Old Mike - an OT request

This is a bit OT but you seem to be able to find some pretty obscure medical articles. I was wondering if you might be able to help me? I am on the look out for any material that has to do with the long term complications of getting Measles as a child.

I'm talking about further along the line, as the person gets older. I am asking because I have been having some really odd things happening to me and I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I have some sort of neurological damage from when I had measles when I was 12. I had an extreme case of them - high fevers, conjunctivitis (eyes crusting shut in the morning bad - I lost all my eye lashes as a result), light sensitivity, MAJOR rash - my entire stomach area was one giant and raised rash, I still bear the scars today. I was as bad as you can possibly get. I now realize that my father should've taken me to the hospital but he didn't.

I am at a loss about finding any sort of information on this. If you can help me when you have time, I would greatly appreciate it. You can email me if you wish - my email is under my user name. I would've emailed you but you don't have your email available.

Many thanks!

Sherry is referring to rubeola, I think, because she & I had an exchange about it some yrs back. I had a terrible case of it at age 6, many symptoms similar to hers & it left me so weak I could hardly stand. Kids were not taken to hospital in earlier decades because measles were considered a "rite-of-passage" before the vaccines came out. Rubeola was generally much harder on its victims than Rubella-- though Rubella garnered huge attention after 1963-4 epidemic in the U.S., which somehow affected many pregnant women & led to birth of children showing hearing problems. / Old Hat (32 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)

Sherry, we seem to have weird immune systems. When all my 2nd grade classmates got chicken pox, I did not catch it. Then, in 6th grade, when nobody around me had chicken pox, I got it-- with a terrible rash! about 2 months after that I got Rubella. (Some other kids at school DID have that at the time.) 8 yrs later I was living in a college dorm where several students on my floor came down with Rubella during a national epidemic. I thought I'd be totally safe, having caught it in the 6th grade. Well, I didn't get sick in the dorm, but would you believe: the following summer I got Rubella for the 2nd time in my life-- which is not supposed to happen, and nobody I had been around at the time had it. (The epidemic had already played out by then.) I kind of suspect that the smallpox vaccine we all were required to get before 1st grade really messed with my immune system, for some reason, and that contributed to later malfunction. / Old Hat (32 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)