Immunizations today... I'm scared!

[EmmasMom]

So... the last time Emma had immunizations she was 12 months-old and about 3 months into her dx's. I had no idea what it would do to her blood sugar, (or that I should even be concerned). Let me just say, it was the worst week of hellish blood sugars we have ever had. We spent a week adjusting insulin doses daily (until we quadrupled her previous dose!!), spilling ketones and fighting dehydration. She ended up needing IV fluids by the fourth day, and as usual they stuck her 5 times to get it started. :mad:
This was the week we 1) knew any "honeymoon" was over 2) decided to get a pump and 3) decided to postpone future immunizations until she was older.
So today I took her in for a weird rash she has on her side and the pedi tells me there's a Mumps outbreak sweeping the nation. (Luckily her rash is not related) He decided it was better to risk the blood sugar nightmare than Mumps, so she had to get an MMR.

Has anyone else had their baby/toddler immunized since diagnosis? If so how much did it impact them? I'm hoping that this time it will be easier, and we only did the one shot, (not 4 like last time), so I hope that will help too. Things have been so good lately and I'm scared that this is going to be bad. She gets dehydrated and spills ketones SOOO easily, I just don't want her to end up in the hospital again.:(

[zeb'smom]

I don't really have any advice but wanted to say I hope it goes okay for you.
Zebulon has not had any vacination so far. My youngest got pretty sick as a baby just after getting vacinations. We decided after that that all of our kids would wait until they we're toddlers to get immunized. They have all stayed home with me so daycare and all the germs there were not a concern and we were more scared of a worse reaction. Well when Zeb reached the age, 18 months, that we had intended to begin his vacinations he was sickly, we didn't know yet with what.
So now I am even more worried about what to do and have been putting it off. Please let us know how it goes this time with just the one shot, I will be interested to see if it makes any difference. Hopefully it will go smoothly for your sake, and so I will know to do them one at a time to avoid trouble.

Good luck,
Robyn

[BrendaK]

I hope Emma did okay today. Unfortuantely, the MMR was the worst for Carson. Constant lows. That was really the only shot he had trouble with. He had tons of lows with it -- his little body was working so hard to build the immunity to the MMR vaccine, and that made him go low a lot. Let us know how she's doing.

[hold48398]

Hi Amy,
Just wanted to say best of luck and I will keep my fingers crossed for you and Emma...Unfortunately, I do not have any experience I could share with you regarding immunizations as Mia was "already" 3 1/2 by the time she was diagnosed....BUT I will be thinking of your beautiful baby and send you lots of positive thoughts in the hopes that this time around will be less chaotic.

[Kelly]

Eeeek, I hope she goes okay. Anastacia is due for her 1 yr old shots anytime now... she turns 1 on the 2nd August... omg where did the time go. Now I am very scared... her BSL's are already everywhere! We are having a pump discussion appt. on Tuesday... so I will ask her Dr then what I should do about her shots.
Good luck with your lil girl, I hope she gets through it all okay. (((HUGS)

[zimbie45]

I hope all goes well, Charlize had immunizations done at age 4... 3 weeks after dx... they gave her shot in the same arm she had just had a shot in... dummys... her WHOLE are swelled up and turned hard adn red.. she ran a fever adn we had to take her to the peds urgent care due to all this.. this is her only time every having an allergic reaction to the immunizations.. SHe hasnt had any since, I dont blame you for being scared.. I wish you all luck , please keep us posted. poor little emma

[EmmasMom]

Her BG was 350 when she woke from her nap and 400 at dinner despite giving her a correction. EEEK! (I think she may have had an air bubble in her tubing, but I'm probably being optimistic) I changed her site, gave her some motrin and a little extra insulin before her bath and she was down to 160 at bedtime. I'm going to test extra tonight and make sure I stay on top of things.
Thank you for your concern :cwds:

[Karin]

