Chicken pox post liver transplant? ... - Children's Liver ...
Chicken pox post liver transplant? Has anyone suffered from chicken pox post liver transplant & if so is anyone able to share experiences?
Hi my son had it twice.... once they start treatment then its not as bad as we were warned...
make sure they check immunity levels every 6-12 months as it can drop... hence why he got it twice
Hi thanks for letting me know. My son is 5 year old (had a transplant 3 years ago) and on his second day of iv aciclovir. We will check his immunity levels thanks.
Can you recall how long he needed the treatment for (I appreciate every case may be different).
Thanks!
My son, Luke, had the chicken pox vaccine 2 months before his transplant and had his bloods checked for antibodies a year or so after transplant. He had the antibodies in his blood so should not have had chicken pox but a year later did catch it. It was a mild dose but I think he was in hospital for about 5 days not because of the severity but because of the IV antibiotics. He hasn't had it since and that was about 12 years ago. Hope your son is doing well and doesn't catch it again. I have always asked the school to let me know when chicken pox or any other infectious disease is circulating at school just so I know to look out for the signs and can respond quickly.
My daughter had a transplant 3 years ago and I've been paranoid about her catching chicken pox ever since. She did have a chicken pox vacine before transplant, but unfortunately it didn't give her the antibodies she needed. Her nursery have been excellent at letting us know immediately someone comes down with chicken pox (which seemed to be every few weeks) and she was put on aciclovir many times. The hospital eventually said that they didn't want her to have another course of aciclovir as each time we were using it it ran the risk of reducing its effectiveness when/if we needed to use it for another infection. We did try to arrange for her to get the injection available to stop her getting chicken pox, but as it has to be given very quickly after contact and our local hospital always seemed unable to meet the deadline for her to have it. She only received the injection once and that was after a mad dash to get the injection at a larger hospital. Needless to say she did eventually catch chicken pox. However I've never known anyone to be so well with it! This may have been because she caught it at the end of the cover provided by the injection. When she got chicken pox we did go into hospital and she was put on iv acicolvir over night, but we were sent home on oral aciclovir instead. I did find it quite confusing when calling for advice as every doctor and nurse has a different opinion on what we needed to do when she came in contact with Chicken pox. Advice varied from dropping everything and going up to our local to be put on iv aciclovir immediately, to doing nothing and waiting to see if she got chicken pox. This was highlighted and the hosptial said they are examining their protocol to offer more standard advice. My daughter now has antibodies to chicken pox and we've been told she will be checked regularly to ensure they remain.
My daughter is 2 years post transplant and 2.5 years old. She never had the vaccine as she was too young for it before transplant. She had known exposure to the chicken pox last year and had the VZig immunoglobulin injection and never developed the pox.
3 weeks ago she came out in the spots, no known exposure but it's pretty rife locally. We managed to get her to our local hospital and on iv acyclovir within hours which seemed to stop the spots in their tracks. The spots never spread further than her trunk and she stayed really well. Spent 3 days on iv then 4 days on oral acyclovir and we escaped home after 4 days.
I was really worried how well she would cope with it but she was fine! it was more difficult to keep her entertained in isolation than anything else. We were told we might have to wait 2-3 months before we can check her titre levels in the blood to see if she mounted an immune response herself or whether the meds did all the hard work, fingers are crossed she might have immunity now.
Hope you son had a smooth time getting over it too,
