Little shot saves us the trouble of chicken pox

Children can be immunised against chicken pox from the age of one. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

It was an agonising week, most of which I spent in a daze.

The cycle would start with chills, my whole body shaking uncontrollably as the fever rose steadily to 40 degrees Celsius, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

My whole body was on fire, my tongue so dry it stuck to my palate, my head pounded like an orchestra and the itch, oh the itch! My fingers would absolutely not obey any command from my brain and I scratched like I was demon-possessed.

They said calamine lotion would relieve it. They lied! They said piriton combined with cetirizine was the magic bullet.

They lied! Nothing worked! The only relief I would get was from standing in the freezing shower and turning into a lump of ice.

Just when I would begin to fall asleep, the warmth would wash over me under the covers and I would start to itch again.

The cycle would repeat every three hours. I had blister-like rashes all over my face and body.

NOT EVEN MY LEGS WERE SPARED

Not even my legs were spared. I had rashes on the inside of my mouth. Eating was a luxury.

They taught us (in medical school) that chicken-pox in adulthood was far worse than in childhood. They forgot to tell us it was a hellish experience.

I was concluding my paediatric rotation as an excitable, energetic intern, when I was asked to review a five-year-old in the paediatric emergency department.

Her parents brought her in with complaints of runny nose, cough and fever. She also had a fine rash on her neck.

Chickenpox was the last thing on my mind and I didn’t mind too much when she coughed in my face.

Having spent three months with children, my immunity was just great. I wasn’t moved by a minor cold.

Three days later, on a Monday morning, I turned up in the ward with huge swollen neck glands.

Everyone made fun of me, trying to guess the diagnosis.

The resident doctors who were pursuing their specialist training in paediatrics teased me mercilessly, saying I had gotten the kissing disease (Epstein Barr Virus infection, common in teens and passed on through kissing) after a weekend off from work.

It made for a good laugh around the wards.

However, Tuesday morning brought the jokes to an end. I had woken up a little late and rushed through my morning preparations before work.

I never quite looked in the mirror.

MORTIFIED

When I got to work, everyone who saw me took a step back and asked what was wrong with my face. I looked in a mirror and the horror dawned on me. I had chickenpox at 26 years. I was mortified.

I put on a face mask so as not to infect anyone and waited for the rounds to begin. It was one of the two days in a week when we had a major round, with all the consultant paediatricians in attendance.

The head of the ward asked about my mask and when I mentioned the chickenpox, she threw me out of the wards by giving me an immediate sick-off. I went home dejected.

It was 2007 and the country was experiencing a wave of chicken pox after years of absence.

Many younger doctors had never even seen an actual case of chickenpox.

I vividly remembered the cough from my little patient and wondered how I had not thought of chickenpox.

I had to stay away from the wards so as not to endanger my patients, especially the young ones on chemotherapy for cancer, as their immunity could not handle it.

It was a rough outbreak. I survived it, but I know several adults who did not make it through.

It was a year when HIV was seriously beating us and many of our patients were not yet on antiretroviral treatment. Chickenpox felled them like a bad tsunami. Babies with HIV died in our wards and we were helpless to stop it.

I couldn’t help remembering how I had escaped a chickenpox attack when I was 10.

We had a new classmate who had just emigrated from Punjab. His whole family got chickenpox soon after arrival and they spread it around the school. All my classmates went down except two of us.

I always thought that maybe I had already suffered it and my mum had forgotten about it. Now I really wished I had gone down with my classmates.

MINIMAL DAMAGE

Childhood chickenpox fades away in a few days, leaving minimal damage.

However, in adults and the immunosuppressed, it can deal a heavy blow. It can lead to inflammation of the brain, deadly pneumonia, and death.

In early pregnancy, it can cause severe abnormalities in the newborn, while in late pregnancy, it can pass onto the newborn, causing complicated infection and neonatal death.

For several weeks, I wore my spots with pride. They faded over time but they served to remind me that some were not as lucky as I was.

I no longer worry about catching the infection as it is a once-in-a-lifetime ordeal, but I do know that immunosuppressed patients can develop shingles from a previous infection.

This is when the inactive virus sitting in the nerve roots becomes active and causes severe inflammation on the skin.

The rash is unique in that it only appears on the area supplied by the affected nerve. It blisters and eventually breaks down like a burn, and it is extremely painful.

Thankfully, since 1995, we have been able to prevent chickenpox by vaccinating all those who have never had the disease.

Children are vaccinated from the age of one. Women planning to get pregnant are advised to get the vaccine to protect themselves and their newborn.

The little shot, is well worth having. It saves us a pile of trouble!