My children are now 18 years and 15 years old. When my now 18 year old daughter was a baby I started reading around the vaccine question. I was already interested in natural healthcare and the idea of injecting toxic chemicals into my baby just felt wrong. We didn’t have the access to info that we have now and I felt overwhelmed by the pressure from our Army medical centre. So, I went ahead and did it reluctantly. Looking back at her red medical book I can see now a catalogue of events that I just didn’t see at the time.
There followed constant projectile vomiting, sometimes with green bile, for the period during the DPT course. Her skin became even more sensitive and dry and she was also very colicy. At 13 months, despite my better judgement but feeling pressurised by the medics she had the MMR. Three weeks after the MMR she had mumps and started a cough which developed into asthma and her skin condition became eczema. Fortunately, I had discovered a local homeopath who was also a GP. She gave me the confidence to start working with homeopathic remedies and I trusted that she could support me when my daughter was ill. She cured the cough so my daughter never had to have steroids and we began the long journey to curing the eczema.
When my daughter was 3, my son was born and once again I was being pushed by the med centre to vaccinate him. This time I knew better. My Health Visitor was WONDERFUL! She gave me the telephone number of a vaccination specialist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. This person compiled evidence and information on all vaccines. She was really helpful. This was when my studying into vaccination really started.
As an aside, my husband is in the Army and is a Gulf War vet. Following a horrifying catalogue of vaccines (including bubonic plague, yellow fever and anthrax) along with nerve agent tablets and malaria pills, he was ill for 7 years. His skin was shockingly lumpy and dry, he had constant coughs and colds with asthma and, more worryingly, had acquired an irregular heartbeat which affected his energy levels quite badly. We believe now that his poor state of health contributed to our daughter’s skin problems at birth. It was homeopathy and acupuncture that helped him recover to full health. (Although he’s just had Hep B jabs for another tour away which resulted in 2 bouts of flu in 3 weeks and constant pain in his limbs and joints.)
So, I was determined to understand more about vaccination, not just for my children but also for my husband. But, we didn’t have the internet, so it was good old fashioned “talking to people” and reading books from the library! My decision was made. No vaxing for my baby son.
The Army intervened. They refused to fly us out and accommodate us with my husband on an overseas post if we didn’t vaccinate my son and update my daughter’s jabs. Now I knew better – but then, I felt I had no choice. So my daughter was jabbed AGAIN – and yes we had more coughing and the eczema cracked, oozed and bled. More for my homeopath to do.
My son, however, had his DPT jabs and changed. He was a sunny, chilled, happy baby. Within a week of the first jab he started having filthy colds. By the time he’d completed his course of DPT he had a constant cold or cough. For a year he had one chest infection after another, pouring snot and vomiting phlegm. He became unusually restless – actually he became something of a handful!
Then, guess what!! Yup – MMR time. We were back in a far corner of the UK. I had a part time job and felt that socialising at a nursery would be good for him. There was only one nursery and, you guessed it, they insisted he have the MMR. I really struggled with this, so my homeopath promised to support me if he had it. We went ahead and he had the MMR. My opinion is that this is the injection that pushed him over the edge. His behaviour worsened dramatically after the MMR. He became aggressive, biting and scratching, raging with awful tantrums and generally being a difficult child – like “terrible twos on steroids”. The oddest thing was that his speech regressed; it became very hurried and jumbled. He developed a stammer which drove him insane with frustration because he couldn’t say what he wanted.
The chest infections persisted with constant coughs and he was diagnosed with asthma at 19 months and prescribed steroids. My son never took those as he responded brilliantly to Chinese herbs and acupressure followed up with homeopathy. The worst thing was the ear infections. He ran terrifyingly high temperatures up to 41C but we were 40 mins from an A&E. It was now that I started to really learn my homeopathy and discovered that we could only use these remedies as he instantly vomited any medication such as Calpol.
By the time he was 4 the “being a handful thing” was frankly “hyper-activity”. He was a very bright boy and we assumed that he was just lacking challenges. I handled his diet rigorously but nothing made any difference.
