Strep?

Some of you know this, but I'm sure many don't... In January 2005, Justin was admitted to the hospital with scarlet fever. He went from feeling totally fine, to having a full-blown rash/fever/sore throat in about two and a half days. Long story short - he got over it quickly and all was well.

However, because of that, I'm very sensitive to his complaints of a sore throat. In May, Justin complained of a sore throat on the way to the bus stop. Off to the hospital we went. Sure enough, it was strep. He didn't even have a fever yet, that's how early we caught it. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago... He, again, had a sore throat. Darrell took both boys in to get it checked out (Kaden only in case it really was strep; he can't exactly tell us where it hurts quite yet). Negative. Later that day, he felt fine.

This morning he complained of a sore throat again. I took his temp - barely over 99 degrees. I gave him some motrin and it got better, enough that he said it didn't hurt any more. Now I've had strep tons of times growing up, and I don't ever remember motrin taking the pain away. So I figured it wasn't strep, he's feeling better, let's hope that's it.

Nope. This afternoon, the motrin wore off and he was crying because it was hurting so bad. (In my defense, he took a nap and woke up in major pain - I wouldn't have let him suffer that long before giving him more motrin.) So, more medicine and a little bit of time (fever was just over 100 this time) and it went away enough that he could eat without pain.

So now I don't know what's up. I told him that if he wakes up in the middle of the night and it hurts again, we'll go back to the hospital. He's really hoping to go to a friend's birthday party Sunday afternoon, but I told him that if it's strep throat, he won't be able to go. Majorly bummed little boy! We're probably going to have Justin's birthday party next weekend, though, and this family will be invited, so he'll still be able to hang out with them - that mollified him a bit.

I'm guessing we have a trip to the hospital in store for us tomorrow morning some time. Lovely.

Originally posted: Saturday August 12, 2006 - 09:03pm