How Do You Fake Chicken Pox?

Chicken Pox- 1 vaccinated child has mild case, how long contagious and is other vaccinated child contagious?

• 9 year old daughter has chicken pox, despite receiving vaccinations. Mild case, less than 50 lesions only on trunk (thankfully not on arms, legs, face, etc..), no fever, on acyclovir within 24 hours. Her pox are not scabbing, more like healing nicely. It has been almost 72 hours since her pox appeared. Couple of questions- How long is she considered contagious? Is her 13 year old sister, who was also vaccinated, also considered contagious, and does she need to remain away from others? Also, do kids with chicken pox need to remain out of the sun? My mother, who is very old school, said back in the day, it was thought to be very dangerous for kids to be in the sun with chicken pox. Thank you for your input, my kids are going stir crazy inside, had to cancel my 9 year olds birthday party, which was to be today.. Thank you..

• Answer:

  Your nine year old will be contagious until the last pox dries and scabs over. With the acyclovir they may actually just fade away, too. To be safest for others though, until the last pox is either gone or scabbed, she should stay out of general company. The sister doesn't need to remain isolated, either. As far as the sunlight issue, the reason for recommending children with chicken pox stay out of sunlight is because the skin is more sensitive to being sunburned, but primarily because sunlight tends to make the child hot and sweaty- which in turn makes them itch more. It wouldn't be a good time to sunbathe or work on a tan, but you don't have to black the house out either. You may still be able to rescue part of the party, though. Any of the friends who have had chicken pox, or have been vaccinated should be immune. There are of course vaccination failures, you have living evidence of that- but for the most part the shot does work. Your daughter was also shedding the virus for 2-3 days before the first pox showed up, so some of her friends were no doubt already exposed. You could always phone up a few friends and speak with their parents to see if you could get a few willing to join in cheering up your daughter. Sorry to hear she got the darn pox in spite of the shot, but still glad to hear it's been a mildish case. Maybe you can still rescue some of the birthday.