Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Name that Rash

On Sunday Ben went to bed with a little bit of a rash on his arm pits. I put some hydrocorizone cream on it and didn't think anything of it. The next morning we woke up to this:
 
  
So we added Benadryl (or as Ben calls it "Ben and a Drill") hoping that would cure it. (along with the Hydrocorizone cream)
Later Monday it looks like this:

 
  
  
  
He's acting fine but that rash isn't going away. We continued all day with the hydrocortzone cream and Benadryl. 

But Tuesday we woke up with this

 
  
So we were off to the Dr.  Here's an interesting piece of info. If you go to the pediatricians office with your child who has an OBVIOUS rash all over - you get right in. You don't have to wait in the waiting room or anything. The receptionist takes you right back to the "Pediatric Rash Room" The nurse came in and said she had no idea what it was. He didn't have a temperature and hadn't been exposed to anything new. 
Dr. B came in and said it was definitely an allergic reaction. (Just like my mom said) It was a bad case of hives. We have no idea what triggered it. The only two things that we could think of that may have caused it were - 1. he had a new brand of apple juice and 2. he got a new shirt. But here's the case against either of them. 1. he's had apple juice before. It was just a different brand. 2. The rash wasn't under where his shirt was. It was mainly on his legs, face and arms. Not on his chest or stomach. 
So Dr. B said we were doing the right thing giving him Benadryl and hydrocortizone cream. If he swelled up any more (his hands and feet were swollen a little) especially on his face or lips, to bring him right in and they will give him a steriod. He did ask if he could show the medical students Ben's rash. We said that was ok. He brought us out to the medical students and asked them to look at it, figure out what they thought it was, and research it. One of them thought it was a reaction to amoxicilin. But Ben hasn't had any medicine lately. It seemed to puzzle both the medical students and the nurse. Thankfully Dr. B wasn't worried about it. 
I brought Ben home and told my mom what the Dr said. She remembered one more thing that it could have been. Ben was stung by a bee on Friday. We got most of the stinger out but not all of it. I'm not sure it could be that because it had been a couple days before the rash started. I called today and left a message for the dr, just to tell him about it. I haven't heard back from him so I guess he isn't worried about it either. 
Thankfully today the rash is almost gone. (I didn't get pictures of it today but I will get some tomorrow) It's on his chest a little bit today but now barely on his legs. It's still on his arms but it doesn't look so bad.  Hopefully by tomorrow it will be gone completely.
 

2 comments:

Abby said...

Wow. Definitely looks like hives. Hopefully if it was the bee sting, he doesn't react worse in the future. Don't some people have to keep bee sting kits on hand because of their allergies to bee stings?

Autumn has a rash right now too. It's a fun one. Looks like ringworm but is called pityriasis rosea and NOONE KNOWS WHAT CAUSES IT. Fun fun. It can last anywhere from 6 weeks to 8 weeks too.

Tami said...

For awhile Peter would get hives on his face, arms and any other body part exposed to the open air and sunshine when he walked or ran enough to get a little sweaty. He seems to have outgrown it, thankfully. I had no idea kids got such wierd things!