Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT: 2631-2635 (Feb 03 - 07 2014) Weekly Comics Discussion Thread

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NilsO:

--- Quote from: Redball on 05 Feb 2014, 05:53 ---It's just hives.

--- End quote ---
Nah, that would be too easy, and could be cured before the date. The rash is introduced for a reason, and I suspect it will either cause the date to be cancelled, or transformed into something else. Perhaps Dale is also getting sick, one could have infected the other when they kissed.

Barmymoo:
How bizarre, I have spent the last two decades believing that I could not get shingles because I had had chickenpox. Is it an outdated belief? I'm sure I recall reading about "chickenpox parties" where parents would get their children to spend time with the child who had chickenpox, to get it over with before it was more risky.

Carl-E:
Barmy, that's exactly right.  Catching chickenpox for the first time as an adult is more dangerous than catching it as a child, and can often lead to serious complications including pneumonia.  The scarring is much worse, as well, and the fever that comes with it is likely to be much higher, possibly dangerous in and of itself. 

This is why people would willingly give it to their kids - a few days of misery and rash with a slight fever, and you're protected for life. 

However, the virus stays with you for life, usually living in your nervous system.  If there are times when your immune system becomes compromised for some reason - age, or great stress, or another illness - the virus manifests itself in the form of shingles, named for the horizontally striped rash that develops, usually on your sides, though it can show up in other places (it happened to my wife when she was pregnant and having gall bladder issues and still trying to work, STRESS!!). 

Since some kids also develop serious complications, they went and developed a vaccine, which put an end to those pox parties.  If you're an adult who's never had it, you should get vaccinated - if you don't know whether you had it, they can test for the antibodies to see if you really need it. 

Disclaimer:  I am not a doctor, just a Ph.D. who's had to deal with vicarious shitloads of medical issues. 

pwhodges:
Pox parties were just to get it over with because the earlier the better (and less painful, generally), or in the hope that the exposure would be sufficient to create immunity without the disease taking hold, and without the danger (mistakenly believed in) of vaccines; but current preference is not to give your children a disease on purpose!  People used to have the same practice with measles - but that's a genuinely serious disease, so should be actively avoided (hence the MMR vaccines, of course).

As far as I'm aware, shingles has always been known to be a follow-up to chickenpox, not an alternative.

Zebediah:
I can speak from personal experience about the dangers of chicken pox as an adult. I got it at 26, and wound up with a fever of 105°F.

But that's not what Marigold has here, so no need to hospitalize her.

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