It's Strep! First time since starting the abx.

[airial95]

Over the weekend, our PANDAS son was definately revved up. A lot of defiance, unexplained tantrums, hitting his sister or the dogs for no reason. We also noticed the facial tic really take off late last week (and I just posted a topic about hallucinations vs. imagination that was in this time frame too.) Every other time we've had a ramp up like this, we find out someone nearby has strep. Since he's been on the abx, he hasn't gotten it.

 

This morning, he woke up feeling a bit warm, with a temp hovering around 100. He seemed fine, so I didn't panic too much, tried to give him some ibuprofen (to no avail - he'll take his abx just fine but not anything else!) Since we're leaving on vacation tomorrow, both the hubby and I HAD to go to work, so we took him off to school and even had a super easy drop off (our biggest OCD/seperation anxiety time) with no problems.

 

On my way to the office, I called the Dr. to schedule a throat culture for this afternoon - just to be safe before our trip. Well, at 10:15 I got the call, his fever was at 103, shakes, chills and throwing up - complaining that his "mouth feels yucky". Left the office, got him into the pediatrician, and to absolutely NO ONE's surprise - it's strep!!

 

The Dr. gave him a shot of reocephin and changed our oral abx to omnicef for the next few days - after which we'll switch back to the azith. He also gave us a script for mupirocin for all of us to be using in the nose while we're gone to get rid of anything we may be carrying.

 

Tomorrow afternoon we leave for a 20 hour drive to Buffalo NY to see Grandma and Grandpa! Perfect timing right??

 

This is the first infection he's actually had since his dx and going on long term abx (he's been on for 6 mo now). Is there anything else I should know? Will this require us to potentially change our long term abx rx? This is new - and quite frankly very scarry - territory for us!

[Suzan]

Oh wow. I am sorry to hear this. Glad you got it treated quickly. At least it explains the ramp. Hang in there... Good luck with the drive. I hope it goes well.

 

Susan

[EAMom]

what antibiotic and dose was he on when he got strep? what did they put him on?

[airial95]

He was on a maintenence dose of 50 mg of azith 1x per day (2.5 mL suspension) before he got strep (he's only 30 lbs). He gave him an injection of rocephin (1g I believe) in the office, and he's temporarily putting him on omnicef starting tomorrow. I don't remember the omnicef dose right now - he sends the rx electronically to the pharmacy and I haven't picked it up yet.

 

Once he's done with the omnicef, he'll go back to azith.

 

Is it weird to say, after the horrible few days we've had, now that he's actually full blown strep, he's done nothing but sleep all day and when he's been awake, he's just laid there snuggling. I can handle this part of it...too bad it doesn't last!!

[EAMom]

Hmmm. Interesting. I'm guessing 50mg/day isn't quite enuf to prevent strep then...

[airial95]

Guess not - but he's been exposed 3-4 times in the last 2 months without catching it, so I guess it was working for a while.

[norcalmom]

I don't know how old your son is or how much he weighs, but mine is 95lbs, 11 years, and gets 250 mg of azith for maintainence. 500 if things flare.

 

Sounds like your doctor jumped all over it. Hope it resolves quickly

[thereishope]

I wonder if you ask the pharmacy to flavor dye free Ibuprofen with what they flavor the Azith, if he would take it. They can flavor most OTC meds.

[airial95]

He's only 2 1/2 - 30 lbs. He's a small fry.

 

As far as flavoring the ibuprofen, it's not the flavor I think he objects to - it's that it's not the right color and it's not "medicine time". We ultimately got him to take it this afternoon - when the fever spiked to almost 104.