DD (21mo) has chicken pox. Pls post your tips to help her through it here!

[allaboardthepottytrain]

Hello,

My DD is covered in angry red spots - especially on her poor fanjo

Can you tell me how you helped your DC get through chicken pox so that I can be sure I'm doing all I can to help her? She's taking paracetamol and an antihistamine, I'm giving her cool baths in bicarb and squirting her with a home made calamine spray.

Any tips, esp about helping her to sleep, would be gratefully recieved.

I was told that theres something in clamine that dries out the skin, so consequently can make them itch worse, despite it being used for years for cp.

hace been using eurax lotion on ds2 body and eurax creams on his face/scalp, along with a antihistamine syrup. he hasnt scratched once and weve been applying it once in the morning and once at night. the anthistamine medication makes you drowsy anyway so weve not had any problems with getting him to sleep, he has got a fan that clips onto his bunk if he needs it. hes 4 btw.

hth

Try calamine cream instead of lotion it's not as drying to the skin. Lots of fluid and soft food, DD lived on jelly and custard when she had it. Hope she gets better soon.

Porridge oats are great. Wrap a v large handful in a muslin and pop in the bath. For it to be effective you need to have them on the bath a good 10 mins let the water go super murky. Then use the wrapped porridge muslin as a sponge and squeeze out over DC skin. DS1 had the pox last wk and we did this 3 times a day and he hardly scratched atall and his skin was a mess. Also buy calamine aqueous much better than regular calamine. Piriton and sympathy.

Keep those nails short, cool baths, loose/minimal clothing, calpol. Watch out if the spots get really angry - dd1 got quite a few infected ones and had to be prescribed antibiotics. Poor love had to be "held" above the loo as she couldn't sit down. In my experience the younger they are when they get it, the easier they find it, so you may breeze through. Good luck, hope you get through it soon!

My ds has it - he looks a real sight but thankfully no itching yet.

When can someone with cp go back to nursery - I'm a bit confused about whether it's when the spots get scabs or whether it's when the crusty bits fall off (and I guess they're left with a nice red mark).

Try NHS Choices A-Z under chickenpox. loads in info there.
Also Virasoothe gel for chickenpox. Expensive around £7 but have heard it works well.
All of above too

Thanks everyone. I did almost everything you recommended and am glad to report that DD is much happier (tho still very spotty). Only thing we didn't try was the poridge oats as the bicarb baths were working and DH said it was a bonkers suggestion. I really wanted to try it anyway so that I could call myself a real m'ner

giveitago - sorry your ds is suffering too I am also confused about when they can go back to nursery. I think it is when the scabs fall off but all DD's spots seem to be at different stages. The ones that are healing look exactly the same as the ones that are just coming up so I don't know how we'd be able to tell if she was ready to go back that way.

I believe the current advice is they vare not infectious 5 days after the last spot has come out, normally about a week after they start with it.

allaboard and giveitago, I hope your dc are feeling much better now.

So many spots - how can I tell when the last one has come out?!

She is much better now, we did get our hands on junior piriton (they can take it from 12mths)and it really helped her sleep - Thank you all.

" Not fun at all. My MIL (retired GP) told me they all have one really nasty day in the middle and then start to feel better. "

We are on day 3 of chicken pox... I am hoping that today was "the really nasty day" because it was awful!

My dd's spots appeared on Sunday... will she be ok for her school play on Friday??? [hopeful]

Def agree with the belgianbun's MIL - we had the very bad day and then things did get better.

DD is much better but very scabby - I am kind of hoping she'll be able to pop into her nursery for a few hours on Friday (she's bored out of her brain) but she still looks like something form an episode of 'embarassing bodies from the middle ages' so I doubt it will happen.

Did your DD have part in the school play?

Well my dd got better today and has spent this evening being as naughty as I have ever seen her! It is like all her frustrations from being ill are exploding out all over the place!!!

She has a dance to do in the play. I don't think her part is important to the overall flow of things it would just be a little bit sad if she missed being in it.