Can You Get Chicken Pox Again if You Had It as a Kid

Chickenpox

Chickenpox (varicella) is a mutual, preventable childhood infection caused by the varicella-zoster virus. It'due south about common in young children and is normally mild, merely can exist very uncomfortable for your kid. When adolescents and adults get it, they can be very sick.

Chickenpox is very unsafe for people with immune system bug like leukemia, or for people taking medications that weaken the immune system.

What are the symptoms?

• Chickenpox begins with a fever, aches and pains.
• Within 1 or 2 days your child will go a rash. The rash is usually itchy and can make your child uncomfortable. It appears on the scalp and face, spreading quickly downwards the body and onto the arms and legs. The spots start equally apartment pink spots that plough into small water blisters. New spots will form even after others turn into blisters. Some children only get a few blisters, but others tin can have as many every bit 500. Blisters open up, dry out up and form scabs in four or five days.
• Well-nigh children lose their appetite and have a headache during the get-go few days.

How is it spread?

Chickenpox spreads to others very easily. Because it can spread from 2 days before the rash appears, information technology oftentimes spreads without anyone knowing. It can continue to spread until all of the blisters accept scabbed.

• The virus enters the body by the nose or oral cavity. Information technology ordinarily develops 2 to 3 weeks later contact with an infected person.
• ​Information technology is mainly spread through the air. The virus can survive in the air for several hours. It can be caught by being in a room with an infected person or in a room where someone with chickenpox has been recently.
• It also spreads from person to person through direct contact with the virus. You can get chickenpox if y'all touch on a cicatrice, or the liquid or wet crust from a blister.
• A significant adult female with chickenpox tin pass it on to her baby earlier nascence.
• Mothers with chickenpox tin also give it to their newborn babies later on nativity.

If one of your children has chickenpox, it will probably spread to other members of the household who have not already had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine.

Chickenpox cannot live on objects like sheets, counters or toys.

Can chickenpox cause bigger bug?

• Babies who become chickenpox from their mothers earlier birth could be born with birth defects similar pare scars, center problems, encephalon damage or artillery and legs that are non fully formed.
• Chickenpox tin be very severe or even life-threatening to babies in the start month of life, to adolescents and adults, and to anyone who has a weak allowed system.
• Children with chickenpox tin can become pneumonia (infection of the lungs) or get inflammation of the brain.
• The blisters tin go infected with leaner and this can lead to lifelong scars. Though most of these infections are minor and clear upward on their own, some can lead to a serious disease called necrotizing fasciitis (or "mankind-eating disease").

Tin can y'all take chickenpox twice?

In nigh cases, you can only get chickenpox once. This is called life-long immunity. Simply in rare cases, a person might get it again, especially if they were very young when they had it the get-go time.

What is shingles?

Shingles looks like chickenpox and is acquired past the same virus. But it usually appears on only 1 office of the body, where it causes pain. Shingles can happen in people who take already had chickenpox just commonly many years afterwards since afterward we have chickenpox, the virus stays with us in an inactive form. Shingles is contagious, but simply to those who have never had chickenpox.

How tin I treat chickenpox?

• If your child gets chickenpox, do not give aspirin [acetylsalicylic acrid (ASA)] or whatever products that contain aspirin. Taking aspirin increases the risk of getting Reye's syndrome. This severe illness can damage the liver and brain. If you want to control your child'due south fever, use acetaminophen (Tylenol, Tempra, Panadol and others).
• Encourage your child not to scratch. Scratching can crusade infection from leaner that get into the skin. Adding baking soda to bathwater can be soothing. Your medico may recommend a cream to assistance reduce the itch.
• Infants with chickenpox, and older children or adults with a severe affliction may exist treated with antiviral drugs.

When should I phone call the doctor?

• A new fever develops after the first couple of days. That is, the fever goes abroad for a day or and so and returns.
• Your kid looks sick (non wanting to play, eat or drink), especially if they as well have a high fever or have many spots inside the rima oris.
• A chickenpox spot becomes enlarged, ruby or very sore. Your medico will decide if your child has developed a bacterial infection that needs antibiotics.

Tin can my child with chickenpox go to child intendance or schoolhouse?

Many schools and daycare centres take policies that require children with chickenpox to stay home for 5 days later on the rash appears. The goal is to protect other children from the disease. Unfortunately, this does non stop chickenpox from spreading.

Chickenpox is contagious from 1 to two days earlier the rash appears, and nearly infectious from 12 to 24 hours before the rash appears. Information technology spreads through the air, non just by direct contact with the rash. Policies that require that your kid stay dwelling house for a flow of time don't piece of work because by the time it's known that a kid has chickenpox, it has already been passed on to other children.

If your child is too sick to have part in regular activities or if they have a fever, they should stay dwelling. For mild cases (low fever for a brusk menstruum of fourth dimension and only a piddling rash, less than 30 spots), children can go to schoolhouse or child care if they experience well enough to take part in regular activities, and if the facility permits.

What if I'grand pregnant?

Meaning women tin can develop severe chickenpox. Most developed women are already protected confronting chickenpox past antibodies in their blood. If you are thinking of getting pregnant and accept not had chickenpox, yous should exist vaccinated. If you lot are meaning and accept not had chickenpox, telephone call your doctor right away if you lot are exposed to chickenpox. Your doctor may desire to give y'all a special blazon of immune globulin (VariZIG) that has antibodies to chickenpox to help prevent yous from getting a severe infection.

If yous catch chickenpox early in your pregnancy, there is a ii% hazard of it harming your unborn babe.

How tin can I protect my child?

The best fashion to protect your child from chickenpox is vaccination. If your child is not yet vaccinated and comes in contact with some other kid or family member who has chickenpox, they may withal be protected if they are vaccinated right away.

If your child has an immune system disorder and comes in contact with chickenpox, phone call your doctor right abroad. The doctor tin can give a special type of immune globulin (VariZIG) with a large concentration of antibodies to chickenpox to help prevent infection, or early treatment with an antiviral drug.

Reviewed by the post-obit CPS committees

• Infectious Diseases and Immunization Committee

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Source: https://caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/health-conditions-and-treatments/chickenpox

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