I never expected that at forty, in the last month of 2025, I would end up with chickenpox.
Day 1: A low fever and that unmistakable feeling that something was wrong
Over the weekend, my whole body started to ache. My muscles and joints were sore, I felt chilled and nauseated, and random sharp pains kept shooting through different parts of my body. At noon I crawled under three quilts with a hot-water bottle and slept for a while. When I woke up, I was dizzy and miserable and had to lie back down again. I checked my temperature several times—just under 38°C.
That night I kept running a fever, sweating, and having nonstop dreams. I assumed I had caught a cold from someone. Looking back, I had already been feeling unusually sluggish and sleepy for a few days.
Day 2: The nausea would not let up
I felt a little better in the morning, so after taking my two children to school, I went to work. Before leaving, I noticed a few unfamiliar red bumps on my face in the mirror. They were fairly symmetrical. I accidentally broke one, and a little fluid came out. I dismissed it as internal heat or irritation and did not think much of it.
At work, a colleague asked whether I was feeling unwell because my complexion looked off. The nausea stayed with me all day. I could not eat lunch or dinner. Even the smell of food made me sick. It felt strangely similar to early pregnancy, and for a moment I even wondered whether I might be unexpectedly pregnant.
Day 3: Chickenpox, confirmed
In the morning, I looked in the mirror and saw more red bumps on my face and body than the day before. By noon, even more had appeared. Some had clear fluid in the center. From experience, I could tell this did not look like the acute urticaria I had previously developed after fevers or colds. I kept searching online and began to suspect chickenpox.
That afternoon I rushed to the dermatology department at the hospital. After examining me, the doctor confirmed it was chickenpox. My ID information and workplace were recorded and reported to the provincial system. Because chickenpox is highly contagious, I was told to isolate and rest for two weeks.
As soon as I got home, I packed clothes and daily necessities and moved out immediately to isolate. After school, my two children went to stay with their grandparents. All the bedding and clothes at home were washed and aired out, and the rooms were disinfected with alcohol spray.
My husband was away on a business trip. When he heard, he arranged varicella vaccinations for both children. Each dose cost a little over 200 yuan. From what I read, the vaccine generally starts to provide meaningful protection in about two weeks, and full standard vaccination—usually two doses—offers longer-lasting immunity. The incubation period for chickenpox is typically 10 to 24 days, most often around 14 to 16 days. The timing for my children was admittedly late, but I still hoped the shots might lower the risk of illness or at least reduce the severity and shorten the course if they were infected.
The doctor prescribed two medications for me:
- Mingzhuxin valaciclovir hydrochloride tablets: three boxes, twice daily, one 0.3 g tablet each time
- Jiubang acyclovir cream 3% 10 g: two tubes, four times daily
I shut myself in a room to isolate, taking the medicine while trying to endure the itching over my entire body, all the while worrying about my children and praying they would not catch it.
The cream had to be applied about every two hours. I would undress, stand in front of the mirror, and dab every single blister one by one. There were so many that one application almost used up an entire tube. It was December in the south, and standing there naked to put on medicine was cold enough. Worse, the moment the lesions met cold air, the itching felt even more intense. To keep myself from scratching the blisters open, I cut my nails as short as possible and tucked my shirt firmly into my pants, trying with all my strength not to slip my hands underneath.
Day 4: The rash grew denser
Compared with Day 3, the chickenpox on my face and body became much more densely packed. I could even feel lesions on my scalp. That night I woke again and again because of the heat and the full-body itching. My face looked swollen and red. In the mirror, I thought I looked like a toad.
The worst part was the first blister that had appeared near my eye and had accidentally broken open. In the previous days, it had come into contact with water while washing my face and with skincare products afterward, and it may have become infected. It was red, swollen, slightly pus-filled, and sent out waves of stinging pain. The discomfort spread to my left eye, which became swollen and painful and was hard to open fully. The blister on my neck that I had also touched open earlier began to throb in the same way. I tried applying mupirocin ointment to reduce inflammation, but after a full day there was no obvious relief. The redness, swelling, and stinging continued.
I had almost no appetite during this period. It also seemed as if there was a chickenpox lesion in my throat. That, together with a painful permanent tooth, the inflamed blister on my cheek, and the eye pain, left me hurting in several places at once. On top of that, the rest of my body itched intensely. Pain and itching were layered together in a way that felt genuinely exhausting.
Before bed I took a loratadine tablet, which I normally use for hives. Usually it works within about half an hour. This time I waited two or three miserable hours and the itching still would not let up.
Day 5: The rash finally seemed to stop spreading so fast
When I got up, I looked in the mirror almost like I was opening a blind box, bracing myself for whatever I might see. The good news was that the number of lesions on my body had not increased dramatically overnight.
