to not stay in all day with a 5yo who has chicken pox

[lecce]

Just that really. His spots first appeared about 3 days ago and have not all blistered over yet. He is perfectly well in himself but getting bored and fed up having stayed in for 2 days.

Well this thread has made up my mind to get my youngest two vaccinated. I had dc1 done as a relative was immunocompromised at the time. It was £90 for each jab, and we were quoted 70% immunity after one injection, 85% after two.
I just rang a private GP and got it done. Going to book the others tomorrow.

bunnyjo: just wondering what you mean by latest. my youngest is 2 yrs old. when i was preg with her and my son got it. my gp did not seem bothered at all, she just said dont worry about it. what pregnacy booklet do you mean? i have never seen it anywhere. but the it has been a while since i was pregnant. but also i have never had a gp or hv tell me a thing about the danger of chickepox. has it been known for years or is it a recent thing

How many times?

Because someone took their toddlers with CP to a supermarket, I caught it and my unborn baby DIED. I have no natural immunity to CP, vaccination won't help me either, I have to rely on other people keeping their infectious children indoors.

My unborn baby DIED. I had to give birth to a dead baby because a selfish bitch decided it was imperative to not only go to the supermarket, but to drag her sick and infectious DC's with her.

So yes, OP, YABU.

Anyone who has no natural immunity to CP can get it. Anyone undergoing treatment for cancer, it could kill. Anyone taking high-dose steroids for severe asthma is at a much greater risk of complications or even death. People who are pregnant, their unborn babies can be left blind, deaf, mentally disabled, or even die. Google varicella syndrome.

YABvvvvU.

My dd2 has 22q (Di George Syndrome) and has low immunity as well as a hole in the heart and asthma amongst other things and is on antibiotics every 2 weeks. Before she started pre school I was advised to get her vaccinated against chicken pox which was done in the hospital in case of any reactions, as was the MMR.

The school are aware of the dangers of CP for her and will always let me know if there is at outbreak in school so I can monitor her. Having said that last year we were in close contact with a good friend who son had chicken pox and she was ok. She needs to have a booster when she turns 12 and another when she is an adult.

The NHS pregnancy booklet you get when pregnant, msnaughty. Sorry, have a hungry and grumpy teething baby, but will copy/paste from the NHS website

Chickenpox during pregnancy can cause complications both for the pregnant woman and the unborn baby. However, the risk of complications is low.

It?s rare to get chickenpox when you?re pregnant. In the UK, it?s estimated that about three in every 1,000 women (0.3%) catch chickenpox during pregnancy. Most pregnant women who get chickenpox recover, with no adverse effects on the baby.

When to get medical advice
Seek advice from your GP or midwife immediately if you?re pregnant and:

?you think you may have chickenpox
?you know that you haven?t had chickenpox or you?re not sure, and you?ve been near someone with chickenpox (even if you have no rash or other symptoms)
Also contact your GP or midwife immediately if you get chickenpox within seven days of giving birth.

Complications for pregnant women
You have a higher risk of complications from chickenpox if you?re pregnant and you:

?smoke
?have a lung condition, such as bronchitis or emphysema
?are taking or have taken steroids during the previous three months
?are more than 20 weeks pregnant
Up to one in 10 pregnant women with chickenpox can develop pneumonia (inflammation of the lungs). Other rare complications include inflammation of other parts of the body, such as the:

?brain (encephalitis)
?liver (hepatitis)
?heart muscle (myocarditis)
?kidneys (glomerulonephritis)
?appendix (appendicitis)
?pancreas (pancreatitis)
Very rarely, complications from chickenpox during pregnancy can be fatal.

Complications for the unborn baby
Complications that can affect the unborn baby vary, depending on how many weeks pregnant you are when you get chickenpox.

If you catch chickenpox up to 28 weeks of pregnancy, there?s no evidence that it increases your risk of miscarriage. However, there?s a small risk that the baby can develop foetal varicella syndrome (FVS). FVS can damage the baby?s eyes, legs, arms, brain, bladder or bowel. Research has shown that FVS can affect one to two in every 100 babies (1-2%).

If you catch chickenpox between 28 and 36 weeks, the virus stays in the baby's body but doesn?t cause any symptoms. However, it may become active again in the first few years of the baby?s life, when it causes shingles.

If you catch chickenpox after 36 weeks, the baby may be infected and could be born with chickenpox.

Complications for the newborn baby
The baby may develop severe chickenpox and will need treatment if you get chickenpox:

?around the time of the birth and the baby is born within seven days of your rash developing
?up to seven days after giving birth.

I was told by the communicable diseases specialist at my hospital and by my very trusted GP that the risk of miscarriage is actually much higher than reported - for example, mine went down as a spontaneous miscarriage, cause not reported, despite evidence to the contrary.

CP is NOT 'only' dangerous to women before 20 weeks of pregnancy. I was further on from that. The correct phraseology is "CP is not often dangerous to UNBORN BABIES after 20 weeks, but it CAN BE."

I was 23 weeks.

I was 12wk, CouthyMow and that was devastating enough. I can only imagine what you went through. My lovely doctors told me how hideously recorded/reported pregnancy loss/stillbirth from cp is. Most, including mine are put down to unknown reasons.

No you can't go out in public with dc who have cp.
You could kill my dh if he caught cp off your children. He has cancer and absolutely no immunity. A spell of chicken pox would be life threatening and would certainly land him in hospital at the very least. Theres plenty of others out there like my dh. Think about your actions and don't be selfish.

I'm sorry couthymow.

I'm sorry BunnyJo. I guess after 3.5 years, these threads shouldn't make me so rage filled, but they come up time and again on here. I can't get over how flippantly lots of people treat CP.

My DS2 is frequently on prednisolone for his asthma, and after I lost my baby, I couldn't go home for two weeks to be with my other children, because he was immune suppressed and it could have killed him too if I was still infectious. So not only did I lose my baby, but I had to spend two full weeks without the comfort of my other children too.

I can see that my initial response to the OP was a little harsh, now I have read the rest of her responses, but I am so tired of trying to politely educate people on the risks of CP to other people.

I'm so sorry Couthy and Bunny.

I have no natural immunity to CP. Neither do either of my DDs. I have had CP 4 times now, the DDs twice each. It is particularly a problem for DD2 and I, as we both have bad asthma and are often on steroids.

I'd struggle to keep my temper in check if I met anyone out and about with CP.

Really sorry to hear of the losses some of you have suffered.

Just wanted to add the story of my friend who has recently given birth to dc4. Her dc2 was exposed to chickenpox when she was around 8 months pregnant, by a woman who thought it was fine to let her poxridden children get near others. dc2 passed it on to dcs1 & 3. My friend hasn't had chickenpox. She delivered her baby and couldn't go home until her older dc had been shipped out to relatives so that the baby didn't contract it. Baby and friend had to be watched closely.

Thankfully there is a happy ending, they are all back together now, but it could have all been so easily avoided.

i can understand that people get upset/angry. but i dont think its peoples fault they dont know. i dont know much about it wich is why im asking questions. i do wonder if the people who have had complications woud have known if complications had not arisen.

Yes. I knew long before that. I knew when my DD caught CP when she was little, and I stayed in for 10 days till her last scan had spotted over, then another 10 because the very next day my DS1 came down with it. I was a Lone Parent at the time, and working, and had to take 20 days unpaid leave from work. I shopped online, I got friends to get bits for me, but I didn't go out. And that was a good 4/5 years before I was pregnant with that baby. And it was before DS2 was put on prednisolone for his asthma too.

I found out about the immunosuppressed being at risk from it when I was 14, as my cousin had a kidney transplant, and we all got given the vaccine. But in someone with no natural immunity to CP, like me (I have had CP 5 times so far, 3 as a child and 2 as an adult), the vaccine does not work.

Vaccination is basically used to 'prod' your immune system into producing antibodies towards a virus. If you have caught that virus properly and still haven't produced those antibodies, the vaccine will not make your immune system produce them either.

You are just one of the people that gains no natural immunity from that virus.

So even the vaccine didn't work.

That is the reality. Now if I had been in contact with someone with CP then, and gone to see my cousin, due to the anti-rejection drugs she was taking to stop her body rejecting the kidney transplant, her immune system was suppressed, meaning that it couldn't do it's usual job of fighting illnesses. So even if normally my cousin was immune to CP because of previous exposure, as her immune system can't do its job of producing the antibodies needed to fight it off, she is at much greater risk of developing severe complications or dying from what in most people is seen as a 'mild' childhood illness.

So yeah, I have almost always been aware of it, before my cousin and her transplant it was my ban with Breast Cancer.

There has almost always been someone in my life at greater risk of complications from CP, from young childhood right through to DD's friend who died of leukaemia nearly 5 weeks ago, so I guess CP has never seemed like a mild illness to me, but more something that CAN kill.

i dont think it means people are igrant or stupid. people just dont get told.

