Chicken pox

[Kmg]

I was rather surprised at today's "tip" encouraging you not to avoid people with chicken pox. I just want to point out that chicken pox is not always very mild. My boys had it last summer, ages 1 and 3, so relatively young - it's supposed to be easier. And they were both utterly miserable, and quite ill, with high fevers etc., for quite some time. We knew we had been exposed, so avoided contact with others before the spots even appeared, and then the illness lasted so long, it felt like it completely wiped out the summer. It was an 'ideal' time for us - we didn't miss any major events or any school or nursery time, but if I had deliberately exposed them at that time I would have felt dreadful at inflicting that upon them.

So you may want to think again before deliberately putting your child through this.

my 9 month old has just come down with severe chickenpox - can't really see gaps between the spots, his penis, testicles, etc all extremely well covered and very sore. He also has spots on his lips and tongue so feeding is a big problem. I had been told that since I am breastfeeding still he would be okay, so when his sister and her friends had it we didn't keep him away from them. Last night I got 2 hours sleep, my 'better' half is away on a sailing weekend! I have tried most of the tips on this thread but just wondered how long the spots will keep appearing, at one point today it was almost as if they were popping up as I watched.

Poor little chap. I doubt you could have avoided him catching them, Emmagee, as it's very infectious. Spots keep appearing over about five days, although IME there are fewer new ones coming out from day three on. Is he too young for something like piriton syrup? I forget what the age suitability is. Try to keep him as cool as possible, to minimise itching. I entirely sympathise - I vividly recall spending almost all one Hogmanay night awake, with one of mine!

Ask your gp for a prescription for Zovirax, it will help reduce the time the time that the poor thing has chicken pox. Two of my children have recently had it (age 3 and 1) and the youngest was quite poorly with it too, in the mouth like yours and v close to his eyes. The zovirax really helped.

Someone recommended talc instead of calamine, don't know if it works as mine had already recovered when I was told this.

My GP recommended buying a bar of medicated soap for bathtimes, can't remember what it was called though.

I posted a message regarding cpox earlier on in this thread. It's a terrible thing cpox both my sons and my husband caught it at the same time, what fun that was. I know it's not much comfort but be grateful that they've caught it at a young age. My husband was in agony when he had it, nothing seemed to help. In the end he had to get some sleeping tablets from the doctor so that he could rest at night. I used antihystamine to help stop the itching and eurax cream, which is oil based to put on the spots. Normal calamine lotion can actually agravate the itching as it dries on the spots and make it worse. I would imagine that talc would have the same effect. My youngest ds was 7 months when he had it. Don't despair it does get better, but don't be tempted to pick off the scabs! I hope things get better soon.

I agree with calamine making the itching worse. Try adding bicarb to the bath - it really helps with the itching and is safe to use even on babes. I tended to alternate between bicarb and tea tree oil, both were very soothing. at the peak of the spots my kids spent an awful lot of time in the bath. None of them have suffered any major scaring.

Thanks for your messgaes, it got really bad yesterday and I called the doctor who could only prescribe Oilatum Antiseptic bath. He loved that but screamed the place down when I took him out! Another bad night followed, just kept dosing him with Paracetomol and Junior Nurofen, then at 5.30 this morning he and I were in the bath!! After which he and I got another hour's sleep. He had another day of feverishness today, but I feel as though the worst is over (I really hope so 'cause I NEED the sleep). I just hope that as the scabs form he doesn't really suffer as he has then all over his eyelids now too!

Oh Emmagee, how awful. Hope your little chap is feeling much better today. Chickenpox seems to be rife at the moment. I've had my ds at home all last week. He has been really poorly, very high temperature, sleepy, grumpy, off his food and completely covered in a red rash. He then developed one chickenpox spot and I thought 'uh oh, here we go', but that was it. By Friday he was back to his old self and the spot has practically disappeared. Of course, everyone keeps telling me now that he'll probably get it again.

I'm so sorry you and your ds are having such a bad time of it. I'm sure in the next few days he will improve greatly and you can give a sigh of relief that he won't get it when he's older.

Emmagee, there is a paracetamol/antihystamine mix called medised that we were told to use when our oldest got chicken pox aged 18 months. It really helped with the itching as the anti hystamine acted on that and kept the fever down. Good luck! (our oldest got shingles aged 6 when the 2 youngest got chicken pox last year..that was a shock..I thought shingles was something old ladies got!)

much better today, he's still ill but we were able to get out to the park etc all day. Buster I had asked about anti-histamine, but he's too young unfortunately. I'm glad though that we can cross it off as they've both had it properly now.

