Chicken pox exposure when you didn’t have it childhood

[Guardian12]

My 14 month old currently has the chickenpox. I don’t know if I had it as a child - my mum can’t remember- so I am very worried about contracting it now.

Is there anything I can do at this point to protect myself? I assume a vaccine at this stage would be useless. My daughter started to come out in spots 5 days ago. There was a case in her nursery a few weeks ago so it looks like it was incubating for awhile.

The vaccine can offer some protection if done within a certain window of exposure, but I suspect 5 days may be too late.

Did they check your immunity during pregnancy?

I got it really badly as an adult, after my child got it mildly. I think there is an ant- viral you can take if your GP is willing. I was too late. You feel a bit unwell and have a mild temperature and then you see a few spots come out, for me after that overnight I was covered head to toe.

I had it in my late teens - the worst was a chronic migraine-like headache and I only had a few spots. The dr was quite strict on me not leaving the house which I could imagine being tough with a small child. Hope your wee one feels better soon.

Not that I know of. Do they check that routinely?

I caught it from DD when she was 2 and it was very mild. Talk to your GP if you’re worried.

No.

No, they won't. I specifically asked about it as I had never knowingly had CP as a child (nor had my sister).

My mum had it as an adult when we were children and despite being around her, we still never caught it.

Both our children have subsequently had it and neither of us seemed to have caught it (though at the same time that my youngest had it - two weeks after my eldest - I had just two incredibly itchy fluid-filled spots, which I guess could have been CP).

I wonder if we had both had it incredibly mildly as very young children. Still surprised that our parents didn't notice though!

My GP gave me Zovirax very grudgingly when my daughter was ill one time and I raised the fact I hadn’t had chickenpox. In fact she made me have a blood test to prove it whilst muttering about how I definitely would have had it and not remembered and NHS resources. Came back negative and she gave the Zovirax to take if DD did get chickenpox. On this occasion it turned out to be something else and I subsequently got the vaccine but if you’ve already been exposed I’m not sure it’s worth the £200

Hopefully you have had it in childhood without symptoms. I was tested in pregnancy and have antibodies even though I never had any symptoms.

They do here in Ireland anyway.

@romdowa wish they did in the UK. It would make sense since it’s so dangerous to get in pregnancy, and parents are the group most likely to be exposed to chickenpox when the child is a bit older.

I’m waiting for my GP to call me back to see if they can prescribe antivirals preemptively or give me a blood test to check my immunity. If I have been infected but don’t have symptoms yet I wonder would that show up in a blood test?

It's weird how different places do different things. Here they don't do screening for downs etc as standard at the 12 weeks scan.
I hope the gp can do something for you. No an incubation period wouldn't give the body enough time to create the antibodies needed for the blood test

Hope u don't get it as it's often worse in adults than kids. I caught it at age 16. It was really bad and I've heard of other adults getting it even worse than I had it.

In my 2 daughters that had it, youngest (10wks old at the time) caught it 12 days after being in contact with the person (only next day did the person have spots) and eldest was 2.5yrs old and it was 14 days after exposure.