some advice on shingles please

[mad4mybaby]

Can someone just tell me what the score is with shingles? Does it work the same way as chiken pox, your more likely to get it from someone before they fall ill?

Basically heard from my friend today she has shingles which she came down with last week. I saw her about 5 days before she got ill. Is this anything to worry about being pg? Also is ds (2) more likely to get chicken pox having been around her aswell?

A person with a shingles rash can pass the virus to someone, usually a child, who has never had chickenpox, but the child will develop chickenpox, not shingles. A person with chickenpox cannot communicate shingles to someone else. Shingles comes from the virus hiding inside the person's body, not from an outside source.

If you develop chickenpox before you are 30 weeks pregnant, your baby may be born with a birth defect. However, these cases are rare and experts differ in their opinions about how great the risk is.

Most experts agree that developing shingles during pregnancy is even less likely to harm your unborn child.

This should help:

www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=1110

Unsure about your ds2 but am sure the information you want about him is on here too somewhere...

thanks guys

IIRC its the fluid that weeps out of the shingles which is the contagious bit, so as long as your DS2 didn't touch the affected area on your friend he should be absolutely fine.

This is as opposed to CP where the virus is spread by droplets on the breath.

At least this is what we were told when DH got shingles and we had a weekend planned with my sister and her two DD's.

HTH