New Member Question about CLL and baby vaccination

[PH600]

Hello all,

Just joined Health Unlocked via CLL Support Association.

Have been getting great information from reading this blog for some months after my wife was diagnosed with CLL in February. Thanks for all the excellent questions and answers I've been able to read...

Would appreciate some advice... our 7-week old granddaughter had her first lot of vaccinations including polio (which is a live vaccine) on Wednesday this week. Since this is a live vaccine will it be OK for my wife to go and visit on Wednesday next week i.e. a week after the vaccination or should she stay away longer?

I understand that a child can give off potential infection for up to a week after the vaccination?

Many thanks

PH600

[AussieNeil Administrator]

Just checking whether your grand daughter had the live (attenuated) oral polio vaccination. According to Wikipedia, only the oral polio vaccine is live and the injected vaccine is inactivated: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio...

Your grand daughter may shed the attenuated virus which might be a concern for your wife. Do you know whether she was vaccinated as a child, which would reduce the presumably small risk of infection?

I'm not medically trained and can't find any really useful and reliable information on-line to help, so I recommend your wife check with her CLL specialist. I hope you'll both be able to unconcernedly enjoy that time with your grand daughter. It's great that her parents have kept you both informed of potential concerns.

Neil

[PH600 in reply to AussieNeil]

Thanks very much for the reply Neil, much appreciated.

My wife did speak to a nurse at the Haemotology Dept but she said (surprisingly) that she didn't know, but best she stayed away anyway.

Your response made me dig deeper and found that since October 2004 only the inactive injected version is given in the UK. We had thought the oral live vaccine was still being administered but not so... and my wife did have a polio vaccination when she was a child.

So should be fine for my wife to be cuddling granddaughter on her weekly visit this Wednesday.

Thanks again for the prompt response, this is a fantastic forum.

Best wishes

PH600

[mrsjsmith in reply to PH600]

Hi PH,

Something I found out on Tuesday night ! Too late to change plans as I was sitting there ! Your granddaughter will have the MMR when she is 1 year old and that is a live vaccine that sheds. I was at my stepdaughter and her daughter had the MMR the day before. I was careful and didn’t pick her up. I spoke to my specialist nurse the next day and she didn’t seem to think it would be a problem ? So far all ok.

Regards

Colette

[PH600 in reply to mrsjsmith]

Thank you so much for letting us know that Colette, I've just been to a CLLSA conference in London today and even with specialists it seems somewhat of an unknown quantity.

Nobody on the medical profession side seem to have a definitive answer - when we called our local nurses they said just stay away for 10 days which is really a catch-all safe option. That's fine, if you don't need to be there but clearer guidance would be good in case it's something important that you should or prefer to be present for.

A week seems to be the period that comes up the most.

I fully appreciate however that CLL specialists are not vaccine specialists and they do a fantastic job for those with CLL, so we can be but vigilant ourselves and feedback our experience to our consultants.

Thanks

Paul

[mrsjsmith in reply to PH600]

Hi Paul,

I was also there so we could have had this conversation directly face to face ! What a small world.

It was a great conference. Thank you Marc, and lovely to chat to you Gail. All your hard work is greatly appreciated.

Regards

Colette

[PH600 in reply to mrsjsmith]

It was indeed a great conference, clearly should have moved around more and would have been good to have met you Colette. Perhaps they should have people move tables going forward?

[mrsjsmith in reply to PH600]

Good idea Paul.

Good night

[turkey2]

My son & wife & infant daughter were living with me when I was diagnosed with CLL. They would always ask their pediatrician about any scheduled vaccinations for my granddaughter (whether they were live or not) and I would double-check with my local oncologist. If it was, granddaughter & her mom would stay at her mother's for how ever many days was recommended.

[PH600 in reply to turkey2]

Thank you Turkey2, I think that's a sound approach. We will double-check with our CLL Specialist before Wednesday.