Chicken Pox advice - both DD's have it!

[Momino]

Hi all.

I have 3 DD's age 3, 2, and 3 months. DD1 and 2 came out with spots last night with dd1's being horrendous. DD1 is miserable as she's got loads more spots than dd2. She won't let us put calamine lotion on and she's been weepy upset all day and has been hysterical when I've tried to put calamine lotion on her. I've given her calpol but wondered if I should be giving her Piriton?

She definitely won't let us touch her hand where she has had a very bad bout of eczema on her middle finger that now seems to be ridden with chicken pox blisters. bless her, it looks swollen and painful. what can I do? should we take her to the GP or wouldn't that help?

Also, dd3 who is 3 months is exclusively breastfed. does that mean she is less likely to catch chicken pox at this time? I'd be amazed if she doesn't get it since her 2 sisters smother her with kisses and cuddles.

Thanks in advance. going to check out the earlier thread re: chicken pox tips.

give piriton
they do a calamine cream that is much easier to apply than the lotion

thank you Eldon. spots worse today on dd1 so will try Piriton. Also bought some small toys as a 'reward' if they let me put calamine on. dd2 still plucky with just a handful of spots. baby still has no spots (thankfully).

I gave up with applying calamine when both of mine had chicken pox.

Neither of them liked it and so I decided it was not worth the fuss.

Try running oats in a sock in bath water for them to sit in.

Hopefully the sweeling will start to go down a bit now.

Once the spots start to crust over, try something like E45 or Oilatum cream - we were told that and it helped loads. I used calamine when the blisters were up (mine let me dab in on, luckily) and that helped dry them up, but once they were crusty a moisturising cream was much more soothing. Agree with Desperatehousewife about oats in a sock - that helped. And definitely piriton.

don't use calamine lotion, it dries them up and makes them itch even more. Use POXCLIN from boots, it's a special foam that you can lather on and it's brilliant. It's expensive (about £10) but worth every penny. used calamine at first on my ds and he cried everytime and he now has 3 big scars where he itched them, then used Poxclin and you could hear him sighing with relief when we put it on, he never itched them once and no scars.
hope they feel better soon,

Lavender oil in the bath. Soothes and heals the skin and the fumes help them sleep.

I used Eurax on mine, but the doc gave us an aqueous calamine which was pretty good - like a mousse.
I wonder if breastmilk would be good? It's meant to be miraculous for all sorts of things. porridge oats tied in a muslin and put in a bath helped, but my LO wasn't very itchy.
Good luck!

thanks to all of you for some good tips .

i've decided to abandon the calamine. am really interested in Poxlin and will search out tomorrow. will also do the oatmeal bath tonight if DD1 agrees. i tried to bath her yesterday but she became so distressed i couldn't force her.

DD1 has had a 38.2 fever which i'm keeping down with calpol. she's also reluctantly had piriton but dd2 refuses it. DD2 has most of her spots in the nappy area (ouch) but remains cheerful. she also keeps laying on top of baby dd3 for whom getting cp seems inevitable.