Chickenpox (varicella)
Chickenpox is a mild and common childhood illness, but can also occur in adults.
Chickenpox is a mild and common childhood illness.
Cool baths, loose comfortable clothes and calamine lotion can all ease the itchiness from chickenpox.
It causes a rash of red, itchy spots that turn into fluid-filled blisters. They then crust over to form scabs, which eventually drop off.
Your child is likely to have a fever at least for the first few days of the illness and the spots can be incredibly itchy, so expect them to feel pretty miserable and irritable while they have chickenpox.
Some children have only a few spots, but in others they can cover the entire body.
The spots are most likely to appear on the face, ears and scalp, under the arms, on the chest and belly and on the arms and legs.
The incubation period for chickenpox is between one and three weeks. The most infectious time is between one and two days before the rash appears, but it continues to be infectious until all the blisters have crusted over.
There is no specific treatment for chickenpox, but there are medicines and pharmacy products which can help alleviate symptoms, such as:
paracetamol to relieve fever
calamine lotion and cooling gels to ease itching.
In most children, the blisters crust up and fall off naturally within one to two weeks.
Adults who have had chickenpox as a child may also get shingles later in life, as they are both caused by the virus varicella zoster.