Pose your questions on Ask, Answer, Learn to Dr. Greene and the DrGreene.com community.
Ask DrGreene
Dr. Greene will be chatting live for one hour on Tuesday February 16th at 10:00 a.m. PT (Noon CT) (1:00 p.m. ET). Click Here to chat with Dr. Greene
Fast Fact
Chicken pox is caused by the Varicella-zoster virus. It is usually a mild infection, and not life-threatening. Although children with this virus may be miserable for several days, and miss a week of school or day-care (stranding parents at home), they will likely recover from the 250-500 itchy blisters with nothing more to show for it than a few small scars.
Each year about 200,000 of the millions of people around the world who contract chickenpox become seriously ill with complications such as pneumonia or encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). About 2,000 of these people die.
Those who are at higher risk for complications include those with an already weak immune system, those with eczema or other skin conditions, adolescents, and adults.
Adults who get chicken pox usually have a much more severe, prolonged case than children. Pneumonia is common.
The rate of hospitalization for chickenpox is almost 900% higher in adults than in children. Adults are more than 20 times more likely to die from this disease.
Pregnant women face the additional fear of serious, even fatal, damage to the baby developing within.
In the past, multiple re-exposures helped to keep people's immunity high. Since the vaccine is now standard in the United States, the frequency of the natural disease should decline. Those who have had chickenpox as children will not be re-exposed as often, if at all. Their immunity may wane over time, making shingles and adult chickenpox even more common than they are now.
To date, those who have received the vaccine have a much lower incidence of shingles than those who actually had chickenpox over the same time period. Those who receive the vaccine also have a dramatically decreased risk of scarring.
Studies so far have found the chickenpox vaccine to be highly effective in preventing moderate and severe chickenpox in children (Redbook: Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases, 2006).
For each individual, the vaccine seems quite safe. Reported adverse effects are generally mild -- soreness, swelling, rash (at the injection site), fever, tiredness, or fussiness are the most common. The vaccine is not recommended for immunocompromised people, or for pregnant women.
The American Academy Pediatrics currently recommends two doses of the chickenpox vaccine. Typically, the first dose of the vaccine is given at 12 to 15 months of age and the second at 4 to 6 years of age (at school entry). Older children who have not received two doses of the vaccine can receive their catch up shots 28 weeks apart.
Why had the National Cancer Institute of the US suggested to physicians to decrease unnecessary CT Scans in children?
A typical x-ray delivers 0.01 mSv (millisievert) of radiation. CT scans give us much more information, but they can also deliver as much radiation as getting 300 regular x-rays -- or 600, if the CT scanner has not been adjusted for children! Even though CT scans are a small minority of the total number of x-rays done, in the US they are responsible for about 65 percent of all medical radiation exposure.
In order to understand how this relates to day-to-day radiation exposure, I looked to information from the American College of Radiology. They have found that the average person living in the United States is exposed to about 3 mSv annually from “naturally occurring radioactive materials and cosmic radiation from outer space.”
For most children, it takes many more hours of cumulative trauma than it does for an adult to cause aches or tingling (this can happen, though -- it's amazing how long a kid can stay glued to a computer game without a break). Click here for more of Dr. Greene’s Tips For Avoiding Repetitive Stress Injuries.
So should we be concerned about a little boy who wants to be called a girl...
I walked without crawling when I was a kid and I think my daughter is on the...
I'm sure you will check with the baby's pediatrician, but you can also check...
Does she have any friends or cousins who are potty trained? My daughter...