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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Nanny gave DD a cold sore - furious. AIBU?

436 replies

firstimer30s · 04/12/2016 17:31

As the title said, nanny came to work with a cold sore. She said she is careful so like an idiot I didn't question it. DD (3 yrs old) developed a fever, sore throat and now a huge cold sore. I am so angry and I'm kicking myself. DD will now have this for life.
Nanny says she is sorry.
What would you do?

OP posts:
NeedsAsockamnesty · 04/12/2016 23:14

According to the leading respectable information and support service in the UK the likelyhood of catching a cold sore from someone who has not had direct skin to skin contact or item to skin contact with you is very slim indeed, they talk about semsible precautions all surounding sharing things that come into direct contact with your cold sore with other people and yourself having physical touch contact with the actual sore with the other person.
They don't appear to pay much attention to the thought that it is an airborne virus that can leap off your skin onto someone else's

Justaboy · 04/12/2016 23:16

NeedsAsockamnesty was that a direct problem from a cold sore herpes virus or did it trigger off the other malady can you say?

TheMagicFarawaySleep · 04/12/2016 23:29

The problem is, in a few years OP's DD will go to school. School classrooms are basically bacterial and viral stew. Small kids don't wash hands properly or take universal hygiene precautions.

And if the advice is that children can attend school with a cold sore, there is a good chance that the virus would be picked up there. Would OP have been furious then?

People get viruses. It is part of being human. Either place DD in a plastic bubble, or relax. Chicken pox can also be fatal but we don't all panic the second our child gets them.

corythatwas · 04/12/2016 23:34

It is one thing to say that taking hygienic precautions will keep your child safer from infection than if not taking precautions: it is quite another to jump to conclusions because a child has been infected.

Tenpastlate · 04/12/2016 23:39

70% of uk adults have this virus.
I can see why you are upset, but I think it's the luck of the draw.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 04/12/2016 23:47

justaboy

It really was just the cold sore (but obviously the virus that causes a cold sore) the virus uses the nerves to go from the skin into where ever it hides and back again sometimes it takes a wrong turn and ends up in the brain and causes encephalitis, the herpies simplex virus is I believe the most common cause of encephalitis of the brain

NeedsAsockamnesty · 04/12/2016 23:53

magic in a couple of years the op's child will be out of the age group that is most frequently effected by primary herpies infections and as such will be less at risk of the very nasty bits that can cause.
Primary herpies infection can cause horrible problems

humphreyandlinnea · 04/12/2016 23:58

needsasock how awful for you Flowers

As dreadful as your experience is, I don't think it's a reflection on the danger of the cold sore as much as that on in a million change that most infections have of ending up in the brain.

Gracey1231 · 05/12/2016 00:00

i've been prone to cold sores for the best part of 15 out of my 21 years

It really isn't an issue, they come and go, more when you're run down or stressed, it isn't exactly a disease....

humphreyandlinnea · 05/12/2016 00:01

Not that I am making light of the dangers...

I recently lost a beloved family remember tragically as a result of encephalitis that began as a tummy bug. Our family now has tiny children facing Christmas without their primary carer.

Pallisers · 05/12/2016 00:18

it isn't exactly a disease....

actually it is. My dh get cold sores. I don't (my mother did, neither I nor my sister did). I was acutely conscious of him not spreading as was he. Because herpes isn't always just a cold sore. Most of the time it is. Sometimes it goes beyond that. My best friend's mother had encephalitis - it changed all their lives.

TheMagicFarawaySleep · 05/12/2016 00:18

NeedsASock - true, the age of vulnerability to complications will have passed, and I am so sorry for what happened to you Sad

So in this instance, what would you have the OP do? Keep her DD away from everyone - because people are often most contagious with viral illnesses before external symptoms appear? And berate anyone who may possibly have unwittingly infected a child?

Or accept that viruses are out there, use precautions, and then see any subsequent infections as an unfortunate part of life? And that blame is pointless as the intention to infect was not there?

almondpudding · 05/12/2016 00:20

'... no outward symptoms will come back negative. That doesn't mean you do not have the virus. Just that the test does not pick it up unless it is active. '

You don't have to have any outward symptoms to get a positive result from a blood test.

AntiHop · 05/12/2016 00:38

NeedsAsockamnesty Flowers

BitOutOfPractice · 05/12/2016 07:25

Almond you're right but it's very unreliable if you don't have an active outbreak. This again is an aspect of the condition which can cause problems in couples ("well my test came back negative so I didn't give it to you do who did?!" Sort of thing.)

What I'm saying is that getting a negative test back doesn't necessarily mean you don't carry the virus. Just that its was dormant when the test was taken

shinynewusername · 05/12/2016 07:49

Or accept that viruses are out there, use precautions, and then see any subsequent infections as an unfortunate part of life? And that blame is pointless as the intention to infect was not there?

And that the infection may have been passed on before the nanny knew she had a cold sore developing.

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 05/12/2016 08:15

"Yesterday 22:20 Devilishpyjamas

Those of you who would be furious what on earth did you expect the nanny to do? (If indeed the infection was passed on from her). Stay home? Wear a bag on her head? Carry a bell?"

Devil- if expect the nanny not to kiss or have such close contact with my children which IME of people with cold sores is usual behaviour.

That said, it is contagious before it forms although people can often recognise the tingling.

For me it's like this- with a bit of care and luck you can avoid herpes. Once you have it you have it for life. Cold sores are unsightly and painful and herpes itself is draining as an illness. Why wouldn't you be disappointed when you get it? I avoided it until 36 when I also contracted it genitally via oral sex. I was really disappointed.

almondpudding · 05/12/2016 09:24

The blood test test is for antibodies, not the virus.

It's nothing to do with the virus being dormant.

Devilishpyjamas · 05/12/2016 09:32

It can be passed on while not kissing someone etc. Precautions can reduce, not remove the risk As I said my son will live with the very major consequences of his first herpes infection for the rest of his life (& not just with the odd cold sore - he doesn't seem to get them) - luckily I'm not not busy blaming the person he probably caught it from (17 years of not accepting sometimes bad things happen is not good for anyone's mental health).

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 05/12/2016 09:38

Can anyone think of a way the virus can be passed between an older child and an adult without skin to skin contact? I can't really think of one. Of course it's possible but I'm think of a realistic likelihood

surferjet · 05/12/2016 09:42

My understanding is that the cold sore virus can only passed on by direct skin to skin contact.
That's why I'd be furious, because if you've got a cold sore the last thing you should be doing is kissing anyone!

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 05/12/2016 09:46

It lives for approx 10 seconds outside the body, but to me that still means pretty much skin to skin contact

Olympiathequeen · 05/12/2016 09:48

Bertrandrussel. Yes those are the symptoms of primary herpes simplex. It's actually killed a prem baby.

Marynary · 05/12/2016 09:50

I'm surprised the prevalence is cold sore is so high as noone in my family has them apart from my father so it is obviously quite easy to not pass them on if you are careful (my father would have been). Still, she didn't do it on purpose and it could have been passed on before she knew she was infections so there is no point in being furious.

Adsss · 05/12/2016 10:01

To reiterate my 10 day old child was on the super urgent transplant list after hitting multiorgan failure due to this virus.

Repeat .....No-one ( I can name them) with a cold sore touched my baby. However the virus was transferred, therefore it is not quote"quite easy to not pass it on if you are careful", the chances are your whole family or at least most of it are carriers and just one person is symptomatic.

Please observe good hygiene etc as it all does help however do NOT assume you have been so saintly as to never pass it on to your family etc.