Well it was bound to happen. Matthew has his first case of strep.
I picked him up from school & he had a 3:15 appt with out chiropractor - Dr. Nick. Dr. Nick is a young guy but like most alternative healthcare practitioners, Dr. Nick is not a cheerleader for antibiotics. Matthew has been complaining of a sore neck & headaches on & off the past week and he was looking forward to getting his adjustment since we thought Dr. Nick could nip this in the bud. Funny thing is Dr. Nick recommended I call our pediatrician and get Matthew in for a strep test - right there while in his exam room. He said he strongly believed Matthew's sore neck was inflammation from strep or another similar bug and he took Matthew's temperature, only to find he had a 101.5 fever! We came directly from school so I had barely been with Matthew 10 minutes and he seemed "not himself" but I thought he was tired (he slept really poorly last night)and I hadn't even thought he had a fever! Well Dr. Nick was right - our pediatrician definitely wanted us to come right in and Matthew came up with a positive strep test and is now on a course of antibiotics to hopefully make him feel much better in a day or so. But I do think it's ironic that the one guy who usually shys away from recommending meds was the one who got us there! Thank you, Dr. Nick.
Now I'm sure those of you with older children already knew this BUT I always thought of strep as "that illness with a fever & a really, really sore throat". No so! You don't need to have a sore throat at all to have strep! Did you know that? I sure didn't! But you can be sure it is going to be my mantra from now on - I'll be telling everyone I know! Because if you let strep go untreated there are some serious complications you can get! So the symptoms of headache, muscle aches, fever over 101, stomach pain & low appetite are strep symptoms - regardless if you have a sore throat or not.
Wish me luck tomorrow - hope Matthew doesn't drive me to drink! LOL!
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4 comments:
As you might remember, we had our share of the strep with Elizabeth. Elizabeth (most of the time) hardly had a sore throat that was bad enough for her to complain about! Hope he feels better soon! By tomorrow night, he should be so much better and thankfully, not contagious anymore...Good luck and post how he is doing!
Thanks Debbie.....I will give you an update. He has absolutely NO sore throat - so I guess that's why I didn't even connect the dots. He's probably had it for a week - I am guessing that's what he had when they sent him home from school last week since he had fever, headache, stomach ache. I really wish the school nurse had said something about what is going around & I would have taken him in. I just thought it was a virus & let it go. So at least I know now!
oh no! poor Matthew. I hope he's feeling better today!
I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier (I didn't want to jinx you if I was wrong), but it sounded like Strep to me when Matthew was running the fever, having the stomach illness, and then the headache. Those are the exact symptoms that my girls have when the get Strep (or even when they get what I call "not Strep).
I hope Matthew feels better soon.
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