What Is Chicken Pox?
Reviewed: Dr. Gromatzky
3. Incubation Period
If you catch chicken pox then it will be around 7 to 21 days before you know anything about it. During most of this time you will not be contagious to others. The patient will become contagious, however, around 48 hours before the rash begins to occur.
This allows a window of time when the patient is contagious with the disease, but the patient and/or their parents are not aware. This makes it more likely that the disease will be spread to other people. Even though the rash may not have developed yet, however, there are some other symptoms that can draw people’s attention to a potential problem.
