Sunday I thought Limelet was more listless than usual about sitting in his car seat on the way to pick up some groceries. He got sleepy and a bit cranky at the end of the trip, which was not strange since it was time for his nap anyway.
But later after his nap he suddenly started feeling really, really hot and acting tired and cranky again. By evening, though he'd had a lukewarm bath and some baby meds, he was clearly not well. He hates getting his temp taken, even under his arm, but it looked as though it was about 103 °.
It was a rough night. I slept from maybe midnight to about 2, and then 5 to 7, in between trying to keep him hydrated and comforted. He mostly just wanted to nurse nonstop while I rocked him. His little feet seemed particularly baking-hot, though all of him felt hot of course. We called the on-call doctor from our practice, but despite the service saying someone would be back with us in fifteen minutes, no one ever called. We tried four times, to no avail, which was very aggravating under the circumstances.
Limelet was willing to drink fluids and take some baby Tylenol, which did seem to help. His fever got down to about 101 °, which is at least not dangerous, so we didn't take him to the E.R. that night. I have been in enough E.R.s to know a lot about sitting in a noisy, crappy, fluorescently lit huge room with dozens of sick people, for hours, waiting to be seen, so I had to balance how that would affect him (in the middle of the night) versus how hot he was getting.
Hi guys,
Had planned to return your call(s) this weekend, but Saturday was our "date" day. Then Sunday after I dragged Limelet to the grocery store he ended up developing a high fever, so we've been juggling a sick baby for the last 13 hours or so. He just went to sleep again and we've been awaiting a call from the Doc for over an hour now -- great paging system. Anyway. I was able to get his fever back down to about 101°, so that's at least less bad. Wish us luck in not having to go to the E.R. Will call when more able.
--Liz
I called in sick to work that morning. We took him to the doc, which was not the one he had seen the week before but someone who couldn't understand how I arrived at the 103° figure. Nevertheless, I just wanted a health crisis assessment, and I felt we got one. As I expected, they couldn't find anything "wrong" with him--no ear problems, no throat infections, cough, congestion, wheezing, GI problems, etc. Also, he hadn't been around anyone sick, certainly not around any sick little kids.
Limelet was nervous about being at the doctor's after his injection experience of last week, but only got really upset when the doctor poked that hard viewer-thing into his little earholes. After that he shrieked with inconsolable terror until we left. Poor little critter.
The doctor reiterated what I suspected, that vaccinations "can all cause a fever reaction". Since their own handouts had stated that the MMR could cause a fever 7-12 days later, I pretty much already thought that was the cause. From what I've looked up, measles vax in particular causes a delayed fever like that (others are mostly within 24-48 hours.)
He had a rough night that night, too. I gave him some very diluted vitamin-C drink to tempt him, and he drank quite a bit of it, which made me feel better. Again, we called the doctor-line, which this time caused someone to return our call--the doc that TheLimey had met when he took Limelet in for his shots, who coincidentally was from London.
He seemed a bit more sensible than the colleague we had met that day (although he completely ignored the information from his own handouts and stressed that most vaccination reactions are within 24-48 hours). Anyway, he recommended a 50/50 combination of Pedialyte and Gatorade, which Limelet took to quite well and drank a lot of.
He also recommended the switching-medications bit, which involves alternately giving Tylenol (acetaminophen) and Motrin (ibuprofen) every three hours. It made sense to me, as then neither one is given more often than every six hours (those substances are pretty hard on little livers), but the fever can be controlled by having an anti-inflammatory of some kind every three hours.
It's a fine line to balance between brain damage and liver damage, and quite scary when you see high numbers on that thermometer.
Tuesday:
Hi All,
Limelet seems to be getting better this afternoon, though after a couple of sleepless nights and a trip to the doctor. He's not 100% but I believe the worst is over. We'll see how he does tonight of course, as fevers are better in the day and worse at night.
I feel pretty certain he had a reaction to the vaccinations he had last week, as it pretty much exactly fit the pattern described in the handouts from the doc. (And online information. Also apparently a lot of [Lizardos] have had strong reactions to vaccinations.)
He's lost some weight, but we have been able to tempt him to eat if we chase after him with a wide variety of foods. (Ice cream, not surprisingly, has turned out to be an easy one.)
Now, back to recovery for the entire family!
--Liz
Wednesday he was still a bit feverish when I left for work, but I believed he was over the worst.
Today (Thursday) he seemed much better. He slept pretty well last night and didn't need any midnight meds. I'm not looking happily forward to those future vaccinations, but I'm sure glad I delayed these ones until his first year was over.
