Chicken Pox ....

Zaara has had a fever for the last week. I thought it’s because she had her 4th Menb Jab on Thursday and her gums are red so I thought it’s because she is teething.

Yesterday however my Aunt spotted some red dots on her lower half of tummy and upper leg. And she was scratching them, so obviously itchy!! I came home for lunch and made an appt to see the doc. At 4.30 those dots spread a bit more and now were on her upper body too....took her to the Doc and was told its Chicken Pox

I don’t know how she got it???? My poor baby!!! I just feel like crap now and can’t concentrate on work!!

When it gets worse I will take time off and stay home with her...but it’s not bothering her much at the moment!!!

Is she in daycare?? as it may have come from there. Let them know she has them (if she is in one).

One good thing is she has got them young.

It is actually quite contagious (sp) and has a long incubation period. And be pleased she got it now, I got it when I was 19 and oh boy it was not fun. I think kids cope heaps better, but I just assumed some itching and spots and that was it, well the spots were everywhere! (and I mean everywhere)

Pinetarsol is really good at relieving the itching, you can just add it to her bath. Get her a few things to distract her with, and she hopefully will forget about the itching.

Thankfully it goes away in about 3 days (the itching) and within a week I think the spots were gone

A couple of weeks ago I thought Alex had it...leading up to the spots appearing he was unhappy, fever etc so when the spots came we thought...oh yeah, chicken pox but they never scabbed over so took him to the doctors as was told it was Rosella measles.

Its amazing how and where kids pick up bugs. I cringe when I put alex in the trolley at the supermarket wondering what bugs are lurking there but I so would not get one of those covers for the trolley.

best description of chicken pox I can think of is like blisters or pimples. (ones ready to go ), if not perhaps it is one of the other childhood ones.

Roksana you will probably find that now the spots have come out, the worst of the grumpiness is probably at it's peak or just finished. The spots can take ages to go away. Itching them obviously is worse. I would bath her daily, or whenever they seem to bother her, as cool water can help relieve the itchiness for a time.

Sarah Beth recommended Pinetarsol, I have never heard of that but sounds worth a try. Hope she gets better soon.

awe, poor wee zaara! im not looking forward to the chickenpox in my house. hope that she recovers quick and doesnt get too uncomfortable... big hugs

As far as i know the incubation period is around 2 weeks.. from contact to first spots.. usually contagious from around 5 days pre-spots..(helpful..) until last one has crusted over..   There is also another thing that is quite common that can sometimes start out looking like chicken pox.. it's called molluscum contagiosum.. sort of red raised dotty pimply things.. but if doc says it's chicken pox.. then it more than likely should be.. unless your doc is a quack lol

ps.. i think calamine lotion does nothing but make a mess.. once it dries.. you're still itchy

We self diagnoised Alex as having chicken pox in part because they were quite visual spots and when we read about it on the internet all the symptoms matched. When they didn't scab I started to think it must be something else so did a search on roseola and those symptoms were similar and that is also what the doctor diagnoised. They looked like red pimples and were mostly on his arms and face (he was very spotty). Alex is only 9 months so if they were itchy he didn't itch them. Normally you hear of someone having chicken pox and although he is at creche nearly all the kids had it about 6 months ago so there was no one there with it. Don't know of anyone else who had roseola measles either so just one of those things.

Be thankful she has them now, I never had them as a kid so I'm terrified when my work mates kids have them because it's far more horrible to get those things as an adult than as a kid