Medical Health Encyclopedia

Symptoms include the following:

• A persistent or recurrent high fever.
• Redness, pain, and swelling in the skin and the tissue beneath.

Pneumonia. Pneumonia should be suspected if coughing and abnormally rapid breathing develop in patients who have chickenpox. Adults and adolescents with chickenpox are at some risk for serious pneumonia. Pregnant women, smokers, and those with serious medical conditions, have an even higher risk for pneumonia if they have chickenpox. Oxygen and intravenous acyclovir are key components for treating this condition. One study suggested that corticosteroids might also prove useful for treating varicella pneumonia as well. Pneumonia that is caused by varicella can result in lung scarring, which may impair oxygen exchange over the following weeks, or even months.

Click the icon to see an image of pneumonia.

Effects on the Brain and Central Nervous System.

• Inflammation in the Brain. Encephalitis and meningitis, infections or inflammation in the central nervous systems, have occurred in a few varicella patients, both children and adults. This condition can be very dangerous, causing coma and even death. Fortunately, it is extremely rare. Symptoms vary; the patient may become over-agitated or may exhibit loss of coordination and poor balance.
• Stroke. Although stroke in children is extremely rare, a condition called cerebral vasculitis, in which blood vessels in the brain become inflamed, has been associated with varicella-zoster. Varicella may be a factor in some cases of stroke in young adults. Again, the incidence of this is extremely rare.

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Effects During Pregnancy. The risk for chickenpox in a pregnant woman is very low (one to seven cases in 10,000). However, chickenpox places the woman at risk for life-threatening pneumonia. Infection in the pregnant woman in the first trimester also poses a 1% to 2% chance for infecting the developing fetus, which is an extremely serious condition. (Herpes zoster is even rarer in pregnant women and there is almost no risk for the unborn child in such cases.)