Seven Day Itch (My Experience of Chicken Pox)

Member Name: Ophelia

Product:	My Experience of Chicken Pox
Date:	26/06/02 (429 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Time off school/work

Disadvantages: Itchy, scratchy, scars

I will never forget the itching and the great discomfort. I would lie in my bed feeling sorry for myself moaning to whoever would listen that, 'I have never been in so much pain in my life'. Of course, a further 12 years of living has changed that but at the time chicken pox was the most unpleasant illness I had ever had.

MY EXPERIENCE

I was only 15 years old and it was a Friday and I was at school, in jovial mood as I was being collected by my mother to be taken home for the weekend. In the morning I noticed a spot or lump on my arm. I thought I had been bitten by an insect and thought no more of it until I began to find more 'bites' throughout the day.

By Saturday my face and body was resplendent with red spots. My mother, quite naturally, was worried and took me to the doctor's. The receptionist quickly decided to quarantine me by making me sit in a corridor far away from the waiting room filled by other patients, who presumably would rather not have caught a contagious disease from a spotty 15 year old. Being a strange child I took great delight in staring at people as they walked past, hoping to get a horrified look and a quickened pace from passers by as they spotted by infection ridden face.

The doctor confirmed that I had chicken pox and I was consigned to my home for two weeks. At this stage I felt absolutely fine and the only thing amiss was the rather unattractive spots all over my body. 'This is great' I thought, 'Two weeks off school when I am ill and I feel fine!' However, my jubilation was short-lived.

By the next day I was in immense discomfort. I had a fever, I couldn't sleep, my head heart but the worst thing was the itching. My entire body felt as if it needed a damn good scratch. My skin was on fire and the worst of it was I was under strict instructions from my mother not to scratch so that I wouldn't scar. She even lent me some white gloves t
o wear during the night!

I swiftly changed from being a normal 15 year old adolescent to behaving like a 4 year old, demanding attention and aid from my mother at every moment. She used to fill the bath with warm water and sodium bicarbonate and I would lie naked in it (I must have been ill not to care about my mother seeing me nude) with the soothing mixture covering my poor agonised body with nothing but my little face poking above the surface like a dirt spattered iceberg. She would read books to me ('Time Flies' by Bill Cosby as I recall) while I wallowed. The baths while soothing caused my hair to go white and stiff due to the bicarb, which I could not wash out for fear of knocking off scabs. You can now imagine me with stiff white hair and red spots - not an attractive sight.

After the first week the excruciating pain finally passed, although I still had a week's quarantine to go. I was still in discomfort and spent my time reading, drawing and sewing a little cuddly mouse, who was later named Brundle (I made him while watching the Monte Carlo grand prix from my sick bed).

Eventually the time passed and, although some scabs remained I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from me and the terrible discomfort had gone. I bought some Vitamin E oil to dab onto my scabs, as this helps to prevent scarring or at least lessen the severity. I was well again and for the first time ever was actually pleased to go back to school!

THE ILLNESS

Chicken pox is a viral infection which results in a blister-like rash over the body. The spots are up to 10 mm wide with a red base. Bizarrely, chicken pox is so called as it is named after the Latin for chick pea, as people used to think the spots looked like chick peas on the body! The pox can also be accompanied by a fever and the symptoms are normally more severe in an adult than in a child.

After contact with an infected person the incubation period
is 7 - 21 days and the length of the illness itself is up to 10 days in children but longer in adults. The contagiousness of the illness begins 2 days before the spots appear and remains until all the spots have scabbed over.

TREATMENT

The word 'treatment' is not really appropriate; although people with weak immune systems may be prescribed acyclovir, an antiviral medicine, there is no 'cure' and you just have to sweat it out. This is really about easing symptoms.

Bathe, bathe and bathe again! Baths either unadulterated, with sodium bicarbonate or oatmeal can be very soothing and should be taken approximately every 4 hours. Calamine lotion on the body can also reduce the discomfort.

Aspirin should not be used in an attempt to reduce the fever, as it has been associated with the development of Reye Syndrome. Instead acetaminophen can be used.

INFECT YOUR CHILDREN

Chicken pox at the age of 15 was a very unpleasant experience. In younger children the symptoms are much less severe and we have all heard the tales of mothers marching their healthy children round to a chicken pox infected friend's house for them to become infected! In retrospect this does seem like a darned good idea. So, ask around, find a friend or relative with a spotty face, check that it is chicken pox and give your kids a dose of varicella!

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