Q: My husband and I have three children under the age of 6 years and, for various reasons, have been reluctant to have our children receive vaccinations against various childhood diseases.
However, we’re becoming increasingly concerned about reports of measles outbreaks in different parts of the country and we’ve been reevaluating that stance. My grandparents used to tell a story of how they dealt with childhood diseases, before any vaccines for them were available, specifically “if you hear of any child in the community having measles, mumps, or chickenpox, take your very young children over to their home to play with them, so they contract the disease early, when they are more likely to ‘fight it off’ without complications”. We’ve been reading about the complications of a measles infection and some of them are quite scary, such as lifelong deafness, possible neurological complications, and even death.
Is there any way for us to determine if one of our children, who becomes ill, has measles, without taking him/her in to see the doctor, since most physicians in active practice now have probably never seen a case?
A: Most parents, and even physicians under the age of 70, have become complacent about the hazards of what used to be very common childhood viral infections, for which, even now, no adequate treatments exist. Hence the Centers for Disease Control recommendation that EVERY child, for whom there are no medical contraindications, have a raft of immunizations before the age of 5 years, thus literally saving children from the morbidity (lifelong health consequences) and mortality (death) from these highly contagious diseases.
It helps to read about the history of such diseases which, 100 years ago, killed up to 1 child in 5 before the age of six in the U.S. The only solution to this horrific statistic is to reach “herd immunity” status, which requires that 94-95% of individuals be immunized. Regarding parental diagnosis of measles, I recommend Googling the term “Koplik spots”, first described by Dr. Henry Koplik in 1896, which are small bluish-white spots surrounded by a “collar” of redness, found only inside the mouth. These are “pathognomonic” of measles, meaning they are ONLY seen in measles.
Early in the course of the disease, there may be only one or two of these spots, so a thorough exam of the surfaces in the entire mouth needs to be done, requiring a strong light and a tongue blade-like stick to allow pulling the cheeks away from the teeth.
To learn more about this and many other health topics, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians’ website familydoctor. org, where you can search for topics of your interest.
I want to thank Joanne J. for suggesting this topic; if you have any particular topic you would like to hear more about, please message me at paulmdake@gmail. com.
Dr. Paul Dake, a Newberry native, is a retired family physician. He lives in Pinconning, Michigan.
