Chicken Pox Symptoms

If you get chicken pox symptoms, the most important thing to remember is not to scratch.  Cut your fingernails down to nothing so even if you do give into temptation you won’t be able to do much damage.

This is the most important treatment for chicken pox since scratching will dramatically slow down the healing process.  When one scratches the blisters and sores and rash that develop with chicken pox symptoms, the wounds get broken open.  They can then get infected and then you have a whole new problem on top of the already terrible condition you are in as a result of battling chicken pox symptoms.

When you scratch the rash, you can also do some permanent damage in the form of scarring.  This is all good and well  if you are an adult: you can try and make yourself stop scratching.

However, if you are trying to treat a child or infant with chicken pox, it may seem impossible to stop them from scratching.  Again, the nail clippers are your most important weapon.  Clim ‘em!

You can even make your child wear gloves at night in bed so if they try and scratch in their sleep it will just be some glove cloth rubbing over the wounds rather than a nail, stubby as it may be from clipping.

Most symptoms of chicken pox are not noticeable so it is difficult to diagnose in babies and small children until the rash shows up.  If your infant or toddler get chicken pox you may notice at first that he or she is irritable or crying buy you won’t know why.  After all, a small child isn’t going to be able to tell you he or she has abdominal pain or loss of appetite.

Here are the other symptoms of chicken pox, so that if you do suspect this disease you can check for them.  Usually someone suspects chicken pox if the infant has been around someone who has chickenpox.  That’s because it’s highly contagious and often goes unnoticed for two to three weeks before someone figures out he or she has it.

Symptoms of Chicken Pox

• dry cough
• headache
• fever
• abdominal pain
• loss of appetite
• irritable
• red itchy rash that looks like insect bites

If your child is healthy there’s probably not much to worry about since it is usually mild in healthy children.

Chickenpox is caused by a virus and is most common in children.  However if the virus is not contracted in childhood, adult chicken pox symptoms can occur.  It’s very contagious, so adults should take caution around infected children since the virus can be spread easily.  Chickenpox in adults is more serious.  It can even be fatal in adults.

The symptoms of chicken pox don’t appear until the person has already been infected for two to three weeks.  That’s bad news for everyone around that person because basically it means he or she has been running around coughing and sneezing on everyone, possibly spreading the virus.  It is an airborne disease.

Adult chicken pox symptoms include a very high fever.  There are headaches, sore throat, ear pain, swollen face, itching, and nausea.  There is a strong feeling of discontent or “feeling off” in adult cases…perhaps because of the fever.  It’s termed malaise and is described as feeling out of  sorts, a feeling of discomfort.

These symptoms will be noticeable in adults who have chicken pox before the tell-tale rash shows up.  In children, the rash may be the first chicken pox symptoms to show up since they may not express the other signs to you.

Sometimes adult chicken pox symptoms are actually shingles, which is a related condition.

The first sign of chicken pox is an itchy rash.  Really itchy!  It’s usually on your face or chest (or both) but you can also have an itchy back. Itchiness is probably the most common chicken pox symptom.

Extremely itchy.

How to know if you are suffering symptoms of chicken pox

1. in addition to itchy rash, you have a high fever
2. you might also have a dry cough and a headache
3. your mind will play tricks on you and you will feel very uneasy and irrational…especially in adults.  EXTREME CRANKINESS, which is really fun to witness in toddlers.
4. not hungry

What Are the other symptoms of chicken pox?

1. The itchy areas will develop a rash, so it will look like you were attacked by mosquitos.  These red bumps will break out in various places on your body.  This takes several days.
2. A blister will form on each red bump.  Blisters will be filled with fluid.
3. A day after the blisters form, they will break and the fluid will leak out.  This is one of the more unpleasant symptoms of chicken pox.  It looks terrible.
4. The blisters will heal and then they will be scabs.  Now you look even more horrific.
5. Now you just wait until the scabs heal…several more days…perhaps a week
6. But wait!  You can get whole new waves of red bumps (step one) while your first wave is healing.  You can have bumps, blisters, and scabs all at the same time! Awesome.

What if an adult has symptoms of chicken pox?

As terrible as they symptoms of chicken pox sound, they are even worse in adults.  It’s better to get chicken pox when one is a child.  It’s pretty serious to get chicken pox as an adult, not to mention lifestyle dampening.

What other terrible things do i need to know about chicken pox?

• Lesions can even appear in dark corners of the body such as throat, eyes and anus.
• It’s so contagious someone with chicken pox should not be around other people until the nightmare is over.