Chicken Pox Nightmare. Due to go on holiday

[yaaarrrp]

Hi all.

So my 9 year old DD has woken up today and is covered in chicken pox. She was ill on Thursday with a fever and feeling run down which cleared up by Saturday and then today the spots appeared.

The problem is we are due to fly on a 4 week travelling holiday of a lifetime next Monday, so 8 days time. I also have a 8 month old baby who will inevitably catch it. Do you think it might be too late to get the baby vacinated at this point? Will the airplane company let us fly if shes covered in spots? Ahhh such a nightmare and not sure what to do. Advice needed please 🙏

Check the small print for your insurance or give them a call.
If one child is for to fly they may only refund for one adult to stay with the sick child and expect the other adult and child still to go. My sister had this. In the end as the sick child was under 2 they negotiated that both parents (and therefore also well child as well as poorly child) were covered

You need to pay it's £70 per dose and two doses are needed.
I think your older child will probably be fine by the time you travel but you won't know if your baby is incubating the virus so you may end up stranded if they become symptomatic.
A friend ended up stuck in Portugal with her daughter who had cpox. Insurance didn't cover her husband or son to stay on so she ended up stranded with a sick child. Check your policy carefully,

Best practice to get travel insurance the minute you book travel.

Please don't fly when you might expose other people on the flight to chicken pox. They might be immune compromised or you'll just ruin other people's holidays.

Being abroad with a child with chickenpox is a terrible idea. It makes them miserable and can cause serious and life threatening complications. Approx two weeks between exposure and symptoms.

You still have to pay for chicken pox vaccine, it's been recommended as routine but not implemented yet.

I have a DC who nearly died from cp, it's not always the mild thing people make out.

It is really irresponsible to knowingly travel with an infectious child. All those other people put at risk. I doubt travel insurance would cover you in those circumstances. Cross infection to siblings is pretty much inevitable.

My eldest was seriously ill with CP. His baby brother caught it but wasn't as ill. It would have been a nightmare if we had been on holiday.

Yes we do have our insurance sorted. We bought it before we booked everything so im guessing that wont be a problem. We paid for the highest level of cover

Have you got travel insurance?

Honestly I think it's unlikely your 8mo won't get it. My 6mo caught it from her little baby pal (DD1 was vaccinated and didn't get it). Mildly enough but still clearly had it, I think the viral load from a sibling having it would be pretty high. It's usually two weeks' incubation. We were two weeks to the day from exposure to first spots.

You do have to pay for the vaccine but it’s lot less money than loosing a holiday or the excess on insurance.
I don’t think you can do much because it’s very likely your little one will come out with it after you leave.

I would see how DD is DS had about 6-7 spots with right clothes you wouldn't have seen them. He was also totally back to normal within 72hours.

Im just thinking that the insurance company are just going to be arseholes about it as its just the one child that is currently unwell and she should be ok to fly by the time we leave and there is the possibility that the baby might not even get it (even if it is a small chance)

She is ebf although now taking solids so she might have immunity from me.

Yes they absolutely will if a child has chickenpox that aren’t crusted over.

Acyclovir anti viral medicine can stop spread of chicken pox. Can get it prescribed via gp, but not sure you’d be able to get it for the 8 month old.

8 month old is not as likely to catch it as an older. Or might get and extremely mild dose with maybe a couple of spots. I would make a last minute decision.

Please don't take the baby on the plane if infected OP.

Can one out of you&dh stay with poorly older dc and the ither take baby to stay with grandma for a week? You may be lucky and keep baby from infection. Your older DC will be clear by your holiday start date.

It's a 4 week holiday. Worst case scenario your baby will only be infectious for a week if infected. Talk to your insurance they maybe able to simply pay for you to swap your flights to a week later and still have 3 weeks of your holiday.

I missed out on all but the last 2 days of a long-anticipated family holiday for this reason when my dc was small. It was sad but you can't expose vulnerable people to a currently infectious case. It causes death. Please don't.

My daughter caught it 5 days before due to travel. They crusted up just 12 hours before we flew. We made the decision and got an online fit to fly certificate the night before. At day 3 I was certain we weren’t going to make it. (I’m certain the medicine made the difference, it definitely didn’t spread further on her body once we started taking it).

Chicken pox has a 10-21 day incubation period. I think you’ll be fine to fly out and your DD is unlikely to be contagious. I’d put money on your baby coming down with it whilst away though. So then it depends on the type of hotel you’re staying at. I’ve heard of people being forced to stay in their room at all inclusives (one of the reasons we got the fit to fly with our daughter). if just in a normal hotel, I’d be tempted to just go, but my kids never really had issues with it despite being covered head to toe tent weren’t poorly or highly it by. Others are obviously terrible with it.

Get a doctors note for your DD even if spots crusted over, my cousin had to get one sorted from the airport for her DS over the summer as airline wouldn't let her board.

Another crap thing about this whole scenario is we are airbnbing out our flat whilst we are away and have several guests staying over the 4 weeks we are away. So thats several lots of peoples holidays ruined as well as our own. Bloody bastarding pox. Trying to hold it all together here lol

The baby might not catch it. They'll have some immunity from you and my eldest never caught it from his brother or cousins. We had him vaccinated at 8 years old when I found out that was an option!

Before you start making calls just watch and wait. Your eldest Dd will be fine by then. If the baby has no spots you can go as planned. Give it until Thursday and see how things are then

We aren't staying in any hotels whilst we are there. Just apartments

Sorry I dont know how to reply to people directly on here. Really appreciate everyones comments

Your Daughter will be ok to fly I imagine- make sure she has a fit to fly certificate. The gp wouldn’t do one for us, but we got an online one.
incubation period is 10-14 days. Infectious 1-2 days before spots arrive. Therefore, I think baby will be fine to fly as will have no spots, but also your conscience would be clear as they also wouldn’t be contagious at that stage if they did have it.
i guess it’s whether your happy for baby to catch it whilst there. What’s the medical care like where you are going for example.

Sorry this is happening to you OP - it's really miserable. DS was 6 months old when he broke out in chicken pox whilst on holiday. Luckily we were only in the UK but we did end up at A&E as we couldn't control his temperature and it had gone sky high - we rang local hospital and they asked us to bring him in.

Oh shit, @yaaarrrpwhat a nightmare 😢 I'm sorry I don't have any advice apart from watch and wait - you can't do anything tonight anyway, so see how things are over the next couple of days.

Even if you can't fly on the original date you may be able to salvage the back end of the trip?

When my 5 and 3 year old caught chicken pox quite badly my 6 month old ebf baby only had 8 spots and didn't seem ill at all. So you may well be ok.

Also be aware even with decent travel insurance you won't necessarily get all the money back if you cancel. We cancelled due to appendicitis - had all the right evidence, travel insurance still wouldn't pay airline duty, so we lost £700 and that was on flights to Europe.

I would watch and wait. No need to cancel yet.