Chicken pox panic - we fly on Tuesday

[Eve]

There is an outbreak of Chicken pox at DS2 nursery and all week I have been watching him closely for any symptons as we go on hols Tuesday.

Tonight he has a bit of a temperature and a few red spots on him chest, arms and legs...though he was playing in long grass today as well...so might be bites. Hopefully!!!

Am I correct in thinking that airlines won't let you fly unless the spots are scabbed over??

We are flying Ryanair to Rome to stay with family, so just the potential costs of flights. I don't want to phone Ryanair to ask in case they look at us closely... maybe I could dress him in a polo neck and balacava!

I have travel insurance so will get price of tickets back, but its the not being able to go on holiday that will be annoying!

they won't let you fly if he's contagious (up to day 5 of the rash (Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon). by tuesday, he is theoretically on day 6 of rash and therefore not contagious. nhs website states this explicitly. can't do links but it's www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk and look under chickenpox.

oh dear.. Ryanair website says no flying until 6 days after last spot appears! So spots can take up to 6 days to finish appearing and then another 6 days...

He has no spots yet...just suspicious red dots... but I am failry certain its chicken pox, DH thinks I am paranoid!

...and DS1 is in tears as he wants to go to Italy to see 'his' dog.

We had this scare last year just as we were about to go on hols. Its true that airlines wont let you fly, but thats if they know... you can catch a lot more nasty contagious illnesses on planes than chicken pox. So if he did get chicken pox I would be tempted to cover him up as much as possible. Saying that, in my experience they do not start with red spots, more like white fluid filled blisters. Fingers crossed for you

If the spots are restricted to his trunk, couldn't you take him anyway and keep quiet about the chicken pox? I took ds1 to Sainsburys with CP and no-one seemed to notice.

Can I be a killjoy and say please don't just hide it and go anyway if he does have chickenpox? Especially on a plane where it's easy for the bugs to fly about?

CP is REALLY nasty for non-immune pregnant women in the first 20 weeks or just before birth (and not particularly pleasant in between). Having had a very nasty scare myself when I was pregnant with ds2 and spending the best part of those 2 weeks sobbing my heart out and terrified, then I wouldn't put anyone else through that for the world.

Sorry.

How is he today, Eve?