Scarlatina/Scarlet Fