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Chicken pox in my PANDAS child


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My 7 yo PANDAS son was diagnosed with chicken pox this morning. I am anticipating my 2 and 5 yo will also get it. I was wondering if anyone's PANDAs child has had chicken pox, and if so, did they have a big flare up of PANDAS symptoms? My daughter had shingles two years ago when she was 10 and I did see an increase in tics, but not a huge increase. I am wondering what to expect and I am very concerned and worried about him. He is now on Zithromax 125 mg per day. I am afraid his pox will get infected with strep and the complications that could arise from that.

Thanks in advance for any info or input!

Colleen

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Colleen,

 

I don't think that you want your son on anti biotics while he's fighting chicken pox. From memory here, the anti biotic will affect the cells that clean up the dead cells as the varicella die off. Also, you want a low protein diet or as many liquids as possible so the liver can work to detoxify the dying virus (you don't want it busy digesting food). No steroids (if at all possible...don't know what you do with an asmatic child) or Nsaids either.

 

You can probably do a search of why the "no antibiotic during chicken pox" rule, unless there is a secondary bacterial infection for a better explanation than what I gave.

 

Selenium

Vit A

no or extremely low protein were rec to me, if the boys got CP

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My 7 yo PANDAS son was diagnosed with chicken pox this morning. I am anticipating my 2 and 5 yo will also get it. I was wondering if anyone's PANDAs child has had chicken pox, and if so, did they have a big flare up of PANDAS symptoms? My daughter had shingles two years ago when she was 10 and I did see an increase in tics, but not a huge increase. I am wondering what to expect and I am very concerned and worried about him. He is now on Zithromax 125 mg per day. I am afraid his pox will get infected with strep and the complications that could arise from that.

Thanks in advance for any info or input!

Colleen

 

If he's already on the zith, chances are his pox won't get infected with strep. It's true that viruses bring about an immune response just like bacterial infections do (my daughter seems to react more to viruses than strep). But, I'm finding from reading these posts that every child here is so different in what they react to and what works for them, and it may be that although it will bring on an immune response, maybe it won't be huge. Was he having any PANDAS symptoms before the pox - or was he in kind of a remission period? It seems like some triggers bring about a stronger reaction than others - depending on the child so it would be really hard for anybody to speculate how he's going to react. Pat

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Thank you for all your responses. I remember something about antibiotics making chicken pox worse or somehow negatively affecting someone with chickenpox. I could only find limited info, but it looks like antibiotics can increase the chances of a secondary infection when a child has chicken pox. He has been on Zithromax for about 1 1/2 months. He last week switched from 250mg/day to 125mg/day. I do not know if I should stop the antibiotics if they will indeed make the chicken pox worse. OR should I be more concerned about him getting strep in I stop the antibiotics. I am not sure what to do.

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Colleen,

 

Wondering how your son is doing and what you decided to do about the anti biotic?

 

I had a little time to read thru the articles that I posted (2nd one anyway) and I was wondering if diluted apple cider vinegar would do anything to keep strep away from itcy pox?

 

Does anyone have any good remedies for that?

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my son with PANDAS ( in remission on abx) recently was really sick with influenza ( tested +) temp 103 x 3days

he did not have any sx of PANDAS with this illness-- which makes me even more certain strep is his trigger--for him

 

I was actually happy he acted just like anyone else with the flu-- miserable but no OCD, no tics....

 

good luck hope it is a mild case

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Thanks for everyones responses. I decided to stop giving him the Zithromax a few days ago and will restart it in a week or so. He is doing really well so far and it seems like a fairly mild case. i am more worried about the upcoming weeks as my 2 and 5 year olds get it b/c i have read that the first sibling that contracts chicken pox has a milder case and the siblings being exposed all day/everyday get a worse case. Anyone experienced that? So far I have not seen an increase in PANDAS stuff.

Colleen

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Hi colleen,

 

I'm just wondering if you 7 year old ever had the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine? What about your younger children?

 

If he was vaccinated, is it possible that your son actually has shingles and not chicken pox? My friend's twins got "chicken pox" about 18 mo. apart when they were 8 or 9. My friend thought it was interesting that they weren't so contagious (like shingles!), they didn't pass it to each other. When I asked her more about it she said "oh yes, it was pretty mild and only on one part of the body."....okay, so that actually sounds like Shingles to me! Incidentally, both girls had varicella vax at 1 year.

 

My 5 year old got also got Shingles last spring...confirmed by derm. (She had var. vax at 1 year). But I wonder how many peds out there are diagnosing chicken pox when it's actually Shingles? I understand they are seeing more shingles in children now b/c of the vaccine...

 

Just a thought...if your kids never got the chicken pox vaccine then go ahead and disregard my theory!

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EAMom,

Only my 12 year old got the varicella vaccine when she was one and got shingles at age ten. My three sons have not been vacicnated. I hope I am not jumping the gun in saying it is a mild case, but we first saw spots last Thurs., so today is day 5 of getting spots. The weird thing is a ot of them are just red bumps and not turning into blisters. There is another girl in his class diagnosed the same day with chicken pox. So far, we don't know where they got it though.

Thanks,

Colleen

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