The Curious Case of the Mystery Rash

As mentioned not too long ago, our sensitive-skinned little girl pretty much always has some sort of skin problem or rash. We very rarely pay much attention when Elise develops any kind of rash or eczema spot because she has one about 90% of the time. So early last week when Elise developed a small rashy spot on her chest, we thought absolutely nothing of it. As the week progressed, however, so did the rash. It appeared to be spreading from her chest to her underarm and back. It was also looking bigger and grosser everyday. Typically when she gets a rash, it looks bad for a day or two tops, and starts to look better within 24 hours. And usually it just appears where it is and stays there - rarely does it spread or grow. I asked my neighbor, who is a nurse practitioner, to take a look to make sure it wasn't something to be concerned about. She was a little stumped as to what it could be, especially since Elise had no other symptoms and so my neighbor suggested we go ahead and take her in to the doctor if it continued to spread.

Elise and BFF Sara Jane

With all the snow craziness going on here, the pediatrician's office was closed for a few days so I got her an appointment for Friday. In the meantime I searched the Internet trying to figure out what it could be and terrified myself by looking at tons of gross, scary rashes resulting from horrible, life threatening diseases and viruses. Luckily she didn't have a fever (which is a symptom in most really bad things) and she didn't appear to be feeling bad and was saying the the rash wasn't itching. However, on Thursday night she woke up in the middle of the night crying saying that her rash "hurt".

On Friday, the pediatrician looked at the rash, appeared to be very confused, and asked if Elise had ever had the chicken pox before. I told her no and that she had been vaccinated. The doctor went on to say that it appeared that Elise has shingles. Yes, Shingles the virus that typically strikes elderly people who had chicken pox when they were children. She brought in another doctor to confirm because she had never actually seen a child so young have shingles in her 35 years of practicing medicine. The other doctor instantly agreed, Elise has a textbook case - the rash only on one side of the body along one nerve circuit. They showed me pictures of a typical shingles rash. Yup, no doubt that was Elise's rash. Only my crazy children would turn up with some unprecedented-in-children skin issue like shingles!

The doctor went on to explain that the virus that causes shingles is the same virus as the chicken pox. Typically, a person will have a bought of the chicken pox as a child and then the virus lies dormant in the nervous system usually for many, many years until one day the virus is reactivated (for unknown reasons) in the form of Shingles. It can't "jump" to another side of the body or another nerve circuit so it stays in isolated spots on one side of the body. Shingles itself is not contagious, but someone with shingles can transmit chicken pox to someone who hasn't had the chicken pox. However, unlike chicken pox, which can be passed on through coughing, sneezing etc, shingles is only contagious if the rash is directly touched (and touched by someone with a severely weakened immune system because of cancer/HIV or similar or someone who has never had the chicken pox). So basically, this sucks but at least it's not really contagious and she can still go to school and be around others. The doctor said that in children, it's more of a nuisance than anything and that it should clear up in a week or two.

There really is no rhyme or reason as to how on earth our little girl got shingles. According to everything I have read, it's not possible to get shingles if you haven't had the chicken pox. To our knowledge, she never had the chicken pox, but must have had a very, very mild case of it before she got her vaccination around 12 months. She has so many weird rashes all the time that I suppose it is possible, but still very strange. The cases that are reported in children are usually children with cancer or other reasons to have a severely weakened immune system so that makes me seriously question how our healthy child got it, but who knows. What's done is done.

She has been experiencing some pain, especially in the spot under her arm, but apparently the pain for children is much, much more mild than it is for adults (although, how do they really know? maybe adults are just whinier about pain!). Other than that she is doing great and has been a champ through all of this. Now, more than a week later, it is clearing up really well and has faded a lot. I predict it will be completely gone in another week. Then on to the next medical adventure I suppose!

Forgot to take a picture earlier in the process, but this is about a week and half after onset, during the healing stage.