Friday, May 22, 2009

Benadryl Every Six

For the last two days Benadryl
has been the twins friend.
Why?
Well, it is a little thing called an allergic reaction.
To what you ask?

Their immunization shot.

Yes, you read it right.
The immunization shot that my husband and I
decided would be okay to give.

This mommy feels awful.

I blame myself mostly.
I am the one who said it was okay to do a combo shot.
Instead of giving one shot now then one shot in 6 months
like we planned,
I consented to do the combo shot.
The twins had been exposed to each
without any problems in the past,
so I thought it would be safe.
I thought after the combo shot,
no more immunizations would given til age 4-6 yrs old.
We would have several years of no shots.

Now, both children have orange sized
hot, swollen, red areas at their injection site.
I am thankful that the reaction is only a local reaction.
But, here lies the problem.
Both of the vaccines in the combo were vaccines
that we had thought were important to give.
The twins would at age 4-6 yrs get the booster.
Now what?
There is no way to know which vaccine caused
the reaction.
Was it just the preservative that caused to reaction?
Again there is no way of knowing.
There is a huge risk that by exposing the twins
again, the reaction might not be just local,
it could be systemic, a big scare.
After talking with the pediatrician,
we feel it would be to big of a risk.
He assured me that most adults
don't have the booster anyway.

I still feel awful.
I have two little ones suffering.

We researched, discussed, and decided.
We excluded those immunizations we thought
were unnecessary.
We delayed others so that the twins
immune systems would have time to recover.
Now, we question our decisions, our plans
for the children further immunizations.

One decision we are sure of right now is
we will not risk another exposure to the vaccines
they just received.

The little ones are tough.

There will be careful observing and much cuddling
in the days ahead.


2 comments:

Michelle said...

Oh, so sorry to hear that. I know how hard those nasty allergies and reactions are. My oldest is allergic to all nuts, peanuts being the biggie, and has had bad bouts of asthma. I question everything now. I want nothing in his body that should not be there. We do not even do the flu shot anymore. We just took him off asthma meds. after 2 years of no symptoms and he gained 6 pounds and grew almost 2 inches in 3 months. I kept telling doctors the meds. were keeping him from growing but no one would listen to me. So far, he has done great in almost 5 months of no meds.

Hen Jen said...

so sorry for your guys! It is so hard being a mom, mom-guilt just eats you up about anything. If you don't do the shots, then you feel guilty about that, too. We stopped vaxing all our kids when my 3rd, a boy was 9 months old. We've just this year started up again, my 4th had not had any, now she has only had one. I am not sure what to do about my boy and the mmr, we decided to split it up, but I cannot find a Dr. who will order it that way. My boy is the one with allergies and sensitivities...we might be skipping it for him.

it's a hard decision, one we don't take lightly, even tho many people seem to think otherwise.

I hope your boys are better!