Steroids and Chicken Pox
If anyone ever thought that chicken pox and steroids could be combined they were proven wrong by research done at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The research that was done proved that children that were taking steroids for different medical treatments such as leukemia are at a definite risk of making the case of chicken pox far more severe then it would have been and the result may terminate in the death of the child.

Steroids suppress the Immune System
Steroids are used to treat many medical problems are good for what they are used for but steroids also suppress the immune system and in a patient with any kind of cancer the immune system has already been suppressed.

If a child is being treated with steroids for any reason and happens to contact chicken pox at the same time, the case will become much worse. A long study was done that took place over a period of nine years and the result was if the chicken pox was diagnosed within a time frame of three weeks of first taking steroids about seventy percent would develop severe infection, if the children had not been placed on steroids during this time far less than the seventy percent would contact a severe infection.

This study happened to be limited to the patients that had leukemia but the results might well be the same for other children using steroids while contacting an infectious disease.

Precautions Being Taken
Now parents are being asked if the child has been exposed to the chicken pox virus and if so to wait a certain amount time so the incubation period has passed before starting steroid treatment. Steroids have been found to be a very good treatment for children with different cancers and are in common use.

However, steroids and chicken pox do not mix and every precaution should be taken so they are not combined. Chicken pox is usually not that bad and most children get over it easily.

In the late 1990’s, a vaccine was developed for chicken pox to help wipe the virus out. It is the varicella vaccine and before it was used a great many people were hospitalized each year with the chicken pox virus in the United States. Since introducing varicella, chicken pox has gone on a steady decline. Some day in the future, it may become a childhood disease of the past. Parents are urged to get their young children vaccinated if they have not been already.