Small Pox

[R. Johnson]

So I'm getting ready to go to...an austere environment...and the Army made me get the small pox vaccine. It pretty much sucks. It itches like crazy and all the little kid in me wants to do is scratch that nasty blister into oblivion. My self discipline is being tasked.

 

[BadgeBunny]

Yep. My kids all had the chicken pox at the same time. Funny thing was, they all had different symptoms. My youngest (he was 3 at the time) had the pox the worst and itched all over ... ALL THE TIME, poor kid ... I stuck him in a bathtub full of cool water and oatmeal and told him to rub his thumbs and index fingers together to keep from scratching.

He's in his 20s now and when he has an itch he'll rub his fingers together before he scratches it! The trauma we do to our kids, all in the most gentlest, loving ways, of course! LOL

Rub your fingers together!

 

[tRidiot]

I got some tattoo work done today... hope the itching isn't as bad as the last time. A few days later, the itching drove me out of my mind for a week or so. Ugh!

This time I'm trying a different wound care regimen that I really hope will make a difference.

Not really relevant to your situation, but thought I'd share.

 

[criticalbass]

Interesting.

Since smallpox has supposedly been completely eradicated, it looks like the military is allowing for the possibility that the only known source of the virus (Russia) may have or be planning to weaponize it. Actually, we have a supply of the virus too . . .

Brrrrr! Scary stuff.

 

[UnSafe]

The US Military has been vaccinating against Smallpox for decades. It's a 10 year vaccination and that's a good thing, since it causes painful reactions in many shoulders. A continuing concern is that several of the former Soviet satellite countries, South Africa, France, N. Korea, China and Iran may have kept frozen Smallpox virus. Hopefully not true, but if ever weaponized and released there could be as much as a 40+% death rate in endemic areas. It has about a 7-10 day lag between contact and symptoms, but infected persons are capable of transmitting the virus to others for 2-3 days prior to getting obviously sick.

It was a great (Scary) model to work on for infectious disease based Bio Warfare defence planning at the Air Force's Global Medicine course down at Brooks AFB.

 

[10Seconds]

I am sure that every one of those nations and probably others have samples of it.

Definitely smart to defend against it.

 

[R. Johnson]

Well, it's allegedly eradicated. There haven't been any confirmed reported cases since the seventies, but there are plenty of places around the world that would never get a new case reported to the WHO. So in my mind it could still be possible to get it naturally, however unlikely.

 

[Boehlertaught]

I'm not sure who has some of the frozen virus but a few years ago I watched a documentary about the virus and the show said the folks in charge entertained destroying the frozen virus to get ride of every trace of it on earth. Well, the show said they decided to keep the frozen virus just in case it came back.

 

[AKguy1985]

I remember getting chicken pox the same week as the OKC bombing. We had an outbreak of it at tiawah school. My 3rd and 4th grade teacher gave it to us.