Scott was diagnosed November 2005 when he was 4. Yesterday we went in for the well 5 visit (just turned 5 on the 14th. Had 2 homemade John Deere birthday cakes (one for the day, one for the party), had 5 in range readings despite the cake and then on the day after the party had a huge temper tantrum about going out to dinner ( a real rarity for us) and was 550!). A couple of weeks ago I had called our endo about maybe spacing the 3 shots in order not to overwhelm his system. She said go ahead and give all 3 at once. So we did and they hurt! He told me he had to walk slowly and carefully. About 5 hours later he was running around as normal. This morning we drove an hour to an aquarium, he got out of the car and threw up EVERYTHING in his system and had a slight fever. I checked him and he was 59 so I trepidatiously gave him some juice. 30 minutes later he was 110, and then in 30 more minutes and lunch time he was 93. He ate about 25 carbs and I didn't give him any insulin because I was worried about how much long acting lantus and the breakfast novalog was in his system without the breakfast. And we still had to drive home and I wondered if he was going to throw up again. We made it home, he didn't throw up and was 271 at snack time. For the first time since November he didn't have a snack and has been in range for dinner and bedtime. Doing better, but still a little off.

I was really second guessing myself about how to deal with no breakfast and the insulin in his body, but it did work itself out by the end of the day. That many immunizations would be tough on any body so I think we are all being good moms to be concerned about them.

[nantomsuethom]

Amy, I hope that was the last of Emma's high bgs.
Thomas would have a day or 3 of rollercoaster bgs after his flu shots. When he had his tetnus shot this summer he seemed to be fine but he is a lot older. He also corrects his highs as soon as he feels them coming on (he checks his bgs A LOT).

[EmmasMom]

Surprisingly Emma has been running low since last night????? (I thought that sounded crazy Brenda;)) The pedi said since it's a live virus it could take 48 hours before she started to run fever and have BG problems, so I'm still waiting. So far so good! :)

[selketine]

William hasn't had any problems with the flu shot since diagnosis. He had finished all of his immunizations except one by 26 months - and he had his last set of immunizations a few months ago (his 4 yr old shots).

I didn't notice any major difference in blood glucose readings but he did have an allergic reaction to one of the shots - a mild reaction. His arm turned hot and red and I think he didn't feel 100% for a couple of days. That was his last immunizations so thankfully we're done with the childhood ones.

[Carrie]

Very interesting post! Didn't realize that immunizations could/would affect the BG numbers. Here's a little side note...the day that our daughter was diagnosed, while we were in the endo's office, they introduced us to another family with a child our age, but who had had Type 1 for over a year. My sister has a Type 1 child, but our knowledge of Type 1 was still pretty limited. Didn't know anything about "autoimmune" at that time. Anyway...this mom said that her little girl had been extremely healthy up until the dad, the mom, and the little girl got flu shots. She said that she never "recovered" from her shot symptoms and felt very certain that the flu virus in the immunization had attacked her pancreas?!? :eek: I've read a lot about immunizations in general. What immunization is still made with a live virus?!? Thought that none were anymore.

Gotta scoot. Time to do a BG check. :( Hope Emma's BG numbers do well for you today. We're not as hot as AZ, but we've also had problems with the hot weather contributing to high BG numbers in the last few weeks with our little girl.

[bethdou]

It's not diabetes, but my husband's grandmother swore that getting a flu shot made her terribly sick, and was the reason she eventually developed fibromyalgia. She always got a 1/2 dose shot, and one year the nurse accidentally gave her a full dose. She wasn't ever the same after that, and she was convinced it was the flu shot that did it. :eek:

[Karin]

My understanding is that diabetes takes along time to progress. The body develops antibodies that start killing off the beta cells that produce insulin. By the time a person lands in the hospital with a diabetes diagnosis, up to 80% of insulin producing cells have already been killed off. So for a long time this is slowly happening, then the person gets a cold or some other virus and for some reason the antibody production speeds up and really zaps the pancreas, and boom, 2 weeks later its hospital time. So, I don't think its specifically the flu virus that sets it off, but any virus, after the diabetes has already been established.

Both varicella (chicken pox vaccine) and the flu vaccines use live viruses.

[EmmasMom]

Thinking back... Emma was dx'd exactly 3 weeks after her 9 month shots. She took it pretty hard and ran fever for days. In hindsight it probably was the "environmental factor" that triggered her onset. She stopped gaining weight after that appt. She had never even had a cold prior to dx's, so the immune response to the immunizations must have triggered the attack. I was reading her baby book a few weeks ago and realized how obvious, (and disturbing), the time line is. In her book I wrote that at that 9 month apt the pedi said he had never seen a happier, healthier baby and that she was "perfect in every way". How ironic.
Then the 12 month shots must have finished off any remaining Islet's she had, and put us directly into diabetes chaos. I only thought it was hard to manage her numbers prior to that!!! Ha!!
Any how, I guess it's good that there are no more Islet's left to kill because her blood sugars have been just fine again today! Thank goodness... I guess:cwds:

