Pneumonia

[nicklemama]

Just got home from urgent care. DS8 has been diagnosed w/ bronchopneumonia. He went to school fine yesterday. Came home w/ an occasional cough he said hurt bad. Had a slightly elevated temp. Temp kept rising, despite Motrin. This morning temp was 101.6 two hours after motrin. Urgent care did an xray to confirm pneumonia. Any experience? This is the first respiratory illness w/ fever DS has had in three years. In fact, the last time he had fever like this was his first PANDAS episode. Come to think of it, I don't think he's had a fever at all in the 3 yrs. He's had a couple of colds and a couple of stomach viruses in the three years. What am I in for?

 

Came back to say, he was rx'd a zpack. He's on 500mg augmentin prophylactically.

Edited November 3, 2012 by nicklemama

[peglem]

Just got home from urgent care. DS8 has been diagnosed w/ bronchopneumonia. He went to school fine yesterday. Came home w/ an occasional cough he said hurt bad. Had a slightly elevated temp. Temp kept rising, despite Motrin. This morning temp was 101.6 two hours after motrin. Urgent care did an xray to confirm pneumonia. Any experience? This is the first respiratory illness w/ fever DS has had in three years. In fact, the last time he had fever like this was his first PANDAS episode. Come to think of it, I don't think he's had a fever at all in the 3 yrs. He's had a couple of colds and a couple of stomach viruses in the three years. What am I in for?

 

Came back to say, he was rx'd a zpack. He's on 500mg augmentin prophylactically.

So, he's already on 500mg/day of zith and they rxd a z-pack? My daughter generally does better w/ illness when she has a fever, not that that happens often. But its when the fever subsides that the crap starts to fly!

[beeskneesmommy]

Have blood drawn for Mycoplasma in a couple of weeks. It's opportunistic to Pneumonia. My son got it soon after he had a T&A and got walking pneumonia. Z-pack is the choice of treatemnt but we used long term Azith to knock it out. It's a beast for PANDAS kids, but you can hopefully kill it if your kiddo is infected. We did. Hope your kiddo feels better and sorry to hear this! The labs will tell you and let's hope Myco didn't jump in there!

Edited November 3, 2012 by Beeskneesmommy

[nicklemama]

He's on 500mg augmentin prophylactically and urgent care rx'd a zpack. I'm bracing myself for the possible storm to follow. I emailed Dr K and got a quick reply so he's aware and we are waiting to see what comes of this.

[Missmom]

My son got pneumonia in kindergarten that was before we knew of pandas, but I don't remember anything severe coming of it. I do remember having to try several different abx to cure it and the one that worked best for us was biaxin. Our neighbor is a nurse practitioner and she said her standard protocol is a shot of roceffin followed by ten days of biaxin. Both my kids have flu right now, so I feel like I am with ya.

[tpotter]

Fever is good...helps the body fight infection. My DS hasn't had one in as long as I can remember...no matter how sick he is.

 

Other suggestions that have been put out are very good.

[EmilyK]

My son is on Augmentin plus Zithromycin for the myco, so seems like you guys have the right stuff to kick it if that crops up.

 

Now the younger non-PANDAS has an ear infection and adnoiditis....grrrr.

[MomtoJake]

My son recently had this and it ended up being Myco P Huge flare. We were given 10 days of Azith by the Ped. When he came off it the flare worsened into something close to our original exacerbation. Called Dr. M in a panic and we saw her and got several more weeks of azith. We are finally on the other side of it but it all started August 19. So I agree- have the Myco P titers checked--- be aware-- it is easy to miss the rise in IGM-- treat the positive IGG if you are able to get your Doc to do so. Good luck and I will keep my fingers crossed for no exacerbation and no Myco P!

[nicklemama]

Thanks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed too. Dr K is aware he has pneumonia right now. The hardest part is the wait and see. I'm going to take him in to see his ped this coming week.

 

Anyone know when you should draw for mycoP titers? I am going to have them done.

[mama2alex]

Our ds has had pneumonia 5 times, plus one relapse. The relapse occured when he was given a Z-Pak as treatment (he was not on other abx at the time like your son) and occured 5 days after he had finished the Z-Pak. You have the Augmentin on board already, so that should help him get on top of it, but one of our doctors commented that a Z-Pak alone is not enough to beat pneumonia. The last time ds had pnuemonia was when PANDAS hit him over 3 years ago. He hasn't had it since he's been on long-term, full-dose, rotating abx for Lyme/PANDAS. It concerns me that your son got pneumonia while on antibiotics - what do your doctors say about that?

 

Have the doctors told you how to monitor his breathing? At some point, we just bought a stethescope and an oximeter, but you can watch his chest rise and fall and count the breaths per minute. Anything over 40 per minute and you should be on the phone with the doctor and monitoring frequently. 50-60 per minute and I would take him to ER - it indicates that he's not getting enough oxygen. Our ds has needed to be hospitalized twice for pneumonia because he needed to be on oxygen. The second time we knew to count breaths and when they hit 60 per minute we took him to the after-hours clinic and they had an ambulance take him straight to the hospital. Not trying to scare you - this was just our experience.

 

Hang in there. I know how stressful it is. You are on top of it, so he will be fine.

[nicklemama]

Wow, they didn't tell me jack about anything. I was told he'd be feeling better by this evening. He is feeling better. He is not on treatment dose augmentin so it may have let something slip through. I am curious as to how he just suddenly turned up w/ pneumonia. He was not sick when I sent him to school on Friday and he was sick when he came home but not terribly so. He had a very low grade temp and he was coughing very occasionally. The only thing that set bells off is that he told me it hurt his chest when he coughed and when he would cough, he cried out in pain.

 

I am going to take him to his ped this week for follow up. I do have a stethoscope. 24hrs after starting the azith, he is coughing frequently and productively and his temp has dropped to near normal. He's up and watching tv. Just finished playing Bananagrams with his dad.

 

He doesn't know it yet, but he is not going to school tomorrow and then our school district is out on Tues for the election.

 

I have been watching his fingernails to see if he's getting enough oxygen but the doctor at the urgent care didn't tell me to. She was really upbeat about how well he'd be by this evening.