KUSA - Dr. John Torres from Premier Urgent Care answers your questions every week. If you have a medical question for Dr. John, send it to mornings@9news.com and make sure to have Ask Dr. John in the subject line.
Question #1
I had measles during the war, when I was 6, and the focus was on the danger to the sight at that time. I spent 3 weeks in a darkened room and still my left eye turned in, and when it turned back out my sight was negatively impacted. When I was 8 I began to wear glasses and today my right eye is relatively Ok for a 78 year old and the left has very poor sight. Can you explain why there is no concern today?
Answer
It turns out that measles is still the leading cause of blindness in children worldwide. It unfortunately causes around fifty thousand cases of blindness in children every year. Most of that has to do with scarring of the eye that measles can cause. If someone is diagnosed with this disease there is no single medicine that will cure them. We haven't really seen many cases in decades in the United States so some might just think of measles as a disease that gives you a rash and fever but for some it can be much worse than that. About one out of every one thousand infected with measles will die because of complications from the virus. Another one or two will develop deafness, blindness or seizures. There is no way to tell who will be affected this way by the virus which is why prevention is so important, with the vaccine being the best form of prevention to date. As for what happened 72 years ago, the treatment for eye issues with measles is basically the same, to try and prevent the eye from scarring up. That scarring is what can lead to the poor eyesight mentioned, even decades later.
Question #2
The experts interviewed talk only about younger people who have or have not received the vaccine. What about older people who had measles as a child before the vaccine was available? Should they be vaccinated? What about children who have measles now. Should they be vaccinated after they recover?
Answer
We talked about this last week but it's a good idea to bring it up again. Since measles was very common before the introduction of the vaccine the CDC recommendation is that everyone born after 1957 get the vaccine. If you were born before 1957 then you don't fall under these recommendations and don't need the vaccine. If you are concerned about whether you did have the measles or not, or whether you are still protected from it, talk with your doctor about getting a booster shot to ensure that you're up to date. Also, if a child, or adult for that matter, comes down with the measles then once they've recovered they should have built up an immunity to it and can't catch it again. Of course not getting it in the first place is the best course of action.
Question #3
I notice not one person, not even a medical professional, has even mentioned how dangerous the measles virus is to pregnant women. Have people really forgotten that it can cause birth defects? I would like to see this brought up and discussed on your news.
Thank you. Donna
Answer
I'm glad this question was brought up. Measles is dangerous for all of us. Small babies, larger children, adults, the elderly and pregnant women. But some groups are more vulnerable and that includes children, especially ones younger than one, and pregnant women. Measles is not only dangerous to the pregnant mom but can also result in issues for the developing child like pre-term deliveries, miscarriages and even still births. Again, the theme for all of these questions, and this one too, is measles prevention.
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