Whats the best age for chicken pox?

[juicychops]

What do you think is the best age for children to get chicken pox? is it better to get them out of the way really early if you have the chance or wait until they are older?

[Cha]

Mine have just had it, dd 3 and 1/2 and ds 19 months. Remembering my own experience of having it at 6, I think the earlier the better. Ds only had about 8 spots and a slight temperature. Dd had loads of spots which was horrible but she wasn't too ill with it. Apparantly it is best for babies to get it as they still have immunity from their mums (if mum's had it, of course). I would get it out the way. I was sent to a chicken pox party - they were all the rage in the 1970s...

[roisin]

Mine were 15 months and 3 yrs and they were both pretty poorly, and very miserable: especially ds2 who got a secondary infection. I wouldn't encourage anyone to expose children deliberately.

[juicychops]

my ds is 3 months. the health visitor said it is fine for him to get it now. i want to get it out of the way.

[BubblesDeVere]

My two were 2 1/2 years and then a week later her 8 week old sister got it.

[Hulababy]

Try and get them to have had it before being a teenager! I had chicken pox at age 13 (got it on last day of school term before Easter ) and my brother was 12. It bloody hurt, and we were pretty miserable with it. My sister was about 3 at the time and sailed through it happily.

[philippat]

just been through chicken pox in this house:

dd aged 3.5, not particularly itchy but very miserable, too much of a madam to take piriton, quite a few night wakings, over in a week

miserableness for her: 5/10
nuisance value for me: 9/10


dh aged 36, extremely itchy, very miserable, took every potion going but none really worked, couldn't sleep at night, took two weeks to get over

miserableness for him: 10/10
nuisance value for me: 4/10

[Potty1]

Not 26 and 27 weeks pg. Bloody awful.

better when they are out of nappies 'cos that's not very pleasant either.

[sandycheeks]

Dd 3 and ds 8 months have just recovered from chicken pox. I'm glad it's out of the way, but would not recomend going out your way for catch it.
I had similar experience to philippat with 3 year old. Not many spots or very ill, but would not allow anything on spots and would be awake during night itching like mad. However ds should have auditioned for a part in a horror film. He had no skin just spots all over. He got a chest infection with the chicken pox, and was quite ill.
But at least now it's out of the way

[ChicPea]

Has anyone heard of the chicken pox jab which they give in the US and you can get privately here?

I had chicken pox as a child and have just got over shingles and am debating on having both children vaccinated.

[jenkel]

Chicken Pox is unpleasant, but once you have it most people have immunity for life. And in the majority of cases no long term lasting damage is caused (in the case of Chicken Pox) I personally feel that it is natural for us to get these diseases and build up immunity and I would much rather get the immunity the way that nature planned for us. The more serious illnesses that can be really unpleasant I would of course get my dd's immunised against. However, I think there are plans in the future to include the chicken pox immunisation in with MMR