Community Chat

[aubnwa01]

I remember getting the shots each year & dreading them & was more than happy to eat a sugar cube to avoid getting any more of them.  My dad would take me & we'd stand in a line in a school gym waiting for them to be administered.  I lived in SoCal.

On a side note: I knew I'd never had mumps as a kid, but wasn't sure about measles or chicken pox.  Several years ago, there was an outbreak locally of measles & I asked my dr. if I should get an MMR shot, because the shot came out when I was nearly an adult, so I never got it.  He had my blood titered & as I knew, I had no immunity to mumps, but also none to measles, but I apparently had chicken pox.  I had scarlet fever as a kid & I guess chicken pox, but no measles when they were going around as a kid.  I went in & got the 1st MMR shot & Medicare wouldn't cover it.  They said I should've had it when I was a kid, but it wasn't available when I was a kid for me to get it. (I'm now 70)  I finally got part of the cost reimbursed by submitting it to my drug coverage & they paid for some of the vaccine's cost, but I never went back to get the 2nd shot.  When there's contagious disease in the community, you'd think Medicare (or someone) would cover protection.  My Medicare supplement wouldn't cover it either, since  they only cover what Medicare covers, which is apparently NOT childhood disease vaccines.

[SouthernBee]

@drizzellla : Interesting about the shoe sizes. I was a premature baby in 1954 with Cerebral Palsy. My shoe size = size 4 for the left foot and size 7 for the right foot. Yes size 4 considered a child's size and the 7 adult. Makes shoe shopping difficult and expensive because you have to purchase two pair of shoes to make one pair. Growing up wore for me the brown and white Oxford shoes because could be fitted for the leg brace. The right foot shoe was different because the heel was slightly higher and the front had two extra holes for the shoe laces.

[SouthernBee]

@aubnwa01 : I was a premature baby with cerebral palsy and never had the measles or chicken pox. Age 4O got the chicken pox and was out of work for a week. 😳😁

[Pantsonfire2]

I remember exactly as you described.  We went on a Sunday after church to a local school and we all got the sugar cube.  I do remember seeing people on television inside the iron lung.  That was frightening to see !  Polio was scarey for a child and it was a miracle to be able to eat a sugar cube and that was the end of it.  I pray for the same with COVID ...  at 72 with respiratory problems it would be wonderful to get my life back in so many ways ...  I miss hugging my family and a trip by myself to stroll the grocery aisles would be wonderful !!   

[agb80]

I remember taking a liquid in a small cup.  What surprises me is it was never common for kids to be given the TB vaccine because it wasn't rampant in the U.S. at the time but it did surface here that's a fact.  Hospital personnel have to get a TB skin test each year but I don't know what the remedy is if one should get it.  I bring this up because the news states that in developing countries the TB vaccine was a common practise for the children there and as a result they are not getting covid 19.  Scientists say there definitely is a correlation.  

[catter70]

Yes, I remember taking the sugar cube but don't remember the year. We went to the school in the next town. My sister had polio wen she was about 2 or 3. She still has some issues-post polio syndrome. A friend of mine also had polio.

[Johnnyeager]

I definitely remember being given the sugar cube.  Very early 1960s I imagine.

[doolie]

The older grades were given the oral vaccine and I believe you were right in saying 1961ish.

[violann]

Salk's vaccine (inoculation) was approved in 1955, and Sabin's orally administered vaccine arrived during the early '60's.

[millieshops]

I know I had a polio vaccine but I would have been 20 by 1961, so it was long before then.  I don’t remember anyone being fearful about it but that could be because we were so very fearful of the polio itself.  Also, in those days there had not been all the questionable publicity by that British (?) doctor about how dangerous vaccines are.   My generation all had the mandated small pox inoculation - the polio vaccine seemed tame in comparison.