Interesting......

[alisonzmom]

Alison is participating in a study on "Humoral Innumodeficiency in Pediatric DS" being conducted by docs here at Childrens Hospital and Univ of Buffalo med school. Got her blood work results in the mail today and after speaking w/ one of the docs involved today all I can say is..... hmmm... interesting.

They looked at several things but one thing the doc did say they are noticing is that kids who have participated seem to have low antibody levels to Sptrep Pneumoniae bacteria which causes the majority of ear infections, sinusitis and penumonias. They look at 12 different antibody leves and in Alison's case only 1 of those was at a protective level. Because Alison has recurrent sinus infections and has had pneumonia several times, they suggested giving her boosters for Pneumovax and Prevnar, testing her antibody levels again about 6 weeks later to see how she responds. Not sure what they'll do then if her levels don't improve but should be "interesting" to see. The doc did say that she "doesn't have a dx of immunodeficiency" because a bunch of the other tests that they did were with in normal limits - just these specific antibodies were low.

Something for us all to think about at this time of year.... I'll let y'all know what happens w/the post-vaccine levels.....

Barb

[laurasnowbird]

Hmmm, Barb, I'm going to talk to Ethan's doctor about that one.

His pediatrician told me that recent studies are showing that when kids are given Tylenol or a similar fever reducing agent after receiving immunizations, their post vaccination titers are lower than children who did not receive fever reducing medications. The meds are suppressing the body's immune response to the vaccine. We definitely won't be using that in conjunction with any vaccines in the future, and I think I'll have Ethan's titers tested to determine his immunity to those nasty bugs.

Thanks for sharing!