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Adult experience with chickenpox

Adult experience with chickenpox

In the 1980s, when our children were very young, we had a live-in nanny from the Phillipines to look after them.  Anna (not her real name) was about 25 years old at the time. Being the gregarious person she was, Anna quickly made friends in the community. While visiting a family with their own young school-age children, she was exposed to chickenpox. As we know from doing the quizzes, adults can have up to 500 blisters. We didn't count Anna's blisters, but she had them in her nose, vagina, and ears as well as all over most of her body. Fortunately, with oatmeal baths and antihistamines we were able to keep Anna somewhat comfortable and she had no complications, except some scarring. She was very lucky.  

 

Last modified: 
Oct 26, 2017

Comments

We often forget that while ChickenPox has tended to be a childhood disease in North American, it is not the same situation in countries like the Philippines, where many people reach adulthood without exposure to the disease. When they come to North American they are more susceptible to getting the disease, which as the previous writer pointed out, can be very severe, and even more so in adulthood. Having our children immunized against this disease reduces the amount of wild disease circulating, and to which susceptible adults could be exposed.