What the dr said about Chicken Pox... what do you think?

[pianojazzgirl]

So, my best friend's 9yo currently has chicken pox, and we are waiting for my 2 kids (4yo and 7yo), and her younger dc (22 months old) to get it.  Last week she ended up bringing her ds into the ER because it was after dr hours and he had a high temp and an awful cough (the nurse she spoke to said because of the cough he should get looked at that day).  The dr she saw in the ER said that it's totally a myth and not at all true that younger kids are more likely to get a milder case than older kids.  From all the anecdotes I've heard I had the assumption that, while the little ones can certainly get a bad case of CP, they are more likely to get a mild case than an older kid.  It also doesn't make a lot of sense to me that at a certain age (teen? adult?) you would just suddenly reach "the age" where you have a horrible case of CP, but rather it gets progressively (potentially) worse as you get older, and statistically more problematic past a certain age.

What do you think?

What's your experience?

[Ethelpea]

3 of my kids had it at the same time about 6 years ago, they were 4, 2, and 8 months at the time.  Severity was about the same in all of them but the youngest did have a slightly worse case.  She was also the last of the bunch to come down with it. All in all, no one had what I would term a horrible case of cp.

 I think it depends on the child, their diet, their general nutritional and health profile. 

[Mirzam]

I don't think age really figures into it. All three of mine had it, can't remember how bad DD1 was (she's 21 now and had it at five), but I guess it couldn't have been bad or I would have remembered. DD2 had it at 8 and had a medium to mild case I would say, she was never sick with it, ie fever, tummy ache, vomiting,  just uncomfortable with the itching. DS was 6 and he had a few more spots but again wasn't sick, just itcy. I have heard that the last kid in a family to come down with it tends to have more severe symptoms. Kids are different, and it really depends on how efficient the their particular healing support (aka immune) system is as to how severe the symptoms are. I remember growing up my younger brother always got things worse than I did.

[miriam]

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Edited by miriam - 5/27/12 at 4:30pm

[dinan6]

Both my DD 3 at the time and DS 2 had it. It was a good case of CP for both of them. My DD had it in her private parts, I felt so bad for her. It just itched and itched.

Some fever, uncomfortable from the itchiness and pretty restless at night. But after about 3 days we were over the hump. 

[Kuba'sMama]

My kids had the pox last year. My oldest (7 at the time) and youngest (several months) had it relatively mildly, especially the baby. My son was covered, but not in any discomfort. However, my middle dd (4 then) had a severe case, with very painful sores. She couldn`t sleep, cried when urinating and was just in severe discomfort for several days. I felt so bad for her and actually sort of guilty that she wasn`t vaccinated. Thankfully she bounced back quickly. But we didn`t sleep for about 3 nights while i tried to make her comfortable with cool compresses, ointments and such (nothing worked, really)

[heatherdeg]

Man, I have seen some NASTY child cases of pox.

I think the existing "fear" of older people getting pox has more to do with the fact that adult men can become sterile from it where children cannot.  I don't recall why, but it came up in relation to the vax for it (that they should just titer 12yo boys and vax the ones that show no immunity).  Is it possible that this is where the old wives tale comes from?  Who knows.

[lbkw]

I know this is kind of late to comment, but just in case anyone reads it later, wanted to say that I had the chicken pox when I was 13 and it wasn't that bad. Part of it was I was old enough to understand what was going on and take care of myself, but the other part was probably just luck. It wasn't a mild case where I'm concerned about immunity or anything, but it wasn't as bad as people who talk about getting it when they are older. My brother was 9 or so when he got it from me and I don't recall his case being that notable, either. I think it must depend on the strain since it was obvious we had the same one.

[Crafty]

Originally Posted by lbkw 

I know this is kind of late to comment, but just in case anyone reads it later, wanted to say that I had the chicken pox when I was 13 and it wasn't that bad. Part of it was I was old enough to understand what was going on and take care of myself, but the other part was probably just luck. It wasn't a mild case where I'm concerned about immunity or anything, but it wasn't as bad as people who talk about getting it when they are older. My brother was 9 or so when he got it from me and I don't recall his case being that notable, either. I think it must depend on the strain since it was obvious we had the same one.

I had it when I was eleven and almost had to be hospitalized. I had it in my ears, down my throat, on my gums, between my fingers and toes, in the folds of my labia...I wasn't able to eat for about a week, I hallucinated. Even when I felt decent, I couldn't do anything, because the pox were so ginormous that moving was uncomfortable, and they covered so much of my face that I couldn't wear my glasses for fear of bursting them. I was about 5'4 or 5 at the time and the week I went back to school, I got weighed for my gymnastics class. 78 lbs. I was not a healthy child after all of that. It was really, really rough.

[Katie8681]

I had a nasty case of CP when I was 5. Real high fever, delirious, lots of vomiting, lots of pox *everywhere*; it took a good two weeks to be back to normal-ish. My mom said in retrospect she wished she'd gotten me to a hospital but it all turned out ok, obviously. One of my siblings, 4 y.o.. caught it from me and had a total of 3 pox and ran a fever of 99deg for a couple of days.   I'm vaccinating. What a wretched illness.