“I found out last night that I have chicken pox. So, I will be home, itching and missing everyone. And I can't believe it because this film means so much to me.”

 

Hmm. You saw Richard Besser is here. Richard, we all think of chicken pox as a kids' disease. With adults it can be very serious.

 

Yeah, it can be much more severe. When adults get the chicken pox, they can get more bumps than you do as a child. You're also at greater risks of getting complications like pneumonia, unless in someone who we hand the vaccine and it’s someone what’s called break-through chicken pox. There is tendency of a milder case.

 

So as adults, what do we watch out for? I mean, how do we know?

 

Yeah, so the early signs could be just about anything -- fever and malaise, but then the bumps start, usually on your face, your chest, your back. It starts as the red bumps, and then turn into the blisters and then scab over. It takes about a week. Until they're all scabbed over, you're contagious. 

 

A lot of people confuse shingles and chicken pox. It's the same virus? 

 

It is the same virus. But you know, shingles is a reactivation of an old chicken pox infection. And that’s something that everyone is a risk of later. But it’s really important for people to know. Children, we all know that children get two doses of the chicken pox vaccines, but all adults born after 1980, born after 1980 have to have two doses as well, unless you have been shown to be immune. And you know, Proof of immunity is a doctor diagnosed you with chicken pox, you have a short record with two doses. We have a blood test that says you had chicken pox.

 

All right. So ask a doctor? 

 

Yeah. And if you're a woman who is thinking about getting pregnant, get the vaccine before, because chicken pox can actually cause a birth defect. 

 

And Richard, very quickly, watch this outbreak of mumps in the NHL. 

 

Yeah, this is really interesting. Nobody knows why this is talking place. So mumps is a disease that we rarely see. It causes swelling of your face, of your glands. But they've seen cases on more than five teams, more than ten players. Mumps tends to be spread through talking, through coughing, through sneezing. You can understand how it spreads on a team because of the close contact. But the big question is: how is it spreading across teams? Is it from this, you know, brutal checking on the ice or the clinching? 

 

Could be.

 

But the incubation period can be a couple of weeks long. This could go on for quite a while.

 

Well. 

 

Richard, thanks very much.