Snotty nose, cough. Can this be chickenpox?

[Sneezecakesmama]

Wondering if toddler has chickenpox. Off colour a couple of days. Very slight temp but typical cold symptoms, with a runny snotty nose and mucousy cough. Well in himself but has come up in a few spots, red with no obvious blisters today, but seem to be getting more. Didn't think snotty noses were common with chicken pox. Anyone else had something similar.

Will know for sure by tomorrow is this is the pox or a virus but just needing to know if we need to get stocked up with calamine lotion!

Only other thing could be slapped cheek disease? They usually have a slight temp and cold like symptoms first. (though do tend to have rosy cheeks too.) notoriously difficult to diagnose as symptoms very variable and sometimes none at all. I think a bit of an outbreak this year. If so need to warn nursery etc as dangerous for pregnant women, esp before 20 weeks. (Ive been off work at a school for 9 weeks of my pregnancy so far due to not being immue to it!) not infectious whe gets rash, infectious for the days before. Hope he gets well soon what ever it is!

My older two both had coughs a couple of days before the chicken pox spots started coming out, but not runny noses.

I'm not sure whether this is right, but I'm expecting ds3 to get chicken pox at or around easter next year. He is going to preschool and so will mix with more children, and chicken pox IME (which is i admit possibly very limited) does seem to have a season, which tends to be in late spring rather than summer.

But of course, it can appear at any time!

The spots are really distinct.

Waiting with bated breath to see if the spots develop blisters! No rosy cheeks and no nursery tomorrow as inset day so everyone's safe

You could be right about a 'season' - slapped cheek's high season is april/may (just when I was in my first trimester!!)

Bit of a temp last night and more spots and some blistery, so its the pox! So far not many and otherwise well so fingers x its a mild case.

Ah poor poorly boy but good to get it out of the way when young - my dad got it for the first time when I we did (aged 7) and he really, really suffered, far more spots than us and felt really ill. Buckets of calamine in our house that week!