primary sitter, being so scared of polio we couldn’t visit playgrounds or public pools for fear of catching it. After the vaccination, we were allowed to go to public places again.

 

[dabrooks]

I had the whooping cough March 2022. I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory virus and 3 weeks later diagnosed with bronchitis. I finally went to a pulmonary doctor and he tested me for whooping cough and I tested positive. He gave me antibiotics that were recommended for the whooping cough. He also wrote me a refill because he said one regiment may not completely knock it out. Sure enough after feeling good for 2 weeks I started coughing again. The second dose did do the trick. My lungs will never be the same.

The doctor said almost older people have lost the immunity from the vaccine they received as a child and need a booster. He recommended we should get the DTAP shot. He also said grandparents that not vaccinated that are around grandchildren younger than 4 months older are putting the grandchild at risk.

 

[John From Detroit]

Old song I learned when I wore a much younger man (Boy's) Cloths.

It actually fits

 

[UTTransplant]

The doctor said almost older people have lost the immunity from the vaccine they received as a child and need a booster. He recommended we should get the DTAP shot. He also said grandparents that not vaccinated that are around grandchildren younger than 4 months older are putting the grandchild at risk.

Everyone should have a DTAP every 10 years at minimum. The “T” is for tetanus. For those of us who are somewhat klutzy (ME!) I end up getting one every 5-6 years due to some type of injury. But my daughter, a midwife, says everyone around newborns and small children should have them to protect the child too. So if it has been over 10 years, get your shot! Tetanus is a horrifying way to die, and accidentally giving a child whooping cough would be even worse than the adult symptoms.

 

[RayIN]

The Sabin live virus sugar cube polio vaccination was introduced in the early 60s, before that the Salk dead virus vaccine was delivered via a shot. I was born in 1953 and wound up getting both - the Salk shot and then the next year the Sabin sugar cube when it became available. Both were administered to all the students at my school.

Thanks for the memory jolt; now I remember the sugar cube with the pink in it, and I remember the shot too. Man that was a loong time ago; early 50's I think.
I also remember the boy at my grade school wearing a full-leg brace attached to his shoe. He never came out to play during recess. That was incentive enough not to balk at the shot.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Thanks for the memory jolt; now I remember the sugar cube with the pink in it, and I remember the shot too. Man that was a loong time ago; early 50's I think.
I also remember the boy at my grade school wearing a full-leg brace attached to his shoe. He never came out to play during recess. That was incentive enough not to balk at the shot.

During high school in the late '60s I had a friend who got polio when he was 2 years old. He was totally paralyzed below the chest and had only limited use of his arms and hands. He slept in an iron lung to assist his breathing and needed a chest brace and leg braces to sit upright in a bulky electric wheelchair powered by a pair of golf cart batteries.

But that didn't stop him from living. He not only attended public school with the help of his older brother (they'd be released 5 minutes early to negotiate the halls to their next class) but after school there were always several neighborhood kids hanging around his house where he would hold court in the garage. He'd do things like umpire street baseball games by positioning himself behind the catcher to call balls and strikes.

When the sting ray bike craze hit and we were all doing wheelies on our bikes he'd watch us and critique our style. One day he convinced someone to hang off the back of his wheelchair so he could do one, too. When I got my first car he had me lift him into the passenger seat and take him for a ride, leaving his wheelchair on the sidewalk ("Who's going to steal it?"). He lived until his 30s and there's a memorial plaque next to a tree that was planted in his honor along the creek behind his house.

RIP Fred.

 

[Kirk]

I attended school with 2 kids that were somewhat crippled from polio and another who had a younger sibling that died from it. In April of 1955 a massive campaign to vaccinate children began and there was a special day set aside for vaccination of children at the school that I attended in May I think, as it was about the time school was ending. I don't believe that any of the children in the area were left out as parents brought kids that were not yet in school. The sugar cube came later, in 1960 and I think that even some children who were vaccinated got it as well because I remember hearing that my two younger siblings got it in school. In the rural Kansas schools it was pretty much mandatory. A 2009–2010 national survey showed that a high percentage of children and adults had protective antibodies against poliovirus, including adults who had received oral polio vaccine (OPV) as children decades earlier.

 

[Lou Schneider]

One thing I forgot to mention. Unlike a spinal injury which severs the nerve and removes both motion and sensation, polio paralyzes the affected muscles but leaves the sensation intact, which is a big advantage for people walking in leg braces. Fred could feel his entire body including knowing when his feet were slipping off of the wheelchair footrests and once, excruciating pain when a foul ball hit his shin.

 

[Cmprman]

I can't remember what the shot was they gave in elementary school in the 1960's where everyone stood in line and you got jabbed by someone as you walked by them.

 

[DutchmenSport]

Well folks ... I read most of this thread and found it both interesting, informative, entertaining, and border-line questionable.

I will say, I'm glad the OP is feeling better and I appreciate his concern to help inform and to provide a warning. I don't think he was being political or anything like that. Things like sicknesses, diseases, ailments, mental issues, and all of that kind of stuff doesn't hit home, until it hits us.... (you and me). Then it becomes personal and that's when folks begin to scream.... "Why wasn't I warned about this? Why didn't someone do something to prevent this from happening TO ME in the first place?" Well, the alarm was sounded by the OP. He means well, he has good intentions, he suffered tremendously and was truly attempting to be helpful so others would not follow his lackadaisical attitude (before) he had the Whooping Cough. Now he knows and does not wish ANYONE to experience what he went through. So folks ... what's wrong with that?

Rather than