Title says it all, really. My 14 year old son just came home from school with little red crusty spots all over his torso, back, and legs; he says they started appearing Sunday morning and have been getting worse since then. He had chicken pox when he was 18 months old (he had them baaaad, too) and I always thought that once you’d had them once you were immune. Was I wrong, or is he being colonized by some kind of alien fungus?
You can get them twice, though it’s not very common. It happened to my brother.
(And I never got them. Ha!)
(I love this board. Three minutes from post to answer.)
Well, blast. You learn something new every day. I honestly thought it was a one-time thing and then you got to live the rest of your life oozy-itch free. Now I know: Any one of us could be next!
You can also get shingles (same virus). Tho I’ve heard the a bad case of chicken pox generally means an easier case of shingles.
brian
I believe (someone more knowledgable (QtM) may correct me on this) that it’s not so much getting chicken pox a second time as it is the initial infection re-emerging and coming out of dormancy. Perhaps the first time he got it his immune system was not as good as it could have been, and didn’t defeat the virus as well as others’ immune systems. As such, several years later, the virus came out of the spinal cord (that IS where it resides, yes?) to wreak havok once again. And since it’s (I think) the same virus he had when he got it before, he didn’t catch it from any other kid. Although he is probably contagious, so it would be best to keep him home from school until he’s healed.
A quick follow-up question:
I never had chicken pox (neither did my older brother) so at age…13? I got the vaccine (he got it as well, but was 17 at the time.) I seem to remember hearing that the vaccine was relatively new (I am 22 (almost 23) now, so this was 9-10 years ago.))
a) Was it newish at the time (or perhaps a new version of it?) and,
b) is there enugh data on it to be sure I’ll never get chicken pox myself? What about shingles? I’m fairly certain that shingles is just (as before) an older virus resurfacing, so I assume if I can’t get the pox, I can’t get that?
How do you know that what he has now are chicken pox?
BTW I’ve had shingles, as described above, same virus but it’s not like chicken pox. It’s rather localized, you get some rash but not red spots all over, and it’s rather painful. And you normally don’t get it until middle age or so. Probably not what your son has.
I’ve had “chicken pox” three times, diagnosed by three different Drs who all said the previous Dr(s) was wrong.
Suffice it to say, there’s a really good chance that I have had chicken pox three times, and the first two times were too mild to provide anysort of immunity (the third case was a doozie.)
In biology, there’s no such thing as 100%. Every rule has exceptions. So, yes, reinfection happens. Especially since, in your son’s case, he was only 18 months old the first time - probably not old enough to develop a really good immune response.
I think it resides in the individual nerves, and then comes back down if it never was completely under control.
Well, we went to the doctor this morning. She believes he stumbled into a nest of chiggers, especially after hearing that he spent the whole day Saturday in the woods, and that my mother, last night, told me she had the same stuff on her arms.
“I thought chigger bites usually only showed up on the ankles and legs? Maybe around the waist under your pants elastic?” I said “I’ve never seen chigger bites on someone’s belly and back.”
“It’s not too common, but I’ve seen it before,” she said. “If he stepped in a whole nest of them…” leaving me with the lovely image of hundreds and hundreds of teeny-tiny little bugs swarming all over my child’s body and sinking their little fangs into him. Ew.
Oh, sure, chiggars will get you anywhere. They are more common under waistbands and such, but they’ll get you anywhere.
I always understood that getting chicken pox at a very young age (like, 18 months) usually did not confer later immunity–as someone said, you don’t develop enough antibodies or something.
Chiggers are pure evil. I’ve had them many times before, and they’re insidious. Enough bites does start to look like a rash. One time, as a kid, my friend and I came across a huge pile of pine straw and decided to play in it. Bad idea.
My best friend got chicken pox twice - once at age 6 and the second time at age 30. My mom got chicken pox as a child and then the shingles at age 57. I’ve never seen someone in so much pain from a non-deadly disease as she was with the shingles. Man alive would I not wish that on anyone!