Adult Pertussis (whooping cough) and Sarcoidosis

• By Paradox
• Posted August 7, 2008 at 9:04 am

You say you didn't have the adult Dtap (which has been reccomended for quite some time as the protection from the childhood vaccine wears off) and have pertussis antibody tests that are positive. I am not sure why this would be at all related to sarcoidosis.
Bordetella pertussis is a pretty hardy strain that survives easily in the population, usually by simply existing without causing symtpoms in adults and young adults (the reservoir for the bacteria). People who have had "adequate" immunization in the past or prior infections can still become ill as the immunity wanes, but their symptoms tend to be milder. Among adults, the groups that are most susceptible to severe disease are those who are already immune compromised for some reason, whether medication or illness (this group would not include sarcoidosis, but the medication group could).
The life cycle of the bacteria is such that the incidence of cases seems to peak every 2 to 5 years, so this could be one of the high incident years (last one was about 4 years ago).
I can say that even in the off-peak years there are usually a handful of cases of otherwise healthy adults who were immunized as children getting pertussis.

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• By Dawn1973
• Posted August 7, 2008 at 10:29 am

Hello akamber

I was hospitalized with whooping cough for several weeks when I was 18 or 19 not sure which even though I had also had all of my childhood immunizations. I seem to always get all of those lovely childhood diseases (although I have so far missed measles, mumps and reubella!!! knock on wood(or my head! LOL!))had hand foot and mouth disease after having a birthday party for my son at chuck E Cheeses! UGH!(both my boys got it too! beware of ball pits!!! They are living, breathing germ habitats!) I got a major case of chicken pox when I was about 23 and spread it to my boys, first my 1 year old baby then he passed it to my 4 year old son! UGH that was fun! With the chicken pox I got major Pleurasy to boot and whistled like a runaway tea kettle!! The doc had me on Zovirax to try to get rid of the chicken pox faster because they were absolutely everywhere with a capital E! and he had me in is office every day (as I refused to be in the hospital) to check me to make sure I did not develop pneumonia besides!

I do not remember much about my bout with whooping cough! They had me pretty sedated because i remember that i was pretty darned sick! Luckily my mom was still healthy enough at the time to take my son and care for him!

I do know that many of my docs believe that my sarc may go back as far as my late teens after a really nasty bout of Mono (or even earlier) as I have always been rather sickly and they could never figure out exactly why that was!

To date, I still have not gotten re immunized for this, though i am not sure why. I get my flu shot every year and i get my Pneumonia vaccine every 5 as recommended as well. Perhaps i should discuss this with my doc!

Be well!

Dawn

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• By akamber
• Posted August 7, 2008 at 5:44 pm

In my opinion there is an unreported outbreak of adolescents and adults currently in Alaska right now with Pertussis. I had to bug the heck out of my dr. to perform the antibody test and sure enough was right.. But this was 4-5 weeks after it had started. There is also a shortage of vaccine right now and only the Public Health Centers are carrying it here where I live, which is not an effective way to spread the word or reach the public without a significant amount of public relations attached. My medications at the time were hydroxycloriquine and gabapentin and an albuterol inhaler. In my immediate family in the region (7 people) four of us have had this terrible cough. I was the only one to have any testing. I am also the third person I have heard of that has injured their ribs which I find rather shocking and as you can see the local reactions to two positive tests in young children in yesterday's paper: http://juneauempire.com/stories/080608/loc_314412979.shtml

I am curious to find out if anyone else has had both sarcoid and pertussis as an adult and what their treatment and therapy was.

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