Chicken Pox: Symptoms, Prevention and Cure

The exact origin of Chicken Pox is unknown, but it's been around a while before it was given its name. According to Contagious Diseases, up until the late 19^th century, small pox and chicken pox were thought to be the same disease. Small children were often given the nickname chickens by the way they would play with them day and night. This name caught on to the infectious disease and stayed. It has also been said that the name chicken pox came from its small chickpea size and shape. According to eMedicine, Varicella-zoster the virus (VZV) is the cause of the Chicken Pox. It infects the whole body leaving skin irritated, itchy, and covered in a blistery red rash. Chicken pox symptoms also include those of the flu such as headaches, nausea, fever, and vomiting.

According to KidsHealth, VZV is a highly contagious virus therefore skin to skin contact is not necessary for transmission. Infectious people carry this virus within their saliva, and other bodily fluids. This meaning coughing and sneezing of any kind easily spreads the disease from person to person. The chicken pox are also contracted by contact of a contaminated surface. Since the virus cannot live on its own, it must find a new host once exiting the original body. Sneezing and coughing are forms of your body's reaction to the disease, so that the virus may be sent flying through the air in quick search of a new host. Because VZV like all other viruses is a nonliving parasite, if it does not find a new host in time, it cannot survive.

Though the body overtime builds immunity to VZV, the virus stays dormant within your system and can erupt at any given point in time if triggered. Unfortunately, chicken pox normally triggered for a second time comes back as shingles, or herpes zoster; a contagious and painful rather than itchy disease according to AOCD. Usually eruptions only occur in people over the age of 50, although children can get it too. Stress and or trauma are the main triggers for shingles.

In order to prevent the chicken pox, obviously you should keep your distance from infectious persons until a doctor has advised otherwise. Varicella vaccinations are also available for anyone at anytime. The optimal time period though to be vaccinated is between the ages of 12-15 months old. Getting a booster shot preceding the Varicella vaccination between the ages of 4 and 6 also decrease likelihood of catching Chicken Pox greatly. Children under the age of 12 are most susceptible to the disease which is why the vaccination is given so early. The VZV vaccine only just came out in 1995 in the United States, though in Japan and Korea it was licensed for use in 1988. It was first developed by Michiaki Takahashi in 1974 at the Research Institute for Microbial Diseases at Osaka University.

It is very rare that Chicken Pox becomes fatal. In fact, you are 200 times more likely to die from the flu rather than the Chicken Pox. All together, the chicken pox hospitalizes 10,000 people a year as well as kills fewer than 100. It would even be more likely to be struck by lightning, than die of the Chicken Pox. You may want to treat symptoms with Advil or Aleve depending on what hurts and where. Unfortunately though, the only real cure for the Chicken Pox is time.

Sources: AOCD, KidsHealth, eMedicine, and Contagious Diseases