Chicken pox - Go to the doc's?

[200bhp]

It looks fairly likely that I have chicken pox! Thought I had got rather a lot of small insect bites but over the last 12 hours the number has doubled!

Some good old Internet diagnosis confirms the pox.

So is it worth going to the docs? I've not been in 10 years and it seems a shame to break that record!!

[grumbledoak]

How sure are you? Have you had chicken pox before?

It'll be a shame if it's Meningitis.

[BlackVanDyke]

It can make adults feel pretty awful so it's probably worth checking in with your GP but DON'T just go in to the surgery, it's incredibly contagious and it's likely that there'll be pregnant women or small babies around. Ring up, ask for a phone consultation with a GP, and talk it through with them. Hopefully it won't be too bad for you but there are inevitably others around who could get really ill with it.

I do some advocacy/care work with a family whose 7 year old has multiple complex medical stuff, amongst other things her immune system doesn't work properly. Her care plan for if/when she catches chicken pox includes ambulance transfer directly to paediatric high-dependency unit and IV antivirals.

I've had shingles (the post-chicken pox viral flareup thing) once and it's grim as a very grim thing - if you've had chicken pox before, what you're experiencing now might be shingles instead... unfortunately it's just the same infectiousness wise but in terms of illness a fair bit different.

[Sticks.]

I don't know if it still is but it used to be a notifiable disease - which meant you needed to see a doc before you could return to work.