Dd has chicken pox, spots appeared yesterday, only very few spots, do i send to school or not?

[CharlotteACavatica]

She is well, and loves school, would it be a bad or good idea to send her to school tommorow??

Nooooooooooo!

You have to wait till they're dried up, 48 hrs after they're dried up or something like that.

Sorry.

I was told to keep mine in isolation until all the spots had crusted - about a week/10days after they first appeared if I remember right?

Are you serious??

Don't worry charlotte you get to watch lots of daytime tv and bake cakes together.

Are you serious? Of course you should not be sending her to school, no matter how much she loves it, or anywhere else for that matter.

Of course you should send her to school just to make sure everyone else catches it too.

Definitely not!

The school will immediately phone you and tell you to pick her up.

Oh! is there a need to have an attitude with me? i have very little to zero experience with chicken pox, and i have heard so many different things about when they are contagious and when they arent, i really had no clue otherwise i wouldnt have asked - i kind of thought that was what mumsnet was here for - asking advice from other mums when your not sure about things?????? Am i wrong?!

Nooooooo Waaaaaaaay.

Chicken pox is one of those illnesses where you HAVE to stay off school.

What if any of the children at school are immune-suppressed, or have family members for whom getting chicken pox could cause serious illness? Pregnant women in the playground? Or working in the school?

X-post.

Check out the NHS website and their section on chicken pox. Should tell you all you need to know re: how long to keep her off school.

General rule of thumb though is when the last spot has scabbed over.

Incidentally, all mine had chicken pox with a slow initial burn before massive explosion of spots on day 2. Awful to see. Your dd may be lucky and not have many.

Top tip - to soothe the skin and promote healing, a bath run with a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda can be good. INstead of calamine lotion, get the aqueous calamine cream - easier to apply. I also found that a medicated talc was good at cooling the skin (lanacane). Best of all - a handful of porridge oats in a muslin cloth/tea towel to soak in the bath. THen squeeze the gunk out and smooth on the skin. Really works.

Piriton if really itching and uncomfortable at night.

Chicken pox can be very, very dangerous to pregnant women of which there are likely to be quite a few in a school.

She must stay at home.

We fround that giving piriton and using Eurax cream was very soothing. The Eurax was much, much better than calamine lotion.

I dont know alot about chicken pox, i do know of course that its contagious, but ive been led to believe that theres only a small amount of time that its contagious, i got told yesterday that once the spots appear then their not contagious at all!! It may seem obvious if youve dealt with it many times, but if you havent and you know almost nothing about it then the obvious thing to do is to ask someone!

Yes - eurax was great too (can you tell that I tried everything!) DD was fine but she was older - 4 at the time. DS1 was only 14 months and it was rotten. He was miserable, and too young for eurax IIRC, so the oats in bath thing was very useful.

Piriton can cause constipation with large hard stools, so make sure, if you give it, you give plenty of water and fruit juice.

Children with chicken pox often go off their food, especially if their mouths are sore, so keeping up fluids is very important.

You have been given incorrect advice - it remains contagious after the spots have appeared.

She needs to stay in for around 5 days/till the last spot has scabbed over.

OP - whoever gave you such misinformation needs to be put straight. Please tell them to get their facts right.

It's true that kids are contagious a few days before the spots appear. But given that you don't have a crystal ball, not much you can do about contagion then.

But once you do know, then it is very important to isolate the child - you just never know who might be vulnerable.

Ice lollies good for sore mouths.

There is lots of vaguely conflicting advice about chicken pox and the duration of contagiousness.

Until spots stop appearing and oozing, child is contagious.

Many GPs and schools are happy/suggest that after 2 weeks of the first spot appearing the child may return to school/outside world. Since most crusting has happened for msot children in this time frame it is sensible but doesn't cover those who are ill with oozing spots for longer than this.

Ultimately, yur child will be off school for another week or more.

Thanks elphab and pooka, i appreciate it, i'll try those things, thanks everyone else for the advice - i really dont know alot about CP - its something my lot have managed to avoid so far, the last time i had any dealings with it was when i got it as a child about 26 years ago! I have googled it, but theres alot of contradictive stories, i am looking at the NHS site now. Sorry i managed to annoy some of you.

They can take a few days before they stop appearing and then they need to crust.

Two weeks is the very worst case though - my dd became spotty on the Tuesday evening. Was nearly dried up by Saturday. We stayed at home on Sunday as there was a woman at church on chemo and then she went back to nursery on Monday.
Imo you'll be lucky if she's back at school on Thursday and it's more likely to be next week.

(my other dds were the same - just under a week)