Concerned that baby may have shingles

[sarahmck]

My 14-month old DS had chicken pox last year when he was 7 weeks old. He had only two lesions.

Three nights ago, he had a HORRIBLE night. He was awake most of the night, either just quite wakeful or, later, apparently in pain. He felt like he had a bit of a fever, but when I checked in the morning it was normal. The next day, I noticed a patch of rash about the size of a US quarter. It could have already been there the previous day. Yesterday it was a bit redder and generally more noticeable and there was another milder patch near it. I wasn't paying a lot of attention yet, but started looking more today and saw that it's one solid patch with a lot of small bumps within it.

He's normally an extremely friendly, happy baby. Over the last few days, he's been driving me crazy. He's been super-whiny and quick to cry if something is taken from him. I do elimination communication with him and he's been peeing all over the floor rather than in his potty, which is very unusual for him.

This is all coinciding with him become a lot more mobile very quickly. He's a late developer, so once he starts something, it goes very quickly. I thought that maybe all the complaining was just due to him feeling frustrated that he can't walk or can't climb the stairs all day long.

I've looked closely at the rash today and I see that there are several patches that all lie in a line that corresponds loosely with where a rib would lie. This got me thinking about shingles. My problem is that I can't find good pictures of early shingles on-line, and all the pictures that I can find are horrible cases in adults or bad cases in little kids with HIV. Does anyone know of a reference about pediatric shingles? I've seen lots of references that say that infantile chicken pox can lead to pediatric shingles, but little information about pediatric shingles acquired due to infantile chicken pox (as opposed to due to an immune deficiency).

Finally, if this is shingles, will it confer CP immunity on my son or will he still have to get that again? If he does have to get it again, is there any way to avoid him getting shingles instead?

MT, I saw your reference to apple cider vinegar compresses in the CP sticky. Should those be done with warm or cold water, and how dilute should they be? Any other treatment options would be appreciated.

I intend to call my doctor in the morning to see if I can get a diagnosis.

Thank you!

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Sounds like shingles to me. the doctor will be wanting to push various antivirals if you go there, but that's your choice.

cider vinegar, yes, neat - on cloths, held for minimum of 10 minutes if possible. Reduces viral load with an acid ph. Anythingaround ph3 or lower nukes the virus.

Alpha lipoic acid is also a viral nuker 50 mg a day.

Lysine is too, but for whatever reason that comes with the usual warning about not blowing your nose unless a doctor gives you permission. If you want to use that, 250 mg a day.

vitamin C, obviously.

In terms of on the skin there are other things you can do:

If you want to suck out the moisture of the vesicles to provide another way to starve the virus of wet places to multiply, you can do it two ways.

1) Mix a teaspoon of french green clay with enough water to make a past, and add one or two drops of tea tree oil. Wearing plastic or latex gloves, apply a thin covering of the paste ontop of the blisters. gover with a double thickness of guaze and sure the gauze to the skin. This also provides a barrier against scratching.

2) Similar thing, but with activated charcoal. Add enough water to a small amount of activated charcoal plus equal quantitities of either finely ground flaxseed or cornstarch, to make a past. Let stand for 20 minutes, then apply the paste the same way as green french clay, but leave this paste on for 12 hours. Wash it off, and keep reapplying it until the blisters have dried and healed.

Some people don't like doing the dry it method, and prefer to use Hydrogen Peroxide gel which released oxygen under the gel which kills both viruses and bacteria.

the choice is yours.

Children with shingles are often deficient in B-vitamins and other minerals, in particalr B12, zinc, and perhaps others. So you also need to address that. if the baby is still breastfeeding, look at your nutrition as well.

Homeopathy looks to be Rhus Tox 6c every three to four hours for now. If he's itchy everywhere other than the blisters, sulphur might be better, but you'd be better to see a homeopath.

After the shingles I'd go and see a classical homeopath anyway, to give the baby a good constitutional analysis... or do it yourself if you have the textbooks :D

If things don't improve within a week, there are other things we can do.

[TanyaL]

Alpha lipoic acid is also a viral nuker 50 mg a day.


MT, alpha lipoic acid is sorta scary stuff, at least for some people. I'm using it to get mercury and arsenic and probably a few other things out of me and my kids, and it kicks my butt, and a too-high dose for my son caused some scary symptoms last summer. There's a reasonable-sized group of people who are doing biomed autism treatments with their kids, or mercury toxicity treatments on themselves as adults, who are using smaller doses of ALA to get the heavy metals out. I know that people who don't have high levels of heavy metals in them can use ALA as an anti-oxidant and for other properties and find it just helpful, but when my kids were 14 months old, I didn't realize the heavy metal bioburden they had.

Sorry for going a bit off-topic, I just wanted to share my experience with lipoic acid.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

What age is your son, and what dose did you use? Do you think 50 mg of Alpha Lipoic Acid is a high dose?

Sarah, do you think your son has heavy metal issues?

You are right, I don't think that for most people, ALA is scary.

But you're probably right to counsel caution, because if Sarah's baby has immune system difficulties he could be one of those.

Personally, I've never used ALA for either chickenpox or shingles. I'm just listing possibilities for people to google and work out what they want to do.

[TanyaL]

What age is your son, and what dose did you use? Do you think 50 mg of Alpha Lipoic Acid is a high dose?

Sarah, do you think your son has heavy metal issues?

You are right, I don't think that for most people, ALA is scary.

But you're probably right to counsel caution, because if Sarah's baby has immune system difficulties he could be one of those.

Personally, I've never used ALA for either chickenpox or shingles. I'm just listing possibilities for people to google and work out what they want to do.

I only mentioned it because it's a bit hard to find the negatives of alpha lipoic acid online, so many sites just sing its praises, which with my experience, is a bit worrisome. And my son does have immune problems.

