How to find out if you had chickenpox in childhood: best methods and effective ways

In the article, we will consider how to find out if he had chickenpox in childhood.

Many people suffer from it in childhood, as a result of which they develop lifelong immunity, but there are exceptions. If for the first time a person is infected with chickenpox in adulthood, the infectious pathology is much more difficult, and the likelihood of complications is much higher. This disease poses the greatest danger to pregnant women and people with immunodeficiency. In this case, you need to know if the person had chickenpox in childhood, or if he is at risk.

Determination methods

So, how do you know if you had chickenpox in childhood?

Despite the age at which a person is, there is an opportunity to find out if chickenpox is dangerous for him or whether he has reliable immunity. The best way to find out if a person is sick or not is through laboratory tests of blood samples. There are other ways, but the information obtained in this case cannot be completely reliable.

How to find out if a person was sick with chickenpox is interesting to many.

Laboratory research

Reliable lifelong immunity to chickenpox, formed after an illness, is due to the presence in the blood of certain antibodies to the virus that provokes the infection. Chicken pox develops under the influence of the herpes virus of the third type, its other name is Varicella-Zoster. How to find out if you had chickenpox? Currently, the presence of antibodies in the blood to this infectious agent can be determined through two laboratory tests:

1. Fluorescence Reaction (RIF). This study also allows the detection of specific immunoglobulins.
2. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). This study is a very accurate and informative way. As a rule, if there is no visible symptomatology of the pathology, a blood sample is checked for the presence of two types of antibodies (immunoglobulins) - IgM and IgG.

Tests for the determination of antibodies to chickenpox should be in the morning, on an empty stomach. In addition, it is important to consider that some drugs can distort the results of laboratory tests, so the use of any medication should be reported to the doctor in advance.

PCR

How can I find out if a person had chickenpox by PCR?

It is not possible to determine the presence of immunity to chickenpox using PCR analysis. This study is able to show only the presence or absence of the virus itself in biological fluids, but not the presence of specific antibodies that prevent infection. The need for PCR may occur if the doctor suspects that the patient develops chickenpox, but the clinical symptoms are blurred and cannot be accurately diagnosed.

In the same way, you can find out if the child had chickenpox.

Decoding laboratory results

Deciphering the results obtained in the course of a laboratory study is not difficult. The presence of IgG antibodies in the blood sample indicates that the patient had chickenpox and has immunity. The presence of IgM antibodies allows us to conclude that a person has recently been ill with her or is ill at the moment, and the pathology is in the acute phase. In this regard, the decoding of the analysis result is as follows:

1. If both types of antibodies (IgM- and IgG-) are absent, then we can conclude that a person has never had chickenpox, he does not have immunity to it.
2. If antibodies G are present and antibodies M are absent (IgM- and IgG +), it can be concluded that the patient had chickenpox earlier and is completely protected from it in the present and future.
3. The presence of both immunoglobulins (IgM + and IgG +) indicates a real human disease, and the infection process is active and is in the stage closer to the final one. At the same time, antibodies G have already appeared in the blood, and antibodies M have not yet had time to disappear.
4. If antibodies M are present, and antibodies G are absent (IgM + and IgG-), then this indicates that the person was recently infected. Antibodies providing lifelong immunity have not yet appeared, their formation will occur later.

The results of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for a blood sample can accurately determine whether a person had chickenpox in the past or not. If an infectious pathology proceeds atypically, this study allows you to confirm or refute the diagnosis.

How to find out if you had chickenpox in childhood?

Other determination methods

To find out whether a person has had chickenpox in the past can be done in other ways, however, their reliability is in doubt. Nevertheless, such methods are sometimes useful.

You can find out if a person had chickenpox in childhood by asking parents about this. They will certainly be able to give an accurate answer if the infectious pathology had the usual form - with temperature, heavy rashes, quarantine in an educational institution. But it should be borne in mind that if a person had chickenpox for a very long time, and the disease was mild and was not accompanied by severe rashes, then it might not have been diagnosed - it might simply not have been noticed. In this case, the immune defense in humans has been formed, therefore, protective antibodies are present in the blood. In such cases, laboratory testing for antibodies will be more reliable and informative.

Map Entries

If there is no opportunity to learn about the disease from the parents or they do not remember, then you can study the entries in the outpatient card. All information in medical institutions is carefully recorded and stored in archives for many years. Therefore, it is possible to get an answer to a question by contacting it after a long time.

How can I find out if you had chickenpox, now it’s clear. But what if not?

Procedure in the absence of immunity to chickenpox

If it turns out that in childhood a person did not get chickenpox and, accordingly, he does not have immunity to the disease, then vaccination is recommended. Reasons for vaccination are good enough:

1. Infection can occur at any time, as the virus is very easily transmitted and is quite common. As a rule, workers at polyclinics and kindergartens are at risk. But you can get infected from your own child.
2. Adult chickenpox is extremely difficult to tolerate, with a very high likelihood of developing complications. In addition, there is an increased risk of the formation of smallpox - specific cosmetic defects.
3. Infection with chickenpox virus during pregnancy, in particular, immediately before childbirth, can pose a serious threat to the health of the unborn baby, until death. In this regard, women who are planning a pregnancy, it is recommended to make sure that they have immunity, or to acquire it through vaccination.
4. Chickenpox poses a great danger to people with reduced immunity (if there are serious chronic pathologies in the period after organ transplantation). For these people, chickenpox immunity can be a vital issue.
   

In many developed countries, vaccinations against chickenpox have been practiced since the second half of the 20th century. During this period, vaccines have confirmed their own effectiveness and complete safety.

We examined how to find out if he had chickenpox in childhood.