Some people are ignorant though. Not CP but when I was at uni I was on methootrexate, which lowers immunity. Another student sat next to me with an horrendous cold, I asked her to move, I told her I was on immunosupressives but she refused to move.

OP you are doing the right thing. When you get the urge to go out just reread this thread. I also knew a child killed by CP.

People are told not to go out with chicken pox, it's 20 years since I had it but even the my parents knew to keep us all in until it had cleared. Perhaps people aren't sure exactly why they need to stay in but even then you google or do like the OP has done and ask.

Of course yabu - you shouldn't even have to ask.

Why don't more people vaccinate their children against CP? We did, we saved up and did it - too many people are too blasé about CP, it can be really dangerous.

It amazes me how many of my friends are so unbothered about their kids getting chicken pox when it can do so much damage - vaccinate your children against it.

I'm sorry couthy and bunny - it is beyond words that Some idiots selfish actions has caused you so much grief and resulted in this devastating outcome. X

Stratters - DD has immunity to CP after having it just once. I have no immunity despite having CP 5 times. DS1 has had CP twice - once when DD brought it home, and once when DS2 brought it home.

DS2 has immunity to CP when he hasn't taken prednisolone within the last 4-6 weeks. Despite being 'normally' immune, if he is immunosuppressed through the pred, he then has no immunity to it.

I am dreading DS3 getting it, to the point that I am paying privately for the vaccination when he turns two. I am doing it before he gets to pre-school age, in the vain hope that he might get immunity from it - but I am not going to hold out any hopes, despite the money the jab and the booster will cost me.

I'm glad OP realised they wbu and decided to stay in. My dd has nephrotic syndrome, basically her kidneys arent working properly and is on meds to suppress her immune system. If she so much as comes into contact with cp, I have to take her to a and e as it could kill her. Shes been poked, prodded, had biopsys, countless blood tests, it's been absolutely awful for her, she's only 5. I actually think if I did see someone out with a child who blatantly had cp, I'd go nuts. To most people cp is not a big deal, to others it's life threatening.

How old is your ds3, Couthy? I think it is licensed from 12 months. Ds had it when he was 18 months on the nhs, because of underlying medical issues. It was 2 doses which would have cost £60 each if we had had to pay. Our gp said it is just a case of ordering it in, so you may be able to get it doen at your local surgery.

Most people I meet who are blase about it seem well aware of how contagious it is, but really don't seem to have thought through the consequences. When ds had a trial day at nursery, there was a boy there who had full blown cp, ds hadn't had his vaccine at that stage, and there was a boy there whose mother was having chemo.The staff had rung the mother and were keeping him in another room, until she came from work to pick him up.

Take him for long walks in quiet places, but not shopping or to the playground. I didn't keep mine couped up indoors, but they didn't get to go anywhere where they'd meet people, either.

I've had cp twice, the first time was when I was 15 and was relatively mild. The second time, after my mc, I was very ill - I suffered breathing difficulties and was close to being hospitalised (again). My poor GP was visiting me every morning to make sure I was OK.

I am dreading DS contracting it and we are faced with the same dilemma, Couthy - we are considering vaccinating him, but were warned he may not build immunity to it. DD has had it once, we are yet to see if she has natural immunity to it - I really hope she does. DH has had it once and does have immunity - I hope the DC take after him in that respect.

Thank you, gimme. I do think there is a blasé attitude surrounding cp and its dangers. Chickenpox is, all too often, much more serious than the 'mild childhood illness' many people believe it to be. People say "Oh, but I'll avoid pregnant people and babies...", but that's only the tip of the iceberg - how on earth can you tell if someone is 4wk pregnant, if they're taking steroids for any number of conditions, if they're immunocompromised because of cancer treatment, have had a transplant in the past or have any nomber of conditions which require their immunity to be suppressed? You simply cannot and, when people prioritise their inconvenience over someone else's health, it beggars belief.

Squibsquib, my DD is also 5 and it breaks my heart to see what your DD has had to endure in her short life so far.

I think the thing is, that CP can be mild and in the days when children were likely to get mumps, measles, scarlet fever - even polio - it may have been relatively mild. But my DC - 3 and 8 months - have both recently had severe cases of CP- head to toe in clusters of spots, fever of 41 for 3 days - which wiped them both out for near on two weeks each, and followed by bronchitis - and my understanding of CP has been completely challenged. I previously knew it was dangerous to unborn babies and their mothers, but did think that it was like a cold with spots.