Mumps and boys

[queenie]

As I understand it, mumps can be dangerous for boys.

IF the boy catches it in a specific window, specifically puberty, and...

IF the boy has an immune system ill-equipped to fight the disease, and...

IF the boy develops complications arising from the case of mumps, and...

IF the complications develop into orchitis, and...

IF the orchitis is a particularly nasty case, and...

IF the bad case of orchitis has a long-lasting negative effect on sperm productions, and...

IF that negative effect results in complete sterility...

then mumps can cause sterility.

:rolleyes:


I used to be concerned about mumps because I'd heard it causes sterility but from my research, that^ is the conclusion I've come to. Am I right? Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.

[MinorityView]

That is what I've heard, too. Although I think it isn't just puberty. This can be a problem for any adult male.

On the other hand, mumps in childhood in girls seems to have a positive effect in decreasing some sort of cancer--ovarian--my damn memory, sorry.

[Spy]

Yes, that's about right.

Also, if you research specifically orchitis, you will find out that a lot of other conditions can be complicated with orchitis way more often than mumps, so mumps 'causes' sterility nowhere near as often as UTI, for example. :rolleyes:

And, just to add to amusement, just recently I heard that chickenpox causes sterility if you get it after puberty. :alien:

[Trogdor]

I was so confused that everyone told me if my boy got the mumps he'd be sterile...but when I brought up the question about mumps affecting my girls' reproductive organs I was met with questioning looks. I asked why boys and not girls were the focus of the sterility. No one had an answer for that.

Then I searched for stats on sterility (from mumps) and couldn't find any. Seems there has never been a recorded case. I spent a good week trolling the internet and medical documents digging for proof and found none.

SO your sum up fits it perfectly...IF...

[cartersmom]

I was so confused that everyone told me if my boy got the mumps he'd be sterile...but when I brought up the question about mumps affecting my girls' reproductive organs I was met with questioning looks. I asked why boys and not girls were the focus of the sterility. No one had an answer for that.

Then I searched for stats on sterility (from mumps) and couldn't find any. Seems there has never been a recorded case. I spent a good week trolling the internet and medical documents digging for proof and found none.

SO your sum up fits it perfectly...IF...


Really???No cases of sterility have been recorded from mumps?? That's carazy! So how did they come up with this dire warning of sterility from mumps in post pubecent males??

[MinorityView]

Well, way, way back swollen balls were noticed in older boys and men who got mumps. It may have just been assumed that it affected fertility. With no method of assessing except the arrival of offspring and no particular skill at analysis, the belief may have passed into medical mythology.

And why abandon a good scare tactic just because of a lack of evidence?

[Mr. Beyondtheory]

It is an urban myth that mumps causes sterility in males.

It is very rare for adult males with mumps to get orchitis, and even rarer for the affected testicle to become atrophied. This was explained to me by a senior doctor years ago when I was worried because I was teaching in a classroom where there had been a mumps outbreak.

Anyway, I've never heard of a recorded case where both testicles have been damaged to the point of sterility. It just doesn't happen. I mean one atrophied testicle due to orchitis caused by mumps is extremely rare according to the literature.

And as Dr. Robert Mendelsohn pointed out, with just one fertile testicle a man could, technically speaking, fertilise every woman on the planet!:D

I guess this is why in a pamphlet on mumps the NZ Ministry of Health has resorted to saying that mumps can "reduce fertility". They simply can't say it can cause sterility because it never has. But what they do say is misleading, and no doubt designed to keep the urban myth going that mumps can cause sterility in adult males.

[MinorityView]

On the other hand, few men would like to have one or both of their balls swelling up like balloons. Frightening and painful.

Much better to have mumps as a kid and get it over with.

[Spy]

On the other hand, few men would like to have one or both of their balls swelling up like balloons. Frightening and painful.

Much better to have mumps as a kid and get it over with.

Ah, but you can get the same swollen balls as a kid just as well, it just wouldn't be able to affect fertility yet :D

[MinorityView]

I didn't know that! I've never heard of a boy getting swollen balls before puberty. Learn something new every day.

I don't think boys have quite the same relationship with that part of themselves before puberty, so it probably wouldn't be as threatening, fertility or no fertility.

I'll admit that my grandson likes that part of himself, at 6, but I'm not sure he even knows he HAS balls yet.

[Wonder-Full]

LOL, my 6yr old announced that they felt like little eggs a few weeks back...

[Mr. Beyondtheory]

That doesn't really change....

I think mumps is nothing to worry about at all. I would be willing to bet that orchitis of one testicle is so rare that few doctors would ever have seen it, even before MMR was introduced to NZ in 1990.

Measles and whooping cough and scarlet fever and diptheria were regarded as the childhood diseases that could possibly kill. Roald Dahl lost a daughter to measles, and Hitler's older brother died of it too.

Even so, the mortality rate for measles was very low, and it depended on co-factors like nutrition, how delicate the child was, hygiene etc.

Mumps has never figured as a dangerous illness, and that is one reason it was one of the last to get a vaccine. They had to tag it in with Measles and rubella, I believe, because no-one could get really that scared of it. Unless you're paranoid.