My son has pneumonia

[PhillyPA]

My DS age 6 has been in complete pandas remission since August. He was 110% better from all pandas symptoms. He was diagnosed this week via x-ray with pneumonia. His doctor said that it is probably mycoplasma pneumonia. He put him on azithromycin. He took him off the augmentin that he was on to prevent strep and said to resume it after he is done with a five day course of azithromycin. He has had some of his pandas symptoms come back but I am hoping that they resolve when he is better.

 

My other DS age 8 has been doing well since his three high dose ivig's this summer. He has had a set back since his brother's illness. He is acting crazy. OCD has picked up. Crying for no reason is occurring again. He is currently on high dose augmentin.

 

I don't understand this. Could my other son's illness be causing his set back? He doesn't have any fevers or signs of pneumonia what so ever. How can this happen? So is it the germs in the air? It seems bizarre that a kid can react to someone else's sickness. I know I heard it on this before that kids can react to other kids strep - but how does that work? Does it mean that my son actually has acquired the mycoplasma germ from his brother? Should I put him on azithromycin?

 

I am stressed. I am worrying that this is going to effect my DS8's recovery.

[kimballot]

I would ask to put them both on azith and would probably do it for more than 5 days. I would also ask for mycoplasma blood tests for both. It probably won't tell you anything right now, but it will be a baseline that you can work off of if things get crazy later.

 

I had "walking pneumonia" 3 weeks ago and did a 5-day course of zith. My son (who was on 500 mg azith at the time) had an increase in PANDAS symptoms for about 2 weeks. Dr. B and folks on this forum encouraged me to wait a bit B/C he should be protected. My son's PANDAS symptoms are settling down now and I am stating to relax. I really wonder if it is similar to the reactions we see with PANDAS kids when they are around strep even if the child with PANDAS does not contract strep.

[Phasmid]

Your son may indeed be reacting to your other's infection! Mycoplasma is very contagious, being transferred via aerosols during cough and sneezing. All it takes is for a few cells to be transferred, and for those cells to begin reproducing and carrying out physiological processes before the body's immune cells recognize it and begin to target the bacteria. Doesn't mean your son has an infection, but close contact will inevitably result in some transfer of bacteria from one person to the other. His immune system will respond to prevent an infection. That response may bring new symptoms!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fixit]

i dont understand it completely either...and it seems far fetched...but i will never say never...and would regret saying when i have to eat my words...but it also makes sense...

 

will try to do my best..

 

do you know how you can smell a smoker many feet away from you, even though they are not smoking at the time....

those particles are in the air...our brains can register those and translate it and say...oh those are cigarettes...

well other particles are in the air...but they for some reason can not translate to our conscoius brain and say oh myco p or strep...but the rest of the brain says....mycop..strep....get the soldiers out to fight.....

 

that is how they use dogs for people who have seizures or dogs that smell cancer...their sense of smell is more heightened....i would not be able to stand next to someone who has seizures and go...oh you need to sit down now...you're going to have a seizure in a minute

 

So to me it makes sense on that level

[Phasmid]

Your son may indeed be reacting to your other's infection! Mycoplasma is very contagious, being transferred via aerosols during cough and sneezing. All it takes is for a few cells to be transferred, and for those cells to begin reproducing and carrying out physiological processes before the body's immune cells recognize it and begin to target the bacteria. Doesn't mean your son has an infection, but close contact will inevitably result in some transfer of bacteria from one person to the other. His immune system will respond to prevent an infection. That response may bring new symptoms!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[airial95]

Your son may not have the infection, but being exposed to the bacteria has triggered his immune response. My son is very sensitive to exposure, while we're not at 100% like you, we've peaked at 85% a couple of weeks ago (I use the past tense b/c my daughter had impetigo last week, so we've had a bit of a backslide with the exposure).

 

Every child is different, but what we've noticed is that our son will have a very strong reaction for 3 days or so (by very strong I mean off the charts!) follwed by a slow recovery back to where he was before the exposure (in our case 85%). The rebound in our case takes a couple of weeks, and it really sucks! My son will also react with other bacteria/virus exposures too. I think it's anything that heightens the immune response triggers it.

 

Kimballot said what our dr's have told us too - if he's on abx already, he should be protected and it may be a temporary flare up. It took several negative strep tests and countless visits to the doctor during his exposure flares before I finally believed them. (I swear, if I didn't have such a great pediatrician and Dr. Murphy on our team, someone would've reported me to DCF for Munchausen's by now with all the trips to the pediatrician we've taken for every little blip in behavior!)

 

Hang in there - and I hope your other son makes an uneventful full recovery!

[thereishope]

I agree with everyone else that he could be reacting from exposure to the bacteria, however, there is a chance he could contract the Myco P and just not be showing physical symptoms of it yet. I read that someone can have Myco P for 6 weeks before developing the cough or any other symptoms. Since you see a ramp in other son's PANDAS behaviors, I would err on the side of caution and ask them to switch him Azith for now as well.

 

You can also contact your child's teacher and ask if a lot of kids are coughing. When my non-PANDAS son had Myco P, I did that and she almost the whole class was coughing. Your son may just be exposed every where he turns right now and that would have a high chance of causing the ramp up.

[peglem]

The abx doesn't kill the germs on the way in and the immune system is proactive (like its supposed to be) and responds with antibodies immediately when germs are detected....prevents infection, but if your kid is making wanky antibodies that act like neurotransmitters- well, their immune system attack themselves simultaneously with defending themselves.

[PhillyPA]

I also think that it is interesting that my son got pneumonia while on 800mg of augmentin per day. The augmentin did not protect against pneumonia.

[Tamistwins]

My son had mycoplasma we knew this through bloodwork. He was treated with biaxin and more presently has been on zithromax to prevent any steep or other infections. Well seems like he picked up another mycoplasma infection even while on zithromax. Mycoplasma is very stubborn and hard to rid the body of especially in pandas children.