Can you have chicken pox more than once ?

[MimiDuncan]

Hi All,

my daughter had chicken pox almost 3 years ago but she had complications as the chicken pox went into her eye and nearly got blind.

so she was put on strong medications to stop the spreading therefore she had around 80-100 spots.

my son who was only 3 month at that time also cached it and it was mild on him also around 60-70 spots I guess.

today my girl came home that there was a boy in school with lots of spots on his face.

I emailed teacher who confirmed that the boy had chicken pox 1 week ago . ( I am assuming he still had cabs )

is it possible for them to have chicken pox again?

i am so nervous.

thank you.

Yes it is possible, but I think more unusual if it was severe the first time.

In extreme rare cases yes.

My son had it twice. The first time very badly. The second time much more mildly.

Does 60-70 spots severe enough you think? 😊

In rare cases they can get it again
If the boys spots have scabbed over then they are no longer contagious

I’ve just answered this on your other thread 😊

Number of spots isn't representative of "severity"

May I ask you what is representative of severity please?

How ill they are in themselves (you can measure this with "NEWS2" score but basically how badly/long they were wiped out for, if there are complications such as the opthalmic nerve as your daughter had, if they get a secondary infection, etc

My son scratched one on his face which was infected 😔

is that secondary skin infection?

I've had it about half a dozen times as a child but never had it severely.
I have had 1 bought of shingles as an adult though and I'm sure there's a connection between the two.

Worrying about it isn't going to help. All you can do is look out for symptoms. Incubation period is 10-21 days but they are only contagious for 1-2 days before the spots appear and until they scab over which is usually 5-7 days afterwards

I think it's rare to get it twice.

My son had it twice, both fairly mild, once as a baby and then again when he was 8.

Yeah. I worked in a nursery once and got shingles.

I remember a little boy coming in clean, and within half an hour, he was spotty

Shingles is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus so you cant have shingles without having had chicken pox in the past. You can't catch shingles from chicken pox but you can catch chicken pox from contact with the fluid from shingles blisters.

I never remember which way round it is you can catch it from, but knew it was something like that.