Anyone know about complications following chickenpox. Baby has had fever of 38 and up for 48 hours, we were putting it down to teething, but now I'm not so sure. Called doc but they won't be able to call back for 3 hours and I don't want to go to Casualty.

Emmagee there can occasionally be complications after chicken pox, so if you are at all worried go to casualty. I wouldnt bother calling healthcall because they always end up saying go to hospital whatever you call about, and 3 hours is a long time to wait if you are worried. Good luck, hope baby improves quickly!

I just need a little advice. I have a 3 year old who is currently covered in chickenpox spots! I also have a 6 week old baby girl.

Has anyone had a baby of this age with chickenpox? Do they tend to suffer more if they get it? or do they tend to still be fairly immune to the illness at this age? Any help would be appreciated.

JJo - are you breastfeeding? if you've had chickenpox she may get some immunity from you,I think.

My daughter caught chicken pox when she was 10 weeks old, she got it from her 5 year old sister. She had it quite badly, it was in her mouth, and was pretty miserable with it, but the doctor prescribed zovirax for her which helped loads. Also used eurax cream which helped stopped the itching. Try using a cream rather than a lotion as it doesn't dry out so much, so will work for longer.

It's hard for a baby at that age I think because it must be very frustrating feeling all itchy and not being able to do anything about it!.

As an aside to that , my dd went on to get shingles at the age of 5, which was much more painful for her in retrospect

Unfortunately Maryz the doctors where I live couldn't have cared less about her and her shingles. It took 5 attempts with five different doctors to get anyone to feel interested enough to bother themselves.

She had shingles from the middle of her back, along her left shoulder and running down her spine a bit, and from the middle of her chest along her left shoulder and right down to the tip of her fingers on the left arm. She was in agonising pain, even her hair accidentally brushing on the shingles sent her into 5 minute screaming sessions, poor thing. We took her to the hospital on the second day of having it because she was so upset by it , and nothing we could do would calm her. They were breathtakingly dismissive of her, expecting a 5 year old to be able to cope with that sort of pain like an adult should, and even refusing her a prescription of paracetamol because we had used ours up trying to ease her pain.

On the second attempt at calling the hospital a day or so later they told us not to come down because she was contagious (!), and the locum service filling in for our doctor at night took 6 hours to respond, even after 3 phone calls where they could hear her screaming. When the doctor finally arrived he hadn't even been told she had shingles, so consequently hadn't brought with him a prescription for the Zovirax we had been promised over the phone , which meant my husband had t wait for thim to go back to the sugery to write it then go and collect it. This of course meant all the late night chemists were closed by then so she had to endure another night of pain.

Eventually we got her prescription and gave her that as well as calpol and nurofen, which just about eased the pain to a level where she would sit and whimper instead of scream out loud like she was being tortured.

I too heard about shingles at this age being a symptom of an auto immune problem , but have been generally dismissed as an over anxious mum. This is despite the fact that she has been constantly ill since Christmas (she had shingles in Feb) and very tired. I insisted on blood tests being done recently because she is missing so much school, but nothing much has come back , although of course I suppose it depends on what they were testing for in the first place.

It's all I need really,, on top of an older daughter with daily physio, daughter with shingles needing speech therapy, number 3 is ok (phew) but multiple unexplained problems with number 4 needing many visits to hospital each week, as well as a house move and a change of schools coming up, plus an 8 month wait for a brain scan for youngest ds!

Oops I seem to have turned this into a rant about me - sorry. Think I'll go away for a cup of tea and a lie down!

thanks - no i am not breastfeeding - i did have a feeling that might make a difference. I guess i will just have to keep my fingers crossed!! However as we have a holiday booked in 3 weeks time with no insurance cover for illness the law of averages says she will get it!!!!!

I will let you know.

lou33, your experience sounds awful! I would have thought an on-call doc could have got some drugs to you, come hell & high water, it's just not on her suffering like that. when our dd had a high temp one night the locum invited us to the cottage hospital where he was based so he could have a look at her and couldn't have done more.

We are moving soon Bundle, so I am hoping that we will get a better service from our new doctors. Fingers crossed!

ds has just recovered from chicken pox (I found this thread really useful too). One of my work colleagues said that she had had it as an adult and the majority of her spots were in her hair, so I guess it is normal.
Ds had spots mainly on his arms and legs which is slightly unusual according to my medical books - normally they are on tummy and back.

Hope your dd feels better soon Batters.