Anyone up? At my wits end (chickenpox!)

[StylishDuck]

Any advice or just reassurance? My DD (4) has chicken pox. This is only day 2 of the spots. She has a lot, they're everywhere, including in her ears. DH and I have spent all evening trying in vain to get her to sleep. She's had calpol, piriton and I've used that mousse stuff on her skin (poxclin?). She point blank refuses to get in a bath to the point where she screams bloody murder. We've tried driving around with her in the car, sitting quietly with her on the couch, putting her in our bed with us. She went to sleep eventually after her third dose of piriton since this afternoon but she woke up an hour later screaming and writhing from the itching. DH is sitting downstairs with her trying to calm her down but I can hear her crying from here. I've got a 15 month old as well and I have no idea how he hasn't woken up with the noise. I don't know what to do to calm her down. She is exhausted but refuses to sleep. I'm so close to ringing nhs24 but I don't expect them to be able to tell me anything I don't already know to be honest.

Dd2 was similar. Nothing got her to sleep and she just writhed and cried all night. I called 111 in the end and we went at about this time of night to the ooh at a hospital 20 minutes away. She fell asleep in the car and when we got to the Dr she didn't cry at all, just was a bit subdued.

Call 111 if you're worried, but I think its fairly normal for them to be very uncomfortable. Thankfully it won't last long, dd2 was fine the following night with calpol.

Hang in there

Put on the iPlayer with something soothing and soporific like the clangers. She can cuddle up with DH and may drift off. Any ice poles/lollies in the freezer? A good distraction.

Power through, you try to get some rest to take over later.

I had this when dd was 3 and ds was 6 months old. My dd was and still is an awful patient. She cried, howled and fought all our attempts to comfort her! Your baby is likely to get CP soon, sorry.. ds was 6 months old.. He had a lot of dozol, he was a better patient then dd. Unfortunately you'll have to suck it up :-(

Thanks all. It's just so hard to watch them in so much discomfort/pain and not be able to do anything more for them. I hate feeling so useless. DH is a lot more practical than me when it comes to stuff like this, I just start to flap. She's sitting downstairs with DH watching peppa pig and he's trying to get her to take sips of water. She's still not 100% calm though. She can't have any more calpol until 3.30 or piriton until 4.30. I've told DH to come get me at 4.30 and I'll take over. I'll take a wee bit of comfort from knowing that this night is likely to be the worst. Then it'll no doubt be DS's turn to get it!

My DS1 has them all down his throat and up his bum. I had no idea they could do that. He was so uncomfortable and ill. There wasn’t a clear space on his whole body, he was covered in the bloomin’ things. He went to bed no problem, exhausted, but I could hear him scratching, moaning, all night. Ice pops were life savers.
Day 5 I knew we had turned a corner. He was more settled in the day and brighter. When he went to bed he was so happy, because he knew he would be able to sleep. He simply conked out, totally exhausted.
It’s so grim, really hope she settles at some stage. Definitely get some ice pops in.

The best thing is porridge oats in a pair of tights in a bath, if she won't get in the bath could you do it in a basin and just offer it to her to rub on her skin herself? You could let her sit on a cuddly towel to contain mess. I had chicken pox in my late twenties and it was honestly awful, that was the only thing that gave me relief: sitting in an oat bath rubbing the tights full of oats over my body. Alternatively you could get her calamine lotion and cotton wool balls and let her dry dabbing it on. Give her as much control as you can of the topical stuff.

Also distracting myself with tv- is there a favourite from when she was a bit younger that might soothe her? Something like in the night garden? You basically just want to help to calm her enough to tip into sleep it will be easier to stay asleep. But my sympathies, it's awful.

Virasoothe gel?

There was something going round my Facebook about a bath with head and shoulders shampoo in it. No good if she ain't get in bath though. When I had an itchy rash when I was v pregnant, I spent about two weeks not sleeping much, snuggled up to bags of peas or sweetcorn. When your skin is hot and itchy, the cold is really lovely.

Ice packs on the skin. Frozen peas at a pinch, just put a tea towel inbetween ice and skin so it ‘burn’. Sips of cool ginger tea, ice pops, a fan blowing directly on her face. Tight leggings on the legs and bandages on her arms to squash the skin, calamine lotion, literally bathe her in it, antihistamine cream, intersperse the calpol with ibuprofen. BUT she has to drink if you are using big doses of drugs so that the liver can process it

Just posting my sympathy, I remember having CP at about her age. Do you have a fan or an AC? Heat always makes me slightly itchy so I can imagine the hot weather isn't helping.

