aftermath of chicken pox

[marmitemonkey]

Ds 16 months got chicken pox 2 weeks ago. Absolutely pickled with spots particularly on face and scalp. Was pretty poorly and itchy, high temp etc... one spot between bum cheeks got a bit yucky so had antibiotic cream from gp.

Still really worried, ds is still not himself, and night times are horrendous, waking every hour shaking head side to side, clawing at scalp and ears. Nothing helps calpol, piriton, poxclin, eurax, aveeno cream, cold flannels. I even took ds back tp gp to check his ears as he was hitting hlmself round the head. Ds had a perforated ear drum 5 weeks ago.

Now he has got two hard lumps on the back of his head which i'm guessing are lymph glands so will be back to gp on monday to get checked out again As they are about the size of large grapes.

Before this chicken pox experience i thought it was a mild illness but can't believe how ill he has been. Has anyone else had itching going on for this long? Anything else i can try to reduce the discomfort? I think he's also going to be left with lovely pitted scars on his face too.

[AmberLeaf]

Not sure about the itching, but one of my three boys had it awfully, he really suffered with it, for much longer than his brothers.

Actually, his glands came up too.

Maybe your ds is still having trouble with the ear? to have a perforated ear drum, then CP is a lot for a little body to deal with, so his glands being up, not surprising.

I was going to suggest eurax, but I see that you have tried that already.

For the scars, get some vitamin E oil, it is very thick, so goes a long way, but you wouldn't know any of my boys had had CP, apart from a couple of spots that were picked and got infected.

Id definitely see the GP as soon as poss, is his temperature normal now?

[Boris13]

Oatmeal baths.... Put oatmeal in a sock, put it in the bath, run.water as normal....

[Boris13]

I think you should get an appointment for tomorrow...

If you ring 111, they will give u an out of hours clinic appointment close to you

[SavoyCabbage]

Can you give him antihistamine? Or is he too young. I can't remember.

[SavoyCabbage]

In the summer, put him out in the sun naked. That really helped the scars with my two.

[3boys3dogshelp]

hi marmite I think you need to take your son back to ooh tomorrow too. if he is uncomfortable lying down but ok in the day it might be his ears/glands making him uncomfortable rather than the cp. he shouldn't still be itchy 2 weeks later and it might be that he has a middle ear infection even if his outer ear and ear drum look ok now. poor thing sounds like has had a rubbish month.
Why don't you try propping the head of his bed or giving him an extra pillow to reduce the pressure on his head a bit? might not work but no harm in trying. I'd also pre-empt the pain if it just happens at night time and start giving calpol/ibuprofen a couple of hours before he goes to bed.

[marmitemonkey]

Thank you for all your suggestions.

We have already been doing oatmeal baths, the difficulty is the affected part is all over his head and face so i can only keep running the muslin with the oats over it and not submerse like you can with the rest of the body.

We have also be preempting the neurofen/calpol/piriton at bedtime. Temperature is fine although when you touch some of the spots on his scalp they are red hot despite being in a cool room, no blankets etc...

I got his ears checked out in the week by gp who said there wAs nothing wrong but i'm going to go back tomorrow again. I try and avoid our ooh dr's if possible as have had some awful experiences/decision making in the past that led to a delayed diagnosis of whooping cough on one occasion and pneumonuia in another :(

Just feel so sorry for ds and just eant him to be better after what seems to be a constant run of illness.

Had a difficult night again but now he's happily asleep propped up on my chest.