My boy’s state then developed until at age 7 he was diagnosed with ADHD. I was now reading more and more about side effects from vaccines and began to see the pattern of healthy baby, vaccinated baby, chest infections, ear infections, speech regression, aggressive and hyperactive behaviour, ADHD and then at age 11 Aspergers Syndrome. It was really apparent by the time he was 7 that he just didn’t understand social cues. His behaviour was more because of sensory over-load and just not understanding how other people function. It was SO tough on all of us. He looked normal but because his behaviour was a nightmare at times I was labelled a “bad mother”.
When I think of the beautiful, chilled, golden baby I gave birth to and how his health and behaviour was destroyed following DPT and MMR it breaks my heart. Unless you have a child with autism you cannot begin to imagine how hard the journey has been for us. I cannot describe how it feels to have a perfect baby turn into the child from hell that no one likes or will be friends with. My daughter was lucky. She was only affected physically and not brain damaged but at least, with her gentle nature and bubbly personality it shows that we weren’t “bad parents”, we can raise a child who knows how to behave.
We’ve now dropped anchor and live in our own home, to bring stability to the children’s life. This coincided with finding a wonderful Homeopath who set about a logical and clear process of vaccine detoxing and regular homeopathic support. She actually liked my son and saw underneath the autism to who he really was. It has taken 4 years of detoxing, diet and homeopathy, cranio sacral, healing and some great parenting to produce the boy he is today. Now, you wouldn’t know he’s autistic. He’s a character and unique but I’m so sad that we all had to go through the last 14 years of hell just because I thought I couldn’t so “No” to the vaccines.
Since these experiences. I’ve seen my cat develop early arthritis in his shoulder – right by the annual vaccination spot. This is now acknowledged by the veterinary profession as one of the dangers of vaccinating and they recommend that you alternate vaxing sites to avoid this. I have also witnessed on a regular basis vaccine reactions in horses. I’ve seen them unable to walk for 24 hours after their jabs or come out in horrifying rashes and swellings. On the bright side I’ve witnessed their transformation following a homeopathic vaccine detox. There is a large and ever-growing body of evidence showing the connection between vaccination and cancer/auto-immune diseases in cats and dogs. This also applies to humans.
I’ve read extensively into vaccination for humans and animals for the last 17 years and there is now nothing I can read that will change my mind. I also understand the purpose of childhood illnesses. I believe that they are there to enable the immune system to kick into action and to develop efficiently. In turn, this means that the child is more unlikely to incur chronic auto-immune disease later in life. If a child is healthy with a good diet and good hygiene there is no reason why they shouldn’t recover fully. Throughout all these years of research I constantly see doctors writing that the negative side effects from these illnesses come as a result of inappropriate management. It’s made me work hard at understanding more about the use of herbs and homeopathy.
I would rather my child need close sick nursing for 2 weeks with management and support from herbs, nutrition and homeopathy and develop lifetime immunity which can be passed on to their children, than go through the misery we incurred following vaccinating. I just fail to see how injecting heavy metals and neurotoxins into my child is “good” for their immunity. The body’s natural immune system works by taking in the bacteria or virus via the digestive or respiratory system or a wound to the skin (not a needle directly into the muscle). I now work in natural health care and have taken many patient histories and it is so clear that there is a vaccine or course of medication of some sort just before that person became ill.
I feel so sorry for parents of young children now. The pressure to vaccinate is huge and the fear mongering by the medical services and the press and our peers is enormous. But – I really worry for the parents who choose not to vaccinate and don’t know how to sick nurse properly. If you choose not to vaccinate make sure that you have a solid natural health therapist on board with you; a homeopath or a naturopath. Make sure you understand about the regular childhood illnesses. Know which remedies to use and how to manage a fever. I am now confident that I could nurse my kids through any of them but I’m 18 years down the line now. I just wish I had the knowledge then that I have now. How very different our lives would have been.
Whatever your decision, I wish you the very best and, either way, that you don’t end up regretting it like I did.