QuestionMy five year old daughter has been diagnosed as having Shingles, we are due to go away for the weekend to a holiday park for the weekend. Should we go and can she go swimming? She is not ill at all with it.
AnswerI'd call her pediatrician. I looked up shingles on webmd (a great source) and this is what it said:
She could give chickenpox to someone:
A person with shingles can pass the virus to individuals who have never had chickenpox, but these individuals will develop chickenpox not shingles.
She should not be around pregnant women who've never had chickenpox, newborns, or immunosuppressed persons, or anyone else who has never been infected with chickenpox or had the chickenpox vaccine.
SWIMMING
From the Australia public health school guidelines:
Children with shingles can attend school if the lesions can be covered adequately however exclusion from swimming and contact sports should be advised for seven days after the rash appears. (I assume because she'd be in a bathing suit without adequate coverage of the shingles and her skin might come into contact with another person's skin.)
from Patient UK:
Also, to play safe and not risk passing on the virus to others who may not have had chickenpox, you should not share towels, go swimming, or play contact sports such as rugby whilst you have a shingles rash.
Sounds like no swimming, and cover the shingles. Do you have anything from her pediatrician for pain management while you are gone? That might be something to look into, in case she gets the nerve pain associated with shingles.
-Maggie Smith, RN, MSN
