Virus Alert

[Fiddle-Faddle]

There's a nasty virus going around our area, that seems to be targeting kids more than adults (as many viruses do). The symptoms are headache, abdominal pain, and a very strange fever that goes up very quickly (and quite high--103 and up), but comes down by itself (with no Tylenol or Ibuprofen) in about an hour, only to return several hours later. The fever keeps going up (for an hour) and down (for several hours) for days! The virus seems to take longer than most, running its course in about 5 days.

I thought I'd call this to your attention because of the abdominal pain, as some of you might think that your child was glutened. It's also nice to know in advance that the fever goes down by itself, in case you were debating about whether or not to give Tylenol (though it does help the headache).

Hope you guys can avoid this one. Wash hands!

P.S. Mods--I wasn't sure where to post this--feel free to move it wherever!

[little d]

This sounds like what my daughter had 4 almost 5 months ago she had it for 5 days doc gave anitibiotics but did not work she was misarable, happened again a month later, but it was after a child in school threw up in class but it was almost 3 weeks after that kid got sick, so I could not pin it down. We live in Arlington, Texas

donna

[blueeyedmanda]

This sounds like what happened to my mom just 2 weeks ago. She was like that for a week, and barely moved off thecouch. The fever kept spiking. She was always cold too. It really scared us since my mom never gets too sick and this just knocked her down.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

This sounds like what my daughter had 4 almost 5 months ago she had it for 5 days doc gave anitibiotics but did not work she was misarable, happened again a month later, but it was after a child in school threw up in class but it was almost 3 weeks after that kid got sick, so I could not pin it down. We live in Arlington, Texas

donna

Yikes!!! If you have a doc who gives antibiotics for a VIRUS, I would run the other direction as fast as possible! Antibiotics should not be used unless the doctor knows not only that bacteria is definitely involved, but WHICH bacteria (i.e., they should do a culture).

And, just to make us all really confused, our pediatrician told us that many bacterial infections do not necessarily need antibiotics, that the human body is capable of dealing with many of them. He did make a point of excluding strep from the list, but said that a culture must be done.