Ok you know how when we were all younger and our parents would have us get it just so we didnt have it later in life. Well Ive heard rumors that its now bad to get your child infected with the disease. Is that true? And is it also true that you cant get it later in life and why or why not? I was just curious.
2006-12-03 20:23:10 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Infectious Diseases
No, it's not "bad". It's just that there is a vaccine for it now, so its not as common as it used to be.
The suffering from it is worse if you are out of childhood. It's better to get it young.
If you get it once, you won't get it again. Once you have been infected by a strain of a virus, your immune system wil always recognize it immediately if you ever come in contact with it again. All viruses are that way. When you get the cold, you are actually getting a slightly different virus each time.
2006-12-04 00:16:45 · answer #1 · answered by P-nuts and Hair-dos 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I wonder if you're thinking about smallpox instead of chickenpox? Everyone used to be vaccinated for smallpox when I was a kid because it can be a fatal disease.
The chickenpox virus also causes cold sores on the lip, so that everyone that has had a cold sore has at some time been infected with that virus. Once a person has been infected with that virus, Herpes Zoster, some of that virus stays in the body.
The illness Shingles is caused by the Herpes virus that has been dormant in the body and becomes active when a persons immune system gets very low and usually the person is elderly.
I had heard, but I'm not sure, that they had stopped vaccinating for smallpox because there was so little of it anymore in this country, that there was a greater risk from getting the vaccination than from getting the disease.
If they did stop vaccinating for smallpox I don't think it was a good idea. That would let the country at risk for epidemics as if terrorists used biological weapons.
2006-12-03 21:07:14 · answer #2 · answered by Smartassawhip 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's not bad for you, it can't be because you if you've had it as a child you won't get it as an adult, if you get chicken pox as an adult it is far more serious and in some cases can actually kill you.
People are just a lot more health conscious now, and i still know many parents who purposefully get their child infected.
You can get chicken pox again as an adult but it is extremely rare, the reasons why you usually cannot get it more than once is because your body it immune that that infection.
But you can get shingles if you've had chicken pox as a child.
2006-12-03 20:33:28 · answer #3 · answered by ♥ Bekka ♥ 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