I've not been able to post for a while. For some reason my access details became not valid but now all of a sudden they are OK.
All of the information given on this site has been brilliant. Thank you everyone. I've slowly gone from 15mg pred to 8mg that I take at between midnight and 1am which makes me almost pain free, but the fatigue has had the biggest effect on my life.
My current problem is one of my grandchildren, who we visit frequently, has been in contact with a case of chickenpox. I've been looking online and can't really judge the risk, seems to go from no risk to serious depending on the site visited. Should I actively avoid contact and if so, for how long?
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Trainy
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Chickenpox is infectious from 2 days before the spots appear, until they have all crusted over – usually 5 days after they first appeared.
Did you have chicken pox as a child yourself - if so you could reactivate the dormant virus and get shingles - very unpleasant and certainly not recommended when on steroids.
I did not know you could get shingles from chicken pox exposure😨 . I knew you could get chicken pox from exposure to shingles lesions if you'd never had chicken pox before. Now that Shingrix is being made available in the UK people should get it.
But you can't trigger shingles by exposure to someone else's chicken pox? So wouldn't Trainy be okay seeing her chicken-pocked grandkids as she's had chicken pox?
See PMRpro response to Trainy….and comment above “when you get CP the virus remains in the body….”As she immune compromised the CP virus can be reactivated - and cause shingles.
Personally in her situation wouldn’t take the risk.
But... where does it ever say it can be reactivated by someone else's infection? Everything I could find on line says it's one's own system which reactivates it, from stress, or whatever.....
Is there a a study showing that a person can get shingles from being exposed to someone else's chicken pox infection?
But meeting the CP virus again when you have a compromised immune system could be enough to upset the immune system and trigger the reactivation of the virus causing shingles
I've looked and looked and nowhere can I find a statement that exposure to someone else's chicken pox infection can reactivate the virus in your body. I have seen several statements that you cannot catch shingles, it is the reactivation of the virus in your own body from previous infection, and stress is often cited as the trigger, not a new exposure to the virus. Even when being immunocompromised is mentioned as a risk factor it is only as a risk for your own resident virus acting up.
However, are you and DorsetLady saying that you might catch a new case of chicken pox from someone else as there are rare instances of people having chicken pox more than once?
No -, not saying that at all, but any virus could upset the balance. All that happens when you are immune is that you don't develop the disease but the virus can still circulate in the body and poke at a compromised immune system.
Hi HeronNS I’m thinking the same as you-although I get really confused with the whole chickenpox/shingles thing.Before going on methotrexate they checked my antibodies and definitely had chicken pox ( I can remember the itch and misery so I was positive I had had it as a child anyway) I know shingles can be reactivated but I wasn’t sure if exposure to chicken pox would do it? Rather than some stress individual to yourself? I’m happy to be corrected though.
All I can find is the mention of stress, no one really knows why shingles occurs. It does seem, from what I read (obviously not detailed medical literature, just general health info) that you can only get shingles from the pre-existing virus in your body. I suppose from an abundance of caution one might want to avoid sick people no matter what their illness is, but CP isn't any more of a risk than any other illness might be. But what do I know?
Okay, I have found the answer to the question. It is not shingles you are likely to come down with after exposure to someone else's chicken pox, but the very slight chance you will have chicken pox a second time especially if you are immune compromised. So this whole discussion has been at cross purposes. Sorry, Trainy , DorsetLady and PMRpro !
The incubation period is usually taken to be 10-21 days after the exposure so if they have caught it they are likely to be most infectious from a week after exposure until all the blisters are scabbed over. You are at greater risk of getting it if you didn't have it as a child - but there is also the risk of singles developing if the virus is reactivated.
It can be really severe in adults even when healthy - but I think it is probably worth speaking to your GP to get antiviral medication to have handy in case either CP or shingles show signs of developing, you need to take them immediately. But I would also avoid the family until all of them have worked through the incubation periods. Sounds harsh - but my brother was really unwell when he got CP in his 30s from a work colleague.
I have decided reluctantly to avoid contact for a couple of weeks to see how it goes. The local schools are also having covid outbreaks regularly with some temporarily closed until the children, including 2 of my other grandchildren, have had a PCR test.
This concerns me too as I pick up our four year old grandson from school and so am in (playground, outside) contact with quite a few children. I have my flu vaccine booked but I can only get the Shingrix, for the moment, a few days before that, due to limited appointments…..and it isn’t recommended to have them so close together. So now I need to decide whether to put off the flu jab in favour of Shingrix 🤷♀️
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