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General health

molluscum contagiosum yes I hadn't heard of it until yesterday

9 replies

slalomsuki · 25/05/2007 13:38

Its related to the chicken pox virus and means they get little spots, not too dissimilar to chicken pox spots for up to 18 months afterwards. Most of us will have been exposed to it or have a resistance but its prevalant in kids.

We found out about it yesterday by coincidence and now are worried dd may have got since nursery have had it and she had chicken pox 3 months ago

OP posts:
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Sparks · 25/05/2007 14:55

It's really nothing to worry about, the spots are very small and don't hurt or itch or anything. My daughter had it and didn't even notice.

BTW the virus is not related to chicken pox. Molluscum virus is classified as a pox virus, but chickenpox is caused by varicella-zoster virus, which is a herpes virus.

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Disneyonice · 26/05/2007 07:35

DD had this for a while. She had a small group of spots on the back of one knee. She said they were quite sore to touch but not itchy. We tried lots of remedies but in the end they just disappeared one at a time after 6-9 months. There's not a lot you can do if your dd does get them but having said that they are very hard to catch unless your dd was actually touching the other child's spots. It's not infectious in the same way as chicken pox. they are even allowed to go swimming with molluscum.

There are loads of threads on this if you want to do a search.

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ELR · 26/05/2007 07:49

my dd has this caught it of a friend when playing dress up after the mother had told me it was not contagious, they have not bothered her at all untill about a week ago when one became inflamed and itchy was about to visit the dr but now it and the other 2 have scabbed and look like they are going so are gonna hold out a few more days xx

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katelyle · 26/05/2007 07:57

The contagium bit of the name really means that if you've got them on one but of your body you're likely to get them on another bit, not that they are easy to pass on from person to person. They sometimes do get nastily infected, but otherwise are nothing to worry about. Keep an eye on them though. And remember if they get scraped or knocked off the can bleed bucketloads, so don't be alarmed! Oh, and for some reason,they don't seem to leave a scar.

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Pixiefish · 26/05/2007 08:23

My dd got this when she was about 8 months old. I'm convinced she caught it from the local swimming baths as that was the only place I'd been with her.

It was horrible although she hardly noticed it

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Disneyonice · 26/05/2007 09:04

Sorry, what I meant when I said they weren't that contagious is that you can't catch them simply by being near a child who has them, contact with the actual spots is necessary. Luckily DD had them only over the winter and I made sure she was always in tights or trousers and had a large waterproof plaster over them when swimming. Funnily enough, when they bothered her the one thing that seemed to help was calamine cream. DS had recently had chicken pox so we happened to have some in the house.

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belgo · 26/05/2007 09:09

DD1 had this for months - tiny white spots that she never noticed. In fact I didn't think anything of them either, until her creche told me what they were.

DD2 seems to have them now, around her knee.

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Twiglett · 26/05/2007 09:12

its nothing to do with chicken pox .. its more similar to warts

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weebleswobble · 26/05/2007 09:17

Slalomsuki - I had to ask about molluscum recently and the picture of the infected one is still on my profile. If you have a look you'll see what an infected one looks like. A course of penicillin got rid of that one.

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