Immunizations question...

[brigmaman]

I'll admit I can't rattle off which immunizations ds has had. I mean he's gotten all of the recommended ones, but I don't have a mental list. So I'm wondering- do our little ones get immunized against bacterial meningitis?

[COElizabeth]

The recommended pneumococcal conjugate vaccine protects against the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in the United States. The Hib vaccine also protects against Hib disease, which is the former leading cause of bacterial meningitis. (from the CDC info sheets my ped gave us).

There may be other causes for which there are not yet vaccines, but I don't know.

HTH.

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9-20-02
EDD #2, 10-30-04

[MelissaTC]

Do you know if he has had the prevnar vaccine? It protects against pneumin qhich can cause bacterial meningitis.

[brigmaman]

Yes he has. Thanks. We saw a case briefly on the ticker on the bottom of the news screen this morning about a 5 year old who died from bacterial meningitis so we were curious.

[sntm]

Yup.

Here's the recommended immunization schedule if anyone is interested (we deviated slightly from the schedule as it is designed as much to coincide with well-baby checks as for health reasons)
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/recs/child-schedule.PDF
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shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[Marisa6826]

Trish-

That little girl lived in the next town over from me (I'm actually one house from the town she is from). She went to the same camp as the my neighbour's son.

The whole community is a little freaked out because they don't know how she contracted it. As you know, last week was kind of crappy and the entire camp was indoors for the week.

The story is that she went to camp on Friday, and then to a play date Friday night. That evening she started running a fever and throwing up. The Ped told her parents to keep an eye on her and to take her to the ER if she wasn't better the next day.

She was taken to the hospital (also right behind my house) at noon, and she died by 3am.

So very, very sad. I can't fathom losing a child in less than 24 hours.

Hug your babes!

-m

[brigmaman]

That is so sad! I read an article about a college student who had the same bacterial meningitis and ended up losing several limbs, so it's been on my mind. Dh said he had to be immunized in college because there was some kind of scare. It seems like this type of thing shouldn't happen in this day. I guess that's naive, though.

[llcoddington]

I knew a guy in college who contracted bacterial meningitis and lost both legs and an arm. It was very scary. Was this a recent article? Maybe it was the same guy.

Lana
mommy to Lauren 12/5/03

[brigmaman]

Yes, the article was in a current magazine. It may have been Marie Claire- I'm not sure.

[sntm]

It's not rare. We had a patient once -- I can't give any details but was an athlete and lost several limbs.
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shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[tarahsolazy]

That kind of meningitis is caused by the menigococcus bacteria, the disease is called meningococcemia. Its having the bugs in your blood that causes the loss of limbs, and some people don't get meningitis with it, just the blood infection. Bad enough, and either way it can kill you. There is a vaccine, but it is not effective against the strain of the bacteria that most often causes the disease (type b). Luckily, its pretty rare. Its unusually common (still overall rare) in the Pacific NW, so I've seen about 10 cases during my pediatric training here. Like Elizabeth said, kids get vaccinated against pneumococcus, which causes bad meningitis, and Haemophilus Influenza, which used to cause horrendous meningits and was the leading cause of mental retardation after birth in the US, until the vaccine came along. Its a true vaccine success story, and happened in the late 80s-early 90s.