To hunt down these bastards who exposed my son to chicken pox

Read all her posts . She did get one .

So -
Parents need to stay home with a sick child and potentially lose income from work. It could all be for naught because the child was contagious before the pocks appeared.

Theoretically, children should never be allowed out in spring or summer therefore.

The other family who could only afford a caravan holiday had to lose their deposit or possibly the full cost of their holiday depending on when they canceled.

CP can have horrible side effects on people older than 13, especially pregnant women and older people.

Gee, I wonder if there could be some simple way to avoid all the problems.

If you get vaccinated and never get chicken pox then as an adult you will never get shingles.

Anyone who's had chickenpox may develop shingles. After you recover from chickenpox, the virus enters your nervous system and stays inactive for years. Sometimes the virus reactivates and travels along nerve pathways to your skin — producing shingles.

OR- People with sick children could quarantine them to prevent other people's exposure. Chickenpox is a miserable illness, can leave scars, and of course leave you open to shingles. Which I've had twice.

Cancer patients or immuno-compromised people can have a very hard time of it, or aeven die, from being exposed to chickenpox. A second-grader at the school where I worked had to be home-schooled half of the year when her class had an epidemic because her dad had leukemia.

You can get chickenpox multiple times. DD1 had a mild case at 18 months, and a very bad episode in Kindergarten. When her sister began breaking out, I nearly lost my job. We had to hire a sitter to stay with them during the day. DD1 missed the last week of school. No graduation, no party, no cap and gown photo.
She is now early forties, and had shingles while pregnant 5 years ago. My youngest has lupus, and if she gets shingles it could be a very bad thing.

It was costly for us, and had lasting repercussions. It's absolutely infuriating that people knowingly compromise other people's lives, and reprehensible that the vacccine is not provided by the NHS. But hey, apparently some people like chickenpox so much they have parties.

They were wrong to do that. But also, why didn’t you vaccinate him?

If you think £150 isn't that much (especially if it's for more than one child, I'd have to buy four in my case, totalling £600!) then you're totally out of touch.

Even finding £150 is a massive deal for most.
I'd have to seriously even consider £50 most weeks.

Some of you have totally forgotten what it's like to have young children, and some of you clearly aren't struggling.

After the spots have scabbed over, you're no longer contagious. You are contagious 1-2 two days before the pocks appear, so it's likely the DS has infected others unwittingly, unless everyone he had contact with was vaccinated or had previously had the virus.

As a parent, you should be relieved in all honesty that he has caught it now. Shit timing but It can be incredibly serious if caught in adulthood without any pre-exposure as a child..I actually know of someone who died as a result of catching it later in life.

Not true.

If you get the recommended two doses of the vaccine, you have lifelong immunity.

As with any vaccine or virus exposure, immunity can wane slightly over time.

But to flatly state it's "not lifelong" and "wears off" - no, that is not true.

My friend’s toddler developed lesions on the brain and died from chickenpox. Rare, I know. All of mine were vaccinated.

It's been a thing since 1998.

Then maybe seek out people who have chicken pox and try to get it when the children are young. We went to a chicken pox party back in the 1990s. By the time youngest DC was born everyone was getting vaccinated and nobody was catching it in the wild. I had to get DC vaccinated.

Adults and teens usually have worse symptoms than children do.

Sounds as if the school are caring. DS is probably feeling more teary and emotional from being ill than he would otherwise.

But to add to the chorus - he should have been vaccinated, and that's on you.

What do you mean by, "...come down with them"? Who is 'them' ?

Once the spots have dried up chicken pox is no longer contagious.

Your son would probably have caught it sooner or later, it's a shame it happened now but he will be fine once he goes to school. Kids will be going off sick with all sorts throughout the term.

I note he had the first chicken pox vaccine years ago and developed a bad reaction so it's understandable you didn't pursue that.

Unless you know op you have no idea how much it costs.

Sorry to hear this I really am people are so self centred and basically don’t give a crap. Hopefully your little one recovers asap and will be back in school in no time. As for the parents who knowingly exposed other kids and adults they need a good kick in the arse a really hard boot

That particular post of yours was pretty stupid and insensitive and tone-deaf (not to mention inaccurate) though imo 🤷‍♀️ - you really managed to cram a lot into one short post! Reporting the response as a personal attack is also pretty questionable.

Its not standard in the UK, they don't routinely vaccinate against chicken pox here. thats assuming op is in the UK.

Selfish, entitled arseholes. Unfortunately (as you can see from the thread) they walk among us.

Particularly dangerous for the elderly to come into contact with it.

Does your son have a friend who he could FaceTime? Have a word with the school and let them know how he’s feeling too. Hope he’s better soon.

Vaccination doesn’t mean you are impervious to it, you can also get cp more than once (meaning he could still have ended up off school possibly).

There seems to be plenty of literature that says otherwise.

I didn't say that the purpose of not-vaccinating was to protect the elderly against shingles.

I just said that not vaccinating does protect some people against shingles.

And it's not the the elderly because most of them would get the vaccine, but the younger adults who are too young for shingles vaccine which I believe isn't recommend for under 50s and hasn't been tested on under 50s.

Well then his CP should be very mild and her anger even more unwarranted.

The vaccine is given to children from the age of one. If a parent truly believed getting the chickenpox vaccine was in their child's best interest, they could certainly put money aside every month in more paletable chunks as their baby grows up - it isn't like you just wake up one day with a one year old.

Probably. Does OP have more than one child though? She has updated that her DS had the first dose of vaccine and reacted badly so she wasn't deliberately prioritising holidays over health.

Ffs are you for real, an annual caravan holiday is probably the most budget holiday you can get, I don't think OP is made of money. Not to mention that there are so many potential vaccines to pay for above Chickenpox so it's going to cost much more than 150

So yes, there's a vaccine available and even though HM Government don't think it's important enough to include in the childhood vaccinations schedule, we're all supposed to know about it and pay £150 we don't have to have our children protected so that everyone else can take their pox ridden children on holiday. Really???

Nobody, vaccine or not, should knowingly take a child with CP anywhere in public because there could be immunocompromised people (who can't have the vaccine, because they're immunocompromised) and pregnant women, who could become seriously unwell as a result of catching it.

If this thread was about D and V rather than CP, everyone would be up in arms saying that no way should you take a vomiting child out in public, but apparently CP is OK because there's a PRIVATE, PAID for vaccine available and everyone should know about it by osmosis or something and prioritise everything in their whole lives (including a three day caravan holiday in North Wales) to get it.

Right, OK.

OP, I'm so sorry that your son has chicken pox right now at the beginning of year 7 - I hope he recovers quickly and settles really well into his school.

And no, YANBU for expecting parents with pox ridden children to keep them at home