mon_talks_pox mon yes it is unusual, rare, but not impossible to get chicken pox twice. i know i was surprised when it happened, it was just before my thirteenth birthday, i was covered head to toe and had them in my mouth. it was awful. i caught them the 2nd time from my younger cousin who was visiting. i didn't think i could get them again, as i knew i'd had them before when younger (though more mildly), and had since been around and cared for people with chicken pox, and shingles, and thought myself safe from getting chicken pox again. i have since had recurrent shingles (discussed with doctors, treated with antiviral) and i know for certain that it was not shingles that i had in 1993. i'm not sure why i got chicken pox twice, could be i lost my immunity, or caught a different strain the second time... there is a good article i read about people getting chicken pox twice,...some newish study that found it was more common than previously thought,...but i can't seem to locate it right now... however, googling i find the following bits: "it has been reported rarely for some people to have chicken pox a second time, seemingly having lost their immunity since the original infection." - netdoctor.co.uk "recurrent episodes ( getting chickenpox twice ) # conventional wisdom stated by eminent textbooks is that it is not possible to get chickenpox twice - the argument claims that a single chickenpox infection provides subsequent lifelong immunity # however it is argued (1) that if immunity was lifelong then shingles would not occur since this represents a localised reactivation of the virus (indicating a failure of immunological control of latency) # there is evidence that true re-infection with chickenpox can occur * twenty-three healthy and apparently immunocompetent children with a history of 2-5 episodes of chickenpox were studied after repeat disease * serial sera were tested for VZV-IgG subclass patterns and VZV IgG and G-subclass antibody avidity by urea elution enzyme linked immunoassay (ELISA) * of 11 patients studied within 8 weeks of repeat chickenpox (Early Group), mean antibody avidity was significantly lower (31.3 +/- 26.81) than control (65.1 +/- 12.38) (P .001). Seven had low avidity antibody ( 30 percent) and an abundance of IgG3 which was a pattern like primary chickenpox, and 2/11 had high avidity antibody characteristic of anamnestic responses. Early Group patients and 12 others studied over 8 weeks after repeat disease (Late Group) showed avidity maturation and attrition of IgG subclass antibodies other than IgG1 * at least nine children failed to show VZV-specific secondary (memory) immune responses early in the course of repeat disease. It is possible that failure to maintain or evoke a secondary immune response could explain their susceptibility to repeat chickenpox. # there is also evidence that chickenpox infection has occurred in patients who have been vaccinated and been demonstrated to have antibody and cellular immunity against varicella-zoster virus - in these cases virus typing has demonstrated wild-type virus and not vaccine strain, therefore confirming new infection..." - gpnotebook.co.uk "there are small populations of people in Canada and the United Sates who are carrying and passing on the mutant form of the virus." - university of iowa health care news "In December 1999, a 75-year-old man from Vancouver, British_Columbia, Canada,...VZV-MSP is a previously unrecognized subpopulation of VZV that has been circulating for more than 50 years in circumscribed regions of northern United States and Canada. The timeline is based on the decade when the British Columbia patient likely first contracted chickenpox as a child....larger studies need to be conducted to determine the prevalence of this mutant virus in North America..." - cdc 051122 ... mon "The results of a surveillance project of case reports of re-infection with chickenpox in children (2) reported: “Among varicella cases reported to the surveillance project, 4.5% of cases in 1995 and 13.3% of cases in 1999 reported previous varicella. More than 95% of first infections were physician diagnosed, epidemiologically linked to another case, or had a rash description consistent with varicella; the same was true of reported second infections. People who reported reinfections were generally healthy. There was a family history of repeat infections in 45% of people who reported reinfections. Clinical varicella reinfections may occur more commonly than previously thought." - attract.wales.nhs.uk/ 051122 ... mon "...Commonly accepted outcomes of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infections include chickenpox (primary) and shingles (recurrence or latency), as well lifetime immunity against chickenpox. We report the case of a registered nurse who worked in a neurologic surgery ward in a general hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. While working there for approximately 1 year, she developed recurrent chickenpox... Primary varicella infection usually results in lifetime immunity (CDC 2005), and second episodes of varicella are uncommon (CDC 2005; Gershon et al. 1984), but they may occur (CDC 2005). VZV disease history always indicates that varicella is the primary infection, and herpes zoster is a recurrence of the disease (Arvin 1996; CDC 1996, 1997, 2005; Gershon et al. 1984; Jumaan et al. 2002), as well-documented second episodes of varicella are rare (Gershon et al. 1984). Here we report a case of apparent VZV reinfection with recurrent varicella infection in a nurse in a teaching general hospital in Taiwan... A 25-year-old nurse, who had childhood chickenpox,... At the age of 5 years, the nurse had been infected with chickenpox by her kindergarten-age sister, who herself was previously infected by her kindergarten classmates. At that time, the nurse, her sister, and her brother had multiple chickenpox vesicles on their faces simultaneously. Because of her previous chickenpox history, it was supposed that the nurse was immune to the VZV; while caring for the patient, she did not wear gloves, a mask, or an isolation gown... In the present case, the nurse developed a recurrence of varicella after nursing a herpes zoster patient, although she had been infected by her sister when she was 5 years of age... New variants of VZV have been reported recently, including VZV-MSP, isolated in St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN (Santos et al. 1998, 2000), and VZV-BC, isolated in British Columbia (Tipples et al. 2002). We do not know whether there is a mutant strain of VZV in Taiwan; thus this is a good index case for further study. Another consideration is that the nurse’s immunity was insufficient against the second VZV attack, since she was infected initially over 20 years earlier by her sister. Unfortunately, it was not possible to check her VZV antibody titers before her recurrent varicella episode..." - ehp.niehs.nih.gov 051122 ... mon "Clinical reinfections with a different strain of varicella have been reported in individuals who have already had a primary exposure and infection. These reinfections have occurred in patients with impaired immune responses, were relatively mild in nature, and did not present along a dermatome, as seen with zoster.6,7...6. Gershon AA, Steinberg SP, Gelb L et al. Clinical reinfection with varicella-zoster virus. J Infect Dis 1984; 149: 137-42...7. Arvin AM, Koropchak CM, Wittek AE. Immunologic evidence of reinfection with varicella-zoster virus. J Infect Dis 1983; 148: 200-5..." - ascp.com 051123 ... mon "J Med Virol. 1992 Jun;37(2):113-5. Low antibody avidity in elderly chickenpox patients. Schoub BD, Blackburn NK, Johnson S, McAnerney JM, Miller B. Department of Virology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. A small outbreak of chickenpox confirmed serologically in 3 elderly patients from a geriatric home is described. Disease was probably due to exogenous reinfection, yet nevertheless the avidity of specific antibodies measured by the urea denaturation test was even lower than in primary chickenpox controls, which themselves were, as expected, significantly lower than zoster controls. In elderly individuals susceptibility to reinfection with varicella-zoster virus (VZV) with clinical manifestation such as chickenpox may well be associated with the decay of specific humoral immunity detectable by antibodies of particularly low avidity, in contrast to reactivation of latent VZV presenting clinically as zoster, which is related to deficiencies in specific cellular immunity." - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "dysregulation of cellular and humoral response are associated with C_F_S" - meactionuk.org.uk "abnormalities of both humoral and cellular immunity have been demonstrated in a substantial proportion of patients with C_F_S" - ahmf.org 051123 ... mutant My grandmother told me that it was possible to get chicken pox a second time if you had a weaker reaction than normal. You develop a lifetime immunity to any disease once you catch it, but when you encounter a mutated strain with a slightly altered genetic encoder, you get recurring symptoms. When they create vaccines, they update against the dominant strains. Diseases become immune to cleaning products and medications over time, this could turn a hospital into the center of an epidimic. St. Paul is a rather important city. Doctors must expose lab mice to the disease and transfer immunity to a human. Miracle cures in cave spiders so we test habitat conditions to locate other hives, pushing a hand cart with a tall blonde woman on it; spitting hamburger into my mouth. 070202 what's it to you? who go blather from