[EmmasMom]

Well, the bad new is... Emma seems to have developed a mild case of Measles from the vaccine. Ugh! She is now covered in little bumps, coughing, fussy and crying half the night. Her blood sugar is still running lower than normal... bizarre! I guess that fact that she's not eating well is affecting her bs, but I would still expect higher, not lower than usual numbers with a virus :confused:.
She also still has the rash on her side that I mentioned in my first post. He said it is so unusual that he has only seen it a few times in his practice. Leave it to my daughter :rolleyes: It's never been officially "named" because they don't know what causes it, (they think it's viral), but its described by it's location: Unilateral Laterothoracic Asymmetric Exanthem. Have any of your kids had this??? I just wonder if it could be tied into the autoimmune problems.

[zeb'smom]

Oh, my goodness. I am sorry to hear Emme is sick, I hope she is feeling better soon. It's a tricky situation to have little one's still needing immunizations, hard to know what is worse risking not immunizing or going ahead and getting sick in reaction. Ugg!

Take care,

Robyn

[hold48398]

Ugh Amy, I hope little Emma is getting better soon!!! We have had a bunch of quite low BG's ourselves this weekend, very weird...maybe it's the moon phase :rolleyes:. Sending my best wishes!!!!

[Karin]

Interesting that Emma has a rash. Scott was diagnosed in Novmeber 2005, but in the spring of 2004 he grew a hideous rash on his left leg. It basically went from an inch below his hip to an inch above his knee on the outside. We went to the doctor and were given the usual he's been playing outside alog, he's been playing inside alot all winter... and were prescribed Ellidel for 6 weeks. It basically subsided, but is still there. When he gets hot it is more pronounced. When I took him to the doctors for a rash on his hand 2 weeks before hospitalization, I got the same answers. I'm wondering if the leg rash is just another symptom of the diabetes.

[Cheryl in CA]

I'm holding off on Sammy's. I held off after his 9 month shots because he had rising A1c's. He was in the TRIGR study so he was being tested every few months. Our pedi seemed to go along with my concerns. Now that Sammy's still honeymooning I just want to hold off until he's full blown insulin dependent.

I realy don' like immunizations and have always wondered if they were a trigger. They scare me.

[zimbie45]

OH AMY,
thats rough, I hope little emma is doing better soon... keep us posted..adn warm fuzzy healty wishes your way...

[EmmasMom]

So today is day 9 since the immunizations. She was running a little low for the first 4-5 days and now... well lets just say her 3 day average is probably 300!!! She started running low grade fever on Tuesday, and this afternoon her temp was 102+. Along with that she's got moderate ketones everyday when she wakes, (which, so far I'm able to clear by mid-day with tons of extra insulin and water), but her sugar is still way out of whack.
I've got her on a high temp basal and I'm doing corrections every two hours, but still every reading is over 275. When I tested her before bed tonight she was 425, so another mega bolus and another night of testing and worry for me. I changed her site again today, just to be sure, but no luck.
This is why we usually end up in the hospital when she gets sick. She is so ridiculously insulin resistant when her body is stressed, and then despite my best efforts she ends up getting dehydrated from all the highs and ketones. Once the ketones hit moderate she loses her appetite and we're in deep trouble.
Oh and she's limping again too, (she seems to limp more when she doesn't feel good). We've been putting off testing for Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, because I really don't want to know the answer. (After D and Crohns I'm horrified to test for anything else) So I guess we'll have to do those tests since her x-rays and exams are normal. I just cant take anything else right now!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, thanks for letting me vent.:(

[hold48398]

Oh Amy, I'm so sorry to hear this!! I was thinking of you and Emma and was wondering how the baby was.... What a headache!!!! These immunizations are something....my neighbour's baby just got hers and now she has a really weird twitch all the sudden...

Anyhow, I wish little Emma all the best, and you need to stay strong for her (but I'd definitely plan on taking a break after this blows over!)...Please let us know Emma's progress. Hang in there, you are doing an AMAZING JOB!!!!

[AmyMcCracken]

Amy - I'm sorry you and Emma are having such a hard time. I can't imagine how difficult it is with toddler who can't tell you how they feel. I hope everything gets better. You can vent with us anytime.