I was covered, the day before the spots I kept complaining I had something in my eye, I ended up at the hospital who couldn't find anything, but the GP said it was probably a pox trying to erupt.

I agree with the other poster about putting the oats in a bowl for her to play with.

A lukewarm oatmeal bath if you can get her to take it.
Gingerale, frozen ice pops (make your own with lemonade or orange juice, a cup and a spoon). She needs fluids but they won't always take water.
Soothing music or music videos. (Walt Disney's Fantasia could put mine to sleep in 4 minutes flat!)
When she is spot-free, have the doctor do a blood test. My oldest had a reaction to the pox and developed thrombocytopenia. We ended up in the hospital for a week getting platelet transfusions. This was before there was a vaccine. For my youngest, I got the vaccine asap.

Doesn’t help for DD but as DS is over 12 months you could get him the first dose of the vaccine tomorrow, it’s fairly effective in preventing or making it milder if they’ve already been exposed. That said, I believe it’s often less severe if they get it younger so he might not have it as badly. I hope she feels better soon, I agree with whoever suggested taking shifts - earplugs if necessary for the off shift one.

@seatoski you can't recommend ibuprofen for chickenpox! Can cause serious complications which I thought was pretty well publicised. Hopefully OP already knows this as only mentioned Calpol and Piriton.

Nothing I can add to the other good advice here OP, it's a rough ride. Hope that things improve quickly. We also used a lot of Poxclin mousse and I do think it minimised scarring as my DDs were covered and barely have a scar.

If I had known about it when they were small I would have vaccinated to prevent them going through it. I reckon for working parents the cost of vaccinating is also potentially less than loss of earnings/cost of emergency childcare when kids get it back to back with a 2 week incubation.

DO NOT GIVE IBUPROFEN FOR CHICKEN POX!
Sorry for shouting and not aimed at you OP as you are rightly only giving Calpol. Just didn't want someone else looking for pox advice to read pps dangerous suggestion. Hope your little one feels better soon

Virasoothe gel seemed to work well for my two and neither of them has a single scar. I hope your DD feels better soon.

Thank you everyone. I do know about not giving ibuprofen, thanks to those of you who highlighted that. I had had it drummed into DH that he must not give her it under any circumstance!

DH and DD have just appeared upstairs after a long very disturbed night downstairs. I knew he wouldn't come and wake me. But I suppose it's better that one of us has had a reasonably decent sleep (well, about 4-5 hours anyway) because it looks like DS has managed a full 12 hours and will be absolutely wild today as a result of that.

DD is still terribly itchy. I've just given her more calpol, piriton and another round of poxclin mousse and hoping it will kick in soon so she and DH can get more sleep. She's lying beside him in bed, essentially asleep bit twitching. I don't want to go into too much detail on the internet but she has some pretty angry looking spots "down there" and I think that's what is bothering her the most. We're going to have to try to persuade her to have a bath today to try to give her some relief.

Can you try phenergan today

It’s probably too late for OP’s
DD as the vesicles have already fully erupted, but a word of advice to anyone whose DC are just starting with chickenpox -
keep their skin as cool as possible. Expose as much of it to air as you decently can, and sponge gently with cool or tepid water.
This very much reduces the number and severity of the spots, and therefore the itching and possible scarring.
A couple of GPs discovered this 30 years ago, by experimenting on their own DC. They cut one arm and one leg off their clothes, then counted the spots on each limb daily. The cooler, exposed limbs had far fewer.
It was an ingenious idea, as each child acted as their own control group, with the clothed limb.

I haven't read the full thread but this is really important.

There is no fever with chickenpox @StylishDuck if your Dd has a fever the spots are infected and she will need an antibiotic. Could those angry spots be infected? If so it can quickly become a very widespread serious infection.

I would go the out of hours GP route if you think the spots have got infected.

She's not warm just now. She was a bit hot and sweaty last night but it is warm just now and she was writhing about. I'm not concerned she has a fever, the calpol is just to try to relieve the pain.

I used germolene on my ds last week, and it seemed to help a lot. It’s local anaesthetic to stop the itch and pain and antiseptic to stop spots getting infected. You could keep it in the fridge too for extra soothing.

If she has any in her mouth tyrosets work similarly and can be taken at age 3.

Your GP might prescribe lignocaine gel for down there - only thing that helped when I had it in the same place.

Def try the oats in tights thing; it works! Can you sell it as messy play over the sink or a bowl maybe..?

For the ones down there try nudity and virasoothe