The last time he had an injection of any kind was ages ago,
when he was 12 months old. He's since had a flu vaccine, but that was a spray
up the nose, which he was fine with.
This time, two nurses had to hold him down and stick the needles in
simultaneously in both upper arms. Although distressing for him, it was at
least over quickly, then he was plied with chocolate biscuits for the shock.
I feel very grateful to have access to preventative medicine
like this. Measles, mumps and rubella are all highly infectious and can have
serious, even fatal, complications. I didn't receive the MMR vaccine as it was introduced
in 1988. But since then, it's become rare for children in the UK to catch these diseases. Although outbreaks can happen, sometimes at random and sometimes after side-effect
"scares" such as the link to autism made in the 1998 paper by Dr
Andrew Wakefield, whose claims have now been fully discredited.
However, the vaccine does contain weakened versions of live
measles, mumps and rubella viruses, so the nurse reeled off a list of possible
short term side-effects, including mild forms of measles or mumps, or small
rashes. Due to the three separate vaccines in the injection, side-effects can
occur at different times up to three weeks afterwards.
Ben seems to have escaped all of these symptoms, not even
needing Calpol (child paracetamol) for a raised temperature. That's not to say
he's given me an easy ride lately - details to follow next time!
by Kate Richards
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