Please tell me about chicken pox.

[numberthirtytwowindsorgardens]

DS (3) has one spot, which I'm pretty sure is cp (it's been rampant in his nursery for a while). What do I need to know? What are good remedies? How serious is it if my 3m old gets it?

(And any suggestions for how to keep two kids entertained in a house with no garden?!)

Hopeful morning bump.

Hi OP.
my son (5) had it a month or so ago and was really unwell.
for some strange reason my son (10 months) didn’t catch it!
he got all the symptoms but no spots, it was as if his body kept fighting it off.
when my dd was 12 months she caught it and had it really mild and was absolutely fine.
you’ll be ok xxx

Get piriton. The itching is heartbreaking.

Thank you both! This morning he has three spots, but no more - am I being overly optimistic to hope that this might be it, or will he come up in more as the day progresses?

They will probs come up for about a week. I found if I put mine in the bath the warm water brought them out.
don’t be alarmed if a few get infected, but do ring gp if you’re concerned.
oh and no ibuprofen xxx

it’s rarely serious, even in babies, but I would speak to your GP if your 3 month old gets it, as a precaution. There’s a good chance s/he won’t though.
Incubation period can be 2-3 weeks so, if the baby gets it from your DS3 (as opposed to whoever your DS caught it from), it won’t be straightaway.

Both my children had chicken pox. DC1 was 5 and DC2 was 9 months. Both had a few disturbed nights, I used camomile lotion to soothe the itching. Neither had any long last effects, they were both just a bit miserable and uncomfortable.

Bit late for a vaccine now.

hi OP, DS had them years ago as a toddler, covered from head to toe. I found warm baths and calamine lotion helped, he wasn’t poorly. DD didn’t seem to catch it, although she had an odd spot on the back of her neck.

roll on 16 years when having all her immunisations as a student HCP, she mentioned she hadn’t had it and was tested for antibodies. They were there, she had caught it but showed no symptoms.

How will I know if they get infected? Presumably that will happen if he scratches?

@Dontfuckingsaycheese mentioned piriton - should I give it to him in advance or wait to see if it gets really bad? Similarly with calpol - he came up in a temp at about 1am but has been fine since; should I give him calpol just in case?

Thank you all for your advice!

You’ll be able to tell they go like pustule after the others have scabbed over.

I was reading an article recently that said older people coming into contact with the chicken pox virus (providing they have already had it) built up more resistance to shingles. Because people are now getting their children vaccinated against it there will be more cases of shingles. So you will be doing us all a favour to not get your children vaccinated.

Oats in a sock, over the bath tap & run the water through it. Makes a lovely soothing oaty milk bath which helped my DC lots when they had CP. Also poxclin mousse.

Eh? That only applies to older generations now - once the vaccinated children of today are older, they'll be immune to chicken pox and therefore shingles too. The chicken pox vaccine will be added to the NHS set eventually, it's standard in so many countries already.

Also, there is a vaccine against singles.

This was speculated when the vaccine was new but from countries where the chickenpox vaccine has been routine for years have shown no increase in shingles rates in the adult population. Additionally the chickenpox vaccine appears to revive the risk of shingles for the person vaccinated. With a shingles vaccine too, it’s pretty hard to use shingles as a reason to not add a chickenpox vaccine to routine vaccination schedules (as is the case in Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, Spain, Brazil…).

Obviously not helpful the OP now, but just in case anyone is reading and weighing up the vaccine for their child.

That should say ‘reduce the risk’ not ‘revive’.

Don’t give ibuprofen. Lots of cool baths. Try not to let them get too hot as more spots seem to develop then. Poxclin is good and as it’s a mousse is quick to apply.

Put head and shoulders shampoo in the bath, it stops the itching, reduces the redness and heals them faster, we've just been through it!

I’d say have the piriton ready to use if itching is a problem. Calamine was useless for ds He said it hurt. He was 2-3 (it was a while ago - he’s now 19!) when he got it. I just wished I’d known about piriton before - so just have it ready!

Morning OP - any more spots?

If it wasn't for the spots, you wouldn't have known DD (21 months) had CP at all! No temp, not poorly. We did oat bath, piriton when she started to scratch at her spots.

How to cope? Dont make life harder on yourself. We had chocolate biscuits, TV, made a mess. I may get flamed for this, but I took her for a walk at like 7am in the woods behind the house where we wouldnt come into contact with people just so she could burn off some energy.

3 month old may not get them. Our 3 year old niece had them but her 2 month old sister didn't get them. Our twins caught it from niece and passed it on to our (then) 7mth old.
We used piriton for our twins and aqueous calamine lotion (care+) as it's much easier to apply. Only one of the 3 had a brief temp, baby coped really well but was absolutely covered in them.

1st spots showed on twins 14 days after exposure, baby got spots 16 days after the twins 1st got them. Baby had been exposed at same time as twins but dodged it then.

You might be surprised. A lot of younger babies actually manage to avoid it if a sibling has it, especially if they've been breastfed. My younger two have just had it and aside from a slight temperature/vomiting for a few hours, they weren't too bad with it. Make sure you've got some antihistamine medicine (my 3 year old would strongly recommend Lloyd's strawberry flavour - she couldn't get enough of the stuff!) and something to put on the spots to sooth the itching - we used Eurax, and they were quite happy to sit in an oat bath. My 4 year old suffered worse than my 3 year old, even though the younger one had 3 times as many spots.

Thank you all for such kind and helpful messages!

Still not many spots - about five? - but a fiendishly upset tummy and he keeps crying for no reason and saying he doesn't know what is wrong ☹️

Just went downstairs for five minutes to get lunch and came back upstairs to find him fast asleep on his floor! Poor little mite.

Our 4 year old had them a couple of weeks ago, had one night of super bad itching, we just kept dosing her with piriton and giving her Eurax cream and baths with bicarb of soda in. She was fine within a week. Little boy (12 weeks) started on Saturday last and this morning has finally all scabbed!
He's been whingy, tired and off his food and we've given him plenty of nappy free time, pharmacist said Calpol and aqueous calamine cream were the only things to give him :)
Hope your 2 are ok :)