The densest areas were my face, neck, chest, stomach, and back. My arms and legs had relatively fewer spots. The inflamed area beneath my left eye seemed a little smaller, though it still stung and itched slightly, and the eye itself was still swollen and uncomfortable. I kept picking up a mirror to check it, full of worry.
My throat and tooth still hurt, and my lips were dry.
The lesions had appeared at different times, so they were all at different stages. Some were still fresh red papules. Some had developed into blisters with fluid in the center. Others had turned from clear to cloudy. I kept hoping they would all crust over soon so I could stop worrying so much about being contagious and finally go home.
Day 6: The swelling in my cheek started to go down
That morning my left eye was still a little swollen, but it no longer hurt much. The red swollen patch beneath it continued to shrink, the stabbing pain was gone, and only some itching remained. My face was no longer as red and puffy as it had been on Day 4, and my complexion was gradually returning to normal. The pain in my throat and tooth also eased.
At night, though, I could still feel itching all over while trying to sleep. I wanted to stop myself from scratching, but I could not fully manage it.
Where I grew up, people had all kinds of folk sayings about chickenpox: don’t go out in the wind, don’t meet strangers, bathe in water boiled with cilantro, and drink tofu and cilantro soup to help “bring out” all the spots. I vaguely remember having chickenpox once as a child. I remember someone riding me home on a bicycle from Dongdaqiao with my head wrapped in a scarf the whole way. But after getting home, I have no memory of what symptoms I had or how long it took me to recover. As far as I can recall, I was probably never vaccinated against chickenpox.
Day 7: A dark sunken scab on my cheek
There was no obvious change in the rash on my face or body, and the itching was still hard to bear. My throat still felt uncomfortable, and I still had very little appetite.
The area below my eye was still red and swollen. A black scab about the size of a soybean had formed there, sunken inward. I had the sinking feeling that once it fell off, it would leave a pit. The thought made me miserable. I had never considered myself attractive to begin with, and now my face was covered in chickenpox marks.
My husband tried to comfort me by joking that I was already married, so there was no need to worry about disfigurement. Thinking back, when we were dating in school, I had never minded his face full of acne either.
Day 8: Still consumed by the itching
During isolation, most of my energy went into enduring the discomfort. I had no interest in reading and no interest in crochet. I spent most of my time lying down and, when awake, scrolling through short videos on my phone.
The red swollen area under my eye shrank further, and the eye itself no longer felt so uncomfortable.
Day 9: Some of the lesions began to crust over
The chickenpox still itched on and off all over my body. I had read online that the blisters should not be broken and that if the scabs were allowed to fall off naturally, they would be less likely to leave marks. So after getting sick, I had not dared wash my hair or bathe. On top of that, I was applying acyclovir cream several times a day, and the petroleum jelly in the ointment left my skin coated in a semi-solid layer, which made everything feel even itchier.
Still, I could finally see that some lesions had crusted over. Their colors ranged from pale yellow to brownish dark tones.
Day 10: Hives flared on top of the chickenpox
As if the itching from chickenpox were not enough, my urticaria flared up again on top of it. Before bed, I took another loratadine tablet. In the past, my itching would fade within around half an hour after taking it. This time, the effect was painfully slow. I lay there enduring it until after midnight before I gradually drifted off.
My mood had been low throughout this period. I kept worrying about my children, and I also felt anxious about my own declining health. I had no energy for much of anything. Illness made the importance of simply being healthy and safe feel painfully clear.
Day 11: The area around my left eye hurt again
When I woke up, my left eye was painful again. The nearby area had a mild stabbing sensation and was also itchy. The redness and swelling around the dark scab had still not completely gone away, though the affected area was smaller than before.
Some of the chickenpox lesions on my body were still drying and forming scabs, and my whole body was still itchy.
Day 12: Most of the spots had scabbed over
More lesions crusted over, and the ones on my face had turned into many small dark scabs scattered everywhere, making my appearance feel even worse to me.
There were only around ten lesions left on my body that had not fully crusted, and they had already shriveled, just waiting for the final stage. My face and body still itched in waves.
Over the past year or so, my urticaria had become relatively mild and only occasional. But during these days it kept coming back again and again, almost every day, often twice a day or more. In the past, one loratadine tablet could keep me free from itching for about a week. Recently, however, each time I took it, the hives returned in less than a day.
I began to suspect that the chickenpox virus had lowered my immunity. What I found online suggested something more specific: not necessarily long-term immune weakness, but an immune system thrown into a state of stress and dysregulation after viral infection.
Chickenpox is caused by varicella-zoster virus, and the illness is related to insufficient immune defense against that infection. Frequent hives, especially chronic spontaneous urticaria, are generally driven not by simple immune suppression but by immune dysregulation. A chickenpox infection may act as a trigger that disrupts the body’s immune balance. In that state, the immune system can overreact to the body itself or to otherwise harmless substances in the environment, causing mast cells to release histamine and leading to wheals and itching—or making existing urticaria worse.