MMR Arthritis Fears

As everyone knows we are now being vaccinated against any type of disease. As a pre-schooler Bethany is lined up for the usual injections to see her into school life, yet one, we have an impending fear with - I will explain.

Bethany was immunised in the UK as standard when she was just over a year old. Apart from all the usual vaccinations the last major immunisation was the MMR which she had as a single vaccination. I'm sure our family and friends can remember what happened after Bethany had that MMR jab, how we were thrown into utter disbelief, utter despair and utter devastation...

Literally a week after the injection (which was given into her hip) Bethany started to become more restless, she would wake in the night screaming and in the mornings were no longer awoken by her standing the side of her cot bed, she would just lie there crying like never before. Speaking with a doctor we were advised it was probably just a side effect of the MMR.

Over time things became worse, she would cry when we changed her nappy - she literally could not bare to move her legs. She wouldn't sit up, she couldn't sit in her car seat, she would just lay there and scream. Many visits back and forth to the Doctors and hospitals proved useless. The usual hospital treatment was issued where tests and tests were done, appointments were changed and then doctors didn't show up. No-one was coming up with any answers whilst all the time we had a hysterically agonised child that couldn't be helped. We spent many wasted hours on the children's ward.

Guessing it couldn't be just a co-incidence, we made fruitless attempts at trying to tell Doctors that it must to be linked to the MMR, as it only started after Bethany was given it. But there was never an actual proven link - we were told it couldn't be possible. This nightmare went on for just over 2 months.

My Mother in Law Lynn is a Nurse. Through her sheer knowledge she was able to track down information that was handed out by the manufacturers of the immunisations, the results were shocking yet at the same time it was such a relief that our suspicions were correct.

It seems that the side effects of the Rubella part of the MMR immunisation can cause cases of juvenile arthritis, to quote from the Government website of Centres For Disease Control And Prevention: "Arthralgia (joint pain) and transient arthritis (joint redness or swelling) following rubella vaccination occurs only in persons who were susceptible to rubella at the time of vaccination."

In 2004 when Bethany had that MMR immunisation we were unable to find anything on the Internet that could help our case, there were no other reported cases (that were documented) and the above information wasn't available. Now after doing further research we have not only found many websites that list the above side effects (literally Google key words 'MMR' and 'Arthritis') but we have found other people who have been through the same thing.

I have been in touch with the lovely people who wrote this post on their own blog which has been wonderful, you can read their sadly similar yet very interesting post here.

So now comes the question of what to do? Do we risk having the MMR jab and the same thing happening as last time? I can't imagine what it would do to Bethany, the pain she would experience and how it would affect her life not being able to walk. How is that something we can imagine at the age of 4? How could we ever justify that to her?

Or do we take the risk of not giving her the MMR? I know there are some huge risks associated with not having it, people's 'opinions' of those not immunised are tough, more scared than factual of course, but it is true that Measles is very active here in NZ.

Mumps is not such a big issue for girls, yet Rubella can have some major and seriously devastating effects way into adulthood - Oh but hang on, if the above information is true and people only react to the actual virus and not the immunisation, then Rubella alone could prove fatal for Bethany in later life...?

Confused? Yeah we are too. Along with distressed, upset and immensely worried.

As it stands now we are waiting to see a Vaccination Specialist referred by our Doctor, to discuss our fears and what can be done. The simple fact is it's either do it or don't do it. Either way there could be consequences.

I am going to do some more research to try and find other people who have been through this and have had the second MMR, it would be interesting to see if their child experienced the same problems again. Has anyone out there ever heard of this??

Whatever we decide we are going to have to live with it, either way it could be devastating, either way we could throw ourselves into a world we never wanted to be in, either way we could be wrong. Our days, our dreams and our nightmares are filled with what could be the outcome.

Whatever we do, we hope we make the right choice.