When you get sick, your white blood cells fight the harmful germs with special germ killers called antibodies. White cells manufacture antibodies for each particular sickness, so if you have chicken pox, your white blood cells make chicken pox antibodies. After you are recovered, these antibodies stay in your blood and keep killing any chicken pox viruses that get into your body. That is why you can’t get chicken pox twice. You have become immune to it.
In the same way, when you get a cold from a cold virus, your body makes antibodies to fight that particular cold virus. You can never get a cold from that particular kind of virus again. However, since there are more than 200 different kinds of viruses that can cause colds, a new cold virus can enter your body and you will not have antibodies in your blood to fight it. Then you will get another cold.
13 Comments
you can get it more thin once but its call shingles.
No, you can’t get chicken pox more than once. Shingles is caused by the same virus (herpes zoster), but shingles is a completely different disease than chicken pox. As far as the common cold goes, there are actually more than 400 different kinds of virus than can cause the common cold. Once you’ve had a cold caused by one particular virus, you are immune to that virus… but there are still hundreds more viruses out there that you are NOT yet immune to. That’s why you can catch “a cold” more than once.
U can the the chicken pox more than once! i have it now !!! its my third time.
How big do the chicken pox spots get? I think my son has them and they are about dime size or bigger.
well i was wondering i have 2/3 spots on my back and stomoch the coulor white and is it chicken pox even though i have already had them?
i dont think it is chicken pox.
That is not true. You can get chicken pox again, it is not called shingles, but is called chicken pox. I have a very low immune system and have had it 3 times – documented. So it is a wives tale when they say you can’t get chicken pox more then once,
It is possible to get chicken pox more than once. I was under-educated on the subject until I had to get my shots for nursing school. I had not had the varicella shot (the shot that prevents chicken pox) because I had had the disease as a child. I got documented proof that I had had chicken pox as a child and it was still not enough. I had to either have the shot or have blood drawn to prove that I could not get the disease. I had the blood drawn, thinking it was cheaper and would just prove what I already knew. Turns out, even after having the disease I was not immune to it. After the $56 Varicella Titer I ended up also having to get the $88 Varicella Vaccination anyway.
There are always exceptions to every rule…most “healthy” people will not get a virus a second time…immunodeficient people that have problems with that part of their bodies function are the exceptions…just like a CF patient can’t digest their food…where as “normal” people can.
Once you are cured, your body will retain immunity towards this specific virus, so that you will never get infected by the ’same’ virus.
But that is where the catch lies, because viruses mutate (change form). So, while the same type of virus cannot affect you again, once it mutates into another form, you can get infected with the same illness but not usually the exact same one you had before.
That is the problem with AIDS…it mutates before the body has time to build up the anitbodies thus, it is never defeated.
To protect yourself, it is important to remain healthy to keep your immune system functioning well.
i have chicjken pox now and wat do i do help
Take some acetaminophen (Tylenol), soak in a colloidal oatmeal bath, and use calamine lotion.
It is because of our immune system. Once infected, it is always in you.