Questions for moms whose kids have had chicken pox after having the vaccine.

[npmommie]

my ds has a little cold, today he said he has a "bug bite" on his belly, i checked and there was one little bump that looked like a mosquito bite, well he just came over to show me again and now there are 7 of them.
they don't have fluid, look more like mosquito bites, little red raised bumps.
a little itchy. they don't look like hives to me.
so I am wondering if anyones child has had the pox even if they had the vaccine and what it looked like?
this doesn't look typical to me, but since so many have appeared in a short time I am wondering.

 

[happily single]

This was a while ago (9 years) but the same thing happened to my ds. He got the shot and 7 days later the bumps showed up. It was a very mild case though.

 

[lemondog]

my ds has a little cold, today he said he has a "bug bite" on his belly, i checked and there was one little bump that looked like a mosquito bite, well he just came over to show me again and now there are 7 of them.
they don't have fluid, look more like mosquito bites, little red raised bumps.
a little itchy. they don't look like hives to me.
so I am wondering if anyones child has had the pox even if they had the vaccine and what it looked like?
this doesn't look typical to me, but since so many have appeared in a short time I am wondering.

That is EXACTLY what DD's chicken pox looked like. She was 7yo and had been vaccinated. My pedi told me that chicken pox in vaccinated children looks very different than chicken pox in unvaccinated children...they are small bumps, reddish and itchy, but not hive-like and don't have the oozy centers that crust like actual chicken pox.

Anyway, she got a handful of bumps on her back, then they were gone in a few days. No fever and she never really even acted sick.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

Both of my boys had the chicken pox vaccine when they were 18 months old and both ended up getting it several years later. Because they had the vaccine, they both got milder cases than if they didn't have it. Your son's symptoms could be chicken pox, but you should check with your doctor to be sure.

By the way, about a year ago I took my boys for physicals and the doctor was reviewing their vaccine records. She said they've started giving a 2nd dose of the chicken pox vaccine because they were finding that lots of kids were getting it after one dose. I told her they both had chicken pox already so she didn't give them the 2nd dose.

 

[Tinker'n'Fun]

DS had a mild case after the vaccine. I would check though with the dr. to see if you can do Benadryl though. DS also gets hives from the cold weather and I swear they look exactly the same.

 

[Hoodie]

FWIW - you can get chicken pox twice and can get it after the vaccine. When the developed the vaccine (and while I was growing up) it was assumed that if you got chicken pox, you were immune. Same logic applied to the vaccine. Now that the vaccine has been in widespread use for so many years, they've discovered that it was constant exposure to the virus that made us "immune" after our first bout, not catching the disease itself.

The vaccine has caused a reduced occurence of the virus, but that means we aren't exposed as frequently as in the past so our immune response weakens to it after awhile. Hence, after a few years, we can catch the virus again. That's why they are now giving booster shots. It's also why there has been a huge increase in shingles.

I find the chicken pox vaccine story fascinating. Here's something they thought would solve a widespread childhood illness and instead they ended up discovering that they really didn't know that much about the virus AND inadvertently caused a huge spike in a different illness.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

My DD - 6 at the time, had a very mild case after the vaccine. She showed me a red bump on her forehead and told me it was itchy. I asked her if anyone was sick in school, she said, "Yes, Jennie (her friend) has the chicken pox". She had a total of 5 spots and only one had the classic fluid in the middle, and she was diagnosed based on that. She wasn't sick at all and the spots resolved very quickly. Curiously, her twin brother, who had the vaccine at the same time and was in the same class, played with DD, etc, never got them. IIR, I'm supposed to get him revaccinated, but they said DD wouldn't need to be since she had the illness after the vaccine. It is interesting.

 

[stm61]

I chose not to get my kids the vaccine but a friend had her twin ds's vacinated. Identical twins, got the shot the same time, from the same lot #. A few years later one got a severe case of chicken pox, twin got nothing. Guess it just works better for some kids then others. My older kids all had the disease, none of the younger ones have. If they haven't had it before starting college I'll consider getting it then, at least for the boys.

 

[Mrsduck101]

My dd (now 13!) had a very similar case. She had the shot, but when the chicken pox went through her first grade class her and several other of the kids who had the shot got these very mild cases. I guess it is pretty common, especially when it goes through a classroom/school.

 

[npmommie]

No more bumps have appeared, still just the 7 of them
well at least it is a mild case if it is the pox.

 

[PatsGirl]

I had the same experience with DD ~ in fact, I had shingles at the same time

 

[Buckalew11]

DD had the vaccine at 18 months. At 3, she got a mild case of CP, about 13 spots. Then, at about 7 she had a mild case again, around 20 bumps.

Hoodie, I didn't realize all that info. I'm pretty terrified of shingles. I had a mild case after GWB's 2nd win, but my mom has had 2 bad cases and got the shingles vaccine this week. So many people I know have had them and say it is just so horrible (as in "If I ever get them again I will shoot myself). Makes me want to get the shingles vaccine.

 

[Green Tea]

We had a documented infection. The flatish bumps did eventually develop a small bit of a fluid center, but very little and the total number of bumps was very small. But they did break out quickly. From one to 3 to whatever during the course of several periods at school.

 

[SaraJayne]

No more bumps have appeared, still just the 7 of them
well at least it is a mild case if it is the pox.

DS had the varicella vaccine as an infant (it was still fairly new back in 1997) and when he was in 3rd grade, he got the chicken pox.

But he only had 11 pox total, all on his trunk and back. Thankfully, he had a very minor case. Wasn't sick and we gave him some benadryl to control the itching.

He's since had the booster.

 

[minkydog]

All three of my kids have had chicken pox. DS23 had the full blown pox and was very ill for a week. DS14 & DD16 had the vaccine. DS14 developed a very mild case of chicken pox a year later. He never missed a beat--no fever, no crying, ate and drank just fine. If you didn't look under his shirt you would have never known. DD16 broke out about 6 years after her vaccine. Hers looked almost like mild acne at first and it never looked very bad. She didn't run a fever either, just had to stay home from school until it ran it's course. She was bored.

Both DH and I have had chicken pox. Last year, DH woke me up to look at a "boo-boo" on his back. It didn't erally look like much, but by morning he had a string of them--classic shingles! He was so miserable for about 6 weeks! I'm not old enough to get the shingles vaccine yet, but you can believe that I *will* be lined up to get it as soon as I can.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

DS got the vaccine when he was 15 mos. old, so that would have been 1997. When he was in 2nd grade he broke out with spots that looked like mosquito bites, starting on his belly. We called the pediatrician and based on what I described they were pretty sure it was chicken pox. In the end he had probably 80-100 pox.

Our Dr. did not recommend the booster vaccine later on because DS had already had actual pox. In a school of 900 kids DS was the only case they knew about. I am QUITE certain there were other kids who had it, but the parents either didn't know or didn't report it.