Archive for the ‘Child Skin Disease’ Category

Information About Child Skin Rash

Child Skin Rash:

A rash is a reaction of the skin. It can be caused by many things, such as a drug reaction, an infection, or an allergic reaction. Many different agents can cause similar rashes because the skin has a limited number of possible responses. Very often the associated symptoms, in addition to the rash, help establish the diagnosis, such as a history of tick bites, exposure to other ill children or adults, recent antibiotic use, environmental exposures, or prior immunizations.The rash starts around the ears and on the hairline. After 1-2 days the rash may spread to the body, arms and legs and start to fade on the face. Measles rash may be itchy, but is not intensely itchy.
The measles rash starts after the Koplik’s spots and consists of separate pink/red lesions that become joined together as the rash spreads. The ‘spots’ are flat red areas to start with, but then become raised up.

Major Causes Of Child Skin Rash

Most rashes caused by viruses do not harm your child and go away over time without any treatment. However, some childhood rashes have serious or even life-threatening causes. As a parent, you should be familiar with these rashes. Many rashes can look the same, making it difficult to know the exact diagnosis. Whenever you have a concern, see your doctor immediately.The first sign of measles infection is the appearance of small blue-white spots on a bright red background inside the cheeks in the mouth. The spots are about 1-2 millimetres in diameter and are known as Koplik’s spots. Koplik’s spots will fade and disappear after the measles rash starts on the skin.

What Is  Child Skin Rash?

Many childhood diseases have viral or bacterial causes and include a rash of some type. As additional vaccines become available, these diseases become less of a threat to your child’s long-term health. A rash of any kind should be taken seriously, however, and may require a trip to the doctor’s office for evaluation. Examples of viral or bacterial rashes include several common childhood illnesses.A virus called varicella-zoster causes this very contagious disease. The disease is not harmful to most children. The symptoms generally last two weeks and can make the child very uncomfortable. Chickenpox can be a serious illness in people with weak immune systems such as newborns, people on chemotherapy for cancer, people taking steroids, pregnant women, or those with HIV/AIDS. A safe and effective vaccine is now available to children aged 1 year or older to prevent chickenpox. The symptoms of chickenpox generally appear 10-21 days after exposure.

Symptoms:

The earliest symptoms of chickenpox are fever, sore throat, and feeling tired. This is followed, usually within a day, by the appearance of the classic, intensely itchy rash that typically begins on the head and torso and then spreads outward to the arms and legs. The total duration of the rash is seven to 10 days.
The rash begins as an area of redness with a small, superficial blister in the center. After one to two days, the blister ruptures and the lesion will form a crusty scab that will fall off in two to three days. This entire evolution takes four to five days.
Thus, children with chickenpox will have new outbreaks of the initial lesions as older crusted lesions are resolving. They characteristically will have both new and older lesions present at the same time.

Treatment

The virus is spread primarily from nasal and oral secretions of the child, but the rash itself is also contagious. The child remains contagious and cannot go to school or day care until the last lesion to appear has fully crusted over.
There is no “cure” for chickenpox once it has begun, but there is a vaccine that is very effective in preventing the disease. If a child contracts chickenpox, a physician can prescribe treatments to help control the itching and make your child more comfortable.
The chickenpox vaccine, called the “varicella vaccine” was added to the U.S. routine childhood immunizations in 1995. It is given in two doses. The first dose is given at 12 to 15 months of age.

Care Of  Child Skin Rash

The second dose is recommended between  4 and 6 years of age. The vaccine is both safe and effective. The vaccine can cause mild tenderness and redness at the site for a few days. While the vaccine will protect most children, some children (3%) who are later exposed to chickenpox can develop a mild chickenpox case usually without fever and with very few lesions. A new combination vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox was introduced in 2005. It has been shown to work as well as the separate MMR and chickenpox vaccines. Because of a higher frequency of febrile seizures with the MMRV vs. separately administered MMR and Varicella vaccines, children below 2 years of age receive a split vaccine protocol. The febrile seizure side effect has not been shown in children over 2 years of age.
The varicella vaccine cannot cause chickenpox in either the vaccine recipient or any close contact.