Do I need to get my unvaxed three year old diagnosed with Chicken Pox?

[Pumpkin_Pie]

He just started spotting tonight, and he definitely has them. Little red spots popping up on his abdomen and groin with blisters in the center. He is completely unvaxed, and we live in Vermont which has a very lenient moral exemption policy for public schooling for unvaxed kids. Do I need to bring him to his doctor to get officially diagnosed for any reason?

[Fyrestorm]

I would...Just in case there is an outbreak when/if he's in public school, most states will exclude an unvaxed student in the case of an outbreak. Some will accept parental recall of CP, some will not. I would get it documented.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

I would...Just in case there is an outbreak when/if he's in public school, most states will exclude an unvaxed student in the case of an outbreak. Some will accept parental recall of CP, some will not. I would get it documented.

Oh, good to know! I do remember reading that in the vaccine exemption form and thinking it would really be horrible if there were an outbreak and he had to be home for the entire thing. I will call first thing on Monday morning! Off to email my supervisor to let her know I won't be in on Monday too. Thanks for the tip!

[caned & able]

No, you do not have to. There is no law that requires you to do that.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Call and see if they will even see him. Here they wont let you bring a child into the office who has cp. It cant hurt to have it documented and if there is an outbreak he wont have to stay home from school because of it like unvaxed kids have to during an outbreak.

[luv-my-boys]

yeah I would see if you hcp will see you just to have medical documentation in case the need arises later. However, dont be suprised if they dont want you to come into the office. Our ped. does what we call *curb side* visits for things that are contagious like CP or other suspected things because well they are contagious.

[Honey693]

When DD gets chicken pox I plan on at least calling the office to see if I can bring her in, just so they have it in her file that she has had it.

[JBaxter]

I called my peds offices and let them know DS4 had chickenpox and asked if they wanted me to bring him in. The nurse said no there was no need unless he was having secondary issues with extreme fever , throwing up to dehydration etc. Jack had a fairly mild case probably because he was still nursing 1x a day

I'd give them a call to see.

[bbrandonsmom]

I called both my ped and the health dept to see if he needed to be diagnosed or recorded for a cp record. I was told no in both cases. So I photo documented on both boys the cp for "proof". When I went for our exemption I had to put if they had cp or not, but not provide proof.
If they were to go to school and there was an "outbreak", I guess I could have them do a blood test to prove they had it, if they didn't want to believe the photos.
ps-lots of liquids. Pure Vit E is great for the pox to help with scarring. I did oatmeal sock baths and also got some lavendar oil for lavendar baths. I have some ResQ ointment we used as well. Only 1-2 scars per child here. It was frustrating because we just couldn't go anywhere, as one child broke before the other and then dh too.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

I spoke with the doc on call at the doctor's office about another issue and they said I could definitely bring him in to have it documented. She was super nice about it and said that it wasn't a problem at all, and it was totally ok to have him actually in the office.

[newmum35]

In my state a parental note that your kid had them is all that is required but it certainly would be helpful in case they change the laws down the road, or if we move out of state for example. So I hope to have it documented as well but this is what I was wondering about if anyone can help... isn't this a notifiable disease, so the dr has to call the health dept right? what happens then? do they contact you or anything after that? Certainly don't want the health dept trying to call me or anything. anyone know?

[Kellyh_01]

I did take DS in for documentation when he had it. As we left the office staff were being "reminded" that having me wait in the waiting room was not appropriate. They closed off the exam room we had been in too.

[bbrandonsmom]

That's why I called my health dept-I thought they had to notify the cdc for records, but I guess not. I figure if it had been Measles or Mumps they would have taken the info and the next day the paper would have been talking about an outbreak

[Jen_in_NH]

I don't know about all of your states, so all I can talk about is NH.

CP is a reportable disease here, to Public Health. I've never heard of anyone getting a call from them - I know when DS got them, it got reported, and we never heard anything from them.

For schools here, they changed the rules about parental recall or physician documentation being enough for CP. Now, you have to have a titer to prove immunity or have the shots. DS gets blood drawn a lot, so we had that added to one of his draws.