It can make you itch for days on end. “It kind of shows up classically with that rash that goes everywhere really spares no surfaces, kind of all over the body, private areas, legs, feet, hands, everywhere,” said Lee Health Pediatrician Dr. Phillip Mote.

Once you catch Chickenpox, the virus is in you forever. Dr. Mote said past generations would have Chickenpox parties so kids could catch it and get it over with when they were young. “While that is mostly true, some people’s immune systems as you get older depending on different immune types and those kinds of things, you can have a recurrence of that and that will pop back up as Shingles.”

Shingles come from the same virus that causes Chickenpox. “Shingles we consider a little bit more serious, because it goes around your neural pathways, your neurons so it can cause pretty bad pain,” said Mote.

Dr. Mote said the Chickenpox vaccine is well studied and safe. “Instead of catching it when you’re little, you get the vaccine when you’re little and that’s kind of like catching it, but your body already knows the virus, so in the future, it doesn’t have a chance as much to occur and come back out of suppression to cause shingles.”

Vaccine side effects can include a low-grade fever, but Dr. Mote said it’s much less severe than actual Chickenpox.



View More Health Matters video segments at LeeHealth.org/Healthmatters/


Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Lee Health - Caring People. Inspiring Care.


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