AIBU? - Out with a child with chickenpox

MawBroonsback
I only quoted that which you said!! In this case what you said is very clearly wrong.

You started your original post with “Oh here we go again, bring out the handbell and intone “Unclean, unclean” which to most people would look like YOU don’t think it is an issue and perhaps having a go at the original poster for being unreasonable?

You may know a bit about immunosuppression however your comment that Paw was not affected does not mean someone else may be seriously affected. Both my dd and dh are immunosuppressed, my husband after transplantation. My friend, who “had” a son who was immunosuppressed and died when he was 21 after contracting Chickenpox, certainly would not have taken your comments well!

You are a gransnetter of some standing, therefore please do NOT just shrug off something like this to others as “Of course everybody can come out with a scare story.”

I quote from the end of your last post — “So I would be grateful not to be demonised with suggestions that I don’t know what I am talking about.”
Over your posts on this thread, you have shown that you do perhaps know something about immunosuppression, with regard to your late dh, but you very clearly are not an expert and understand this topic as a whole!

Therefore please DO NOT accuse me of demonising you when, with respect, in this case you have been shown to be factually incorrect!!!

Totally irresponsible - this happened to me when a friend brought her child out with chicken pox which I hadn't had as a child. Two weeks later I came out in a rash and I was very ill - those spots get everywhere. It took me months to recover and I was only 32 at the time.....

Also in your comment to Jura, “do you jura think that with our medical background I would ever put anybody at risk.”
Your comments alone on here, minimising the risks, may put someone at risk!

fizzers
You are right.

The CDC - Centres For Disease Control and Prevention say www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/transmission.html

"In the past, some parents participated in “chickenpox parties” to intentionally expose their unvaccinated children to a child with chickenpox in hopes that they would get the disease. CDC strongly recommends against hosting or participating in these events. Chickenpox can be serious and can lead to severe complications and death, even in healthy children. There is no way to tell in advance how severe your child’s symptoms will be. So it is not worth taking the chance of exposing your child to someone with the disease. The best way to protect infants and children against chickenpox is to get them vaccinated."

and: "A person with chickenpox is contagious beginning 1 to 2 days before rash onset until all the chickenpox lesions have crusted (scabbed)."

The chickenpox vaccine is not part of the routine UK childhood vaccination programme because chickenpox is usually a mild illness, particularly in children. There's also a worry that introducing chickenpox vaccination for all children could increase the risk of chickenpox and shingles in adults
www.nhs.uk › childrens-health

Chucky Sat 01-Jun-19 13:11:18
^Also in your comment to Jura, “do you jura think that with our medical background I would ever put anybody at risk.”
Your comments alone on here, minimising the risks, may put someone at risk^

Hardly

Chucky. I sympathise with your frustrations.

I hope what I have posted from the CDC: Centre For Disease Control and Prevention webpage about "Chicken pox Parties" especially will help everyone to understand the Official Government Medical Viewpoint.

That is; a contagious person with chicken pox should be avoided. Trying to spread chicken pox from one child to another should be avoided. It can be life-threatening and we do not know which children might be at risk of severe symptoms. The best protection is vaccination.

Chicken pox is dangerous even to non-immunocompromised adults, and even more so to pregnant women. I was having to look after 5 children when my friend went down with it and so ill she was out of action for two weeks. Around the same time (obviously a chicken pox outbreak) another friend got it in the first three months of pregnancy, and her baby was born blind, doctors confirmed this was due to the chicken pox.

Why would you even think of putting people at risk? If you knew you had caused a mother's child to be born blind, how would you feel?

You can give your child fresh air in a garden if they would enjoy it. It is only a week to keep them away. Suppose you are out and your child needs the loo, it would be very irresponsible to take them to a public one.....

Tillybelle

The chickenpox vaccine is not part of the routine UK childhood vaccination programme because chickenpox is usually a mild illness, particularly in children. There's also a worry that introducing chickenpox vaccination for all children could increase the risk of chickenpox and shingles in adults
www.nhs.uk › childrens-health

You can give your child fresh air in a garden if they would enjoy it. It is only a week to keep them away. Suppose you are out and your child needs the loo, it would be very irresponsible to take them to a public one

One year-olds in a buggy or prom generally use nappies- not public loos! .....

Years ago when my sister's children were small, she and BIL came to visit our parents one summer. Both children contracted chicken pox while on that holiday.

I who had had it as a child, caught it again and the rash was horrendous. Worse, a lady we had known since we were born and who was dying of cancer that summer caught it too and managed to infect an entire oncological dept. of the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow.

We were never sure where my nieces contracted the infection, but my sister said she had had both girls with her on a bus where a small child was out in a rash.

Here in Denmark it is measles that is being seen again, even although most children have been inoculated against it.

Perhaps mumps will be next. I have unhappy memories of having mumps for the first time when I was 27.

CDC is the US department of health- not the UK.
Pregnant women are not at risk if they have had chickenpox or shingles.
You can’t catch shingles from chickenpox.
CP is contagious from 48 hours before the rash appears- you may be in contact with it and not know.
Sensible precautions should be taken against all microbes, such as washing hands after using public transport, but if we worried about every chance encounter we would be going about in a constant state of anxiety.

I would have considered chickenpox a mild, childhood illness, but not any more. I know of a case of a 2 year old who got it, and then developed encephalitis. He nearly died, and was left severely brain-damaged. There is also the scarring, usually on face. Many people are left with one or 2 scars, even if they don't scratch.

The best remedy is vaccination. Even though it's not currently part of vaccine regime in UK and Ireland, it is in some other countries, and can be got if paid for privately, which is what I've recommended for my grandchildren. The reasons not to give it routinely are a bit unclear -it doesn't have particularly bad side effects. It seems to be related to some findings that repeated exposure to the virus as an adult may reduce likelihood of shingles. However, the balance of evidence is that vaccination is a good idea. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150811103555.htm

I don't think taking a child with a highly contagious disease into a public place is a great idea! It would just take coughing or sneezing to spread it about and as many posters have said there are various groups who could be very seriously affected by the illness. When my youngest got CP, my young daughter who was receiving treatment had to go to hospital to get 2 painful immunoglobulin injections, one in each thigh to protect her. I got CP when I was in my teens from my dad who had shingles and I was totally covered in them. Not pleasant.

MawBroonsback I do actually know (and work with) many of the nhs guidelines and suspect my current medical knowledge may be a tad more up to date than yours? Please stop trying to justify your earlier posts.

In order to ensure my knowledge and research is correct and up to date I often refer to NICE guidelines, which in case you aren’t aware are “based on current evidence-based national guidance and advice to improve health and social care in England” and written with considerably more knowledge and research than you or I have accessed! They do state that - “Immunocompromised people with chickenpox are at increased risk of developing complications (such as pneumonia, encephalitis, hepatitis, and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy) as a result of varicella zoster virus affecting their internal organs [CDC, 2016].”
There are also guidelines for other category of person with ref. to Chickenpox!

I can give you a link to these extremely important guidelines, which every health practitioner in England should refer to, if you wish??

Maw, Accept that you have been wrong and given out poor advice, a much better trait than continuing to try to push your flawed ideals.
Even I can be wrong occasionally, though not on this occasion!

Maw, Accept that you have been wrong and given out poor advice, a much better trait than continuing to try to push your flawed ideals

I have not given advice.
My “ideals”, whatever you may think they are, are my own business.
What makes you think you do know more than anybody else or that your knowledge is more “up to date”?
And finally, what is your objection to my taking a 15 month old toddler grandson round a large park in a buggy with, as it happened a muslin draped over the hood to protect him from the sun, and nowhere near anybody else ? ?
Everyone’s an expert it seems

DoraMarr I notice you point out that “CDC is the US department of health- not the UK.” Their guidance was very helpfully posted by Tillybelle.

However, I am unaware if you know that CDC guidelines on this topic are referred to as relevant to us in our very important NICE Guidelines. See my previous post.

grandtanteJE65. I am so sorry to hear that bad news - to hear that measles is back. I am particularly upset by it being in Denmark as my knowledge of your country gives me great respect for the well educated and responsible attitude of the Danes. Measles is very nasty.

Chucky. Many thanks.

Back to OP- about a child taken into a busy café, touching surfaces where food is served/eaten ... not in a large park, isolated from rest of population.

OH's advice, after 50 years qualified as Medic- says children should be kept separate until spots have crusted over, in busy public places. And he is not an 'old wife' ;)

I think not giving the CP vaccine routinely is being done for cost reasons. Not many people know it can be done privately. I’ve seen it advertised in some pharmacies.

DoraMarr. You make the very wise point that we can't go about being scared of germs, especially in this case that Chicken Pox is contagious two days before the rash. Usually at this stage though the person feels ill and has a runny nose etc.

Having accepted that we are not unduly frightened of germs and that we do live normal lives, the point the OP fizzers makes is:

he had full blown chickenpox - had only been diagnosed with it yesterday. and she said -
I don't need to be developing shingles.

In this case, the one we are talking about, (not about walking round a park with a child in a buggy,) but
meeting up for coffee,
so in a public café or restaurant,
I am in complete agreement with fizzers.

I think her sister and BIL were extremely thoughtless to say the least. Had I seen this child I would have left the café. I get shingles. It is extremely painful, makes me very ill and on top of the other disabilities I have, it makes me unable to cope as I live alone. I am just one person this child's infectious state could have a bad effect upon. I know there are many others. I said they were thoughtless, but I would add, extremely selfish and thick-skinned. I would also have thought the poor child would have been better off at home. I remember having chicken pox at the same time as my older sister. We were very poorly. I remember lying on the sofa downstairs in my nighty and Brown Owl bringing us oranges! I remember feeling too ill to get off the sofa.

jura2 I love that! He's not an old wife!!

A bit off the subject - sorry - I took my (then) two daughters to Hever Castle. My smaller one aged about 6 had nicely dried and crusted - hence not infectious - ugly blobs of chicken pox scabs all over her face, arms, all bits of skin on show. Every time we went into a new room it would suddenly empty!!
Lesson: to get a place to yourself take a child with crusty scabs on them with you!

No, we cannot go around being scared of germs BUT a bit of common sense and old fashioned good manners should come into play. Taking a child with CP into a public café is silly and selfish of the adult in charge. Sometimes you just have to cancel and stay at home, yes its annoying but as a society we should have a care for the other people around.
The whole scenario reminds me of the time I ran a Pre School and a parent would turn up with a bleary eyed child who had obviously been up half the night saying 'he wanted to come'. On further investigation you find the poor little thing had been sick half the night or worse.
All that was really happening was the parent needed rid of the child and you were 'It'.
Once we had firm rules from Social Services (with whom we had to be registered) we could quote chapter and verse, smile apologetically and just say NO! I got thoroughly sick of being seen as the bad guy for turning these children away so having it all in writing was a blessing. Its not a case of being superior (as some saw it) or being over cautious....if there are general guidelines demanded by the organisations that sanctioned our group (and my job) then I had to abide by them.
We cant all go around being totally selfish - its about thinking of other people and living our lives as we want but also bearing in mind other people should have the same rights we have.