Sarah, I'm not at all saying every kid who's had something odd immune-wise has _our_ problem, but just to mention the potential issue.

I used DMSA for 3 months after I got my amalgam fillings out, so I'd made some progress beforehand, and then I switched to alpha lipoic acid. I used 50mg for myself, with the typical Andy Cutler dosing of every 3 hours for 3 days, and even before the 2nd dose, I got hit with a landslide of fatigue. It wasn't like that after each dose, I think things re-balanced a bit and reached a better steady-state situation, but for me, as an adult it was a lot. It took about 6 months for me to be ready to go up to 100mg per dose.

I started the kids at, I think 20mg per dose, and my son had the same reaction as I did after the first dose. He was around his 2nd birthday, plus or minus a couple months, and about 30 pounds. My daughter didn't, her body works differently, for her I've just seen irritability. And when my son got too much (stomach bug starting right at the same time as when I started a round chelating him, so a big imbalance between what's mobilized and the bandwidth for excretion), I saw a quick onset of stuttering, spinning, mouthing things, and I think a few other sensory-seeking behaviors.

[sarahmck]

First of all, thank you both. What fantastic and comprehensive information.

Lucas had a great night last night. As far as I can recall, he only woke up once. So that was a pleasant surprise. This morning, his rash doesn't appear to have spread, but the one significant blotch looks more blistery. I will try to take and post a photo once my husband gets up to assist me. So now I'm wondering if it really is shingles. I would have expected it to get progressively worse. That said, when he had chicken pox, he only had two. It does have to stop at some point, but I was expecting it to stop at a later point.

Yes, he's still breastfeeding, almost exclusively.

No, I've never suspected heavy metal issues, but, that said, I'm not informed about the symptoms, so I guess I will have to take a quick look at the trusty internet to see if anything sounds familiar. He's not a sickly boy and, like I said, he's very friendly and happy, so I've never suspected that anything at all is wrong with him. He's of average height (well, Dutch average, which is the tallest in the world and he doesn't have any Dutch blood) and above-average weight.

The only thing that distinguishes him from the other babies in a "negative" way is that he is very slow developmentally. But my daughter was, too, and so was I (walked at 18 months, etc.).

I will try to get back with that photo later today.

I will be calling my doctor when they open this morning. He's both a physician and a homeopath, so I'm hoping that he'll be cool. However, in the past, I know that they've had a substitute non-homeopath on Fridays. Hm.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Not necessarily, in terms of spread. he only had two spots during chickenpox... there is no specific "amount" when it comes to shingles.

Tanya, I think 50 mg every 3 hours is a ridiculous dose.

I would only use 50 mg once, per day. And maybe even 25 mg once a day...

Call ahead if they have a substitute non-homeopath, make sure the photo is clear, and ditch out till monday. I doubt if the weekend will make that much difference.

In my experience, if shingles is handled right, the worst can be over in a week.

some milestones mean nothing. Kids can do things at different times, in different ways.

[sarahmck]

I think the substitute doctor isn't a homeopath, but the normal doctor wrote down what he prescribed last year for my husband and daughter when they had CP (rhus tox and one other thing) and I'm hoping that she'll at least give me those some things.

Here are my photos. I've put them on photobucket which seems to have reduced their size considerably. If you can't see these well enough, I will provide them in a better format. The photos are decent, but not great. He didn't want to sit still.

This one (http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e195/sarahrainsford/?action=view&current=IMG_2415.jpg) is the main spot. You can see that it's looking blistery.

This one (http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e195/sarahrainsford/?action=view&current=IMG_2416.jpg) shows the line of rash. You can see that it's very minor everywhere other than in the one spot in the previous picture.

[TanyaL]

Tanya, I think 50 mg every 3 hours is a ridiculous dose.

I would only use 50 mg once, per day. And maybe even 25 mg once a day...



It may seem odd but in ASD circles, I think he's done the best work aimed at getting the metals out safely. ALA's doing something very different in us, and the 3-hour dosing is based on the half-life of the ALA in circulation in our bloodstreams. Which would be completely irrelevant for people who have decent detox pathways and not a heavy load of metals, but keeping a steady level of ALA around is really helpful for us. I haven't actually tried spacing out my doses, eventually as we get healthier even my HCP says we can, but there are too many people I've run into online who've gotten pretty messed up by not being careful with mobilizing metals, sometimes before they knew what problem they were dealing with.

[sarahmck]

The doctor, who also turned out to be a homeopath, confirmed the diagnosis and gave me the rhus tox. Happily, no mention of anti-virals was made.

Am I correct in my understanding that he didn't get shingles from recent exposure to chicken pox? He simply had it dormant in his system from his case of CP as an infant and now, for reasons unknown, it popped up as shingles?

Does this case of shingles mean that he will now have lifelong immunity to CP?

[cartersmom]

Aww hope he feels better soon.

My understanding is that once one has CP you will have lifelong immunity to it. The virus lies dormant and during times of stress and immune dysfunction can manifest again as shingles. But he will not get CP again I am pretty sure! Im not sure about shingles though. Can you get Shingles more than once?

[sarahmck]

I've always found the whole topic a bit confusing. My understanding is that you generally don't get CP more than once (with the odd exception) as long as you get it after you're about 12 months old (my son was 7 weeks). You have to have a severe enough case to bring about immunity. I read somewhere that you need about 20 pocks, but I have no idea if that's true.

I think you can get shingles multiple times.

What I don't know is whether this case of shingles will count as a severe enough case of CP from the immune system perspective to at least guard again a future case of CP. That would certainly be nice. I'm fed up of this virus after having my husband and daughter both have severe cases of CP last year.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I have an old medical article somewhere, which was titled something like second attacks of chickenpox more common than thought...