Vaccinations and Psoriasis

[AmandaL]

I was talking to another member the other day about avoiding Live Vaccines whilst using Stelara for the treatment of psoriasis.

The reason being that all the Bio treatments recommend you avoid Live Vaccines because the Bio's weaken your immune system, but it got me thinking that maybe all people with psoriasis should avoid Live Vaccines. Ok the Bio's do weaken your immune system, but psoriasis is in itself an autoimmune disorder.

So we are all at a higher risk of infection, and taking a Live Vaccine could be to much for our systems to handle. A Live Vaccine is just that, it still has a tiny bit of life in it and the idea is to inject a person with it to make the body's immune system fight it. This is great for those with a strong immune system and it will stop us getting something like Polio, Measles, Etc. But what if we take a Live Vaccine whilst on a Bio treatment or those of us with bad psoriasis? could it cause our bodies to not be able to act and we could end up with the very thing that the vaccination was trying to protect us from!

Live Vaccines include but are not limited to:
Measles vaccine, Mumps vaccine, Rubella vaccine, Live attenuated influenza vaccine (the seasonal flu nasal spray and the 2009 H1N1 flu nasal spray), Chicken pox vaccine, Polio vaccine (Sabin), Rotavirus vaccine, Yellow fever vaccine, Rabies vaccine, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine, Typhoid vaccine, and Epidemic typhus vaccine.

*Note some of the above especially Flu and Rabies are available in Live and Killed Vaccines.

What do you think, should we avoid Live Vaccines?  

I could be wrong, but I think if you're on immunosuppressants, you can't have some vaccines such as Polio. I always get the flu vaccine though. I think you're asking for more problems because if you get the flu and you're on medications, you're more than likely going to end up in hospital.