Chicken pox, I think not….
May 1, 2008 by becky74
However, my doctor thinks otherwise. I am 33 and I have the chicken pox!! And it really sucks. It started out with an innocent rash that I didn’t think twice about. Whenever I get stressed, I break out in hives. I just assumed that is what this rash was. As I was at work today, apparently my rash was spreading to my back and my neck. While I was sitting at the nurse’s station, miserably scratching away, one of the doctor’s noticed. he took me into an empty patient room and looked at it and said that I needed to go home and see my regular doc, because he was pretty sure that I had the pox!! So home I went, and I was not to happy to leave work early.
After seeing my doctor and having a different doctor check out my rash, they decided to draw blood to see if I had an active infection. I go to an Internal Med doc, and they don’t deal with children, so they really aren’t all that familiar with chicken pox. My doc called an Infectious Disease doc, but he wasn’t in the office. Thank God for that, because who knows what kinds of tests he would’ve ordered!! Anyway, after I left, my doc was discussing me with a different MD. And I guess this other MD had chicken pox a few years ago and said that the rash can present differently in adults. And to assume that is what I have since everything lines up and points to it. So, I am now on a 5 day anti-viral course of meds. And its a very well known commercial drug for herpes. I didn’t want the pharmacist to think that I have herpes, so I made my doctor write “for chicken pox” on the prescription!!! No way in hell was I going to get some sort of “safe sex” speech from a pharmacist!
On the upside, I don’t have to work tomorrow or this weekend 
And after using vacation time for tomorrow, I can actually use sick pay time. Because, who really wants to use vacation hours when you aren’t allowed out of the house?!?!
I’m off to go calamine lotion myself
I am so sorry you have Chicken Pox! I had them when I was kindergarten. Are you having to wear oven mitts? I hate leaving work early too! But you, of course, did the right thing! Keep us updated on your progress
Eek!! Have you ever had chicken pox before? If so, it could actually be shingles instead.
I’ve never had chicken pox. Neither have any of my siblings. The pediatrician we went to thought we were naturally immune somehow bc even when my mom tried getting us infected we didn’t get it. When I was 15 they came out with the vaccine. It wasn’t standard but we got it anyway since we were so old.
PS: Try to avoid the pox vaccine for your kids, otherwise if they are exposed to chicken pox they’ll get shingles instead. MUCH MORE PAINFUL than pox from what I understand. This happened to my cousin’s son. Yuck.
I hope you feel better!
Whoa!! I hope you are feeling better soon!! I had the pox as a kid, my sis gave it to me. Sam had the shot (sorry Sheila!) and never got them even though he’s been exposed. Let me know if you need some oven mitts!
LOL, I was scratching just reading your post! Has hubby and kids had them before?
Hee hee… the image of you and the pharmacist… love it!
I’m sorry you got the pox (old-fashioned curse: a pox on you! Though in that case I’m pretty sure they meant small pox, not chicken), but glad to read that you’re getting better. I hope the mini-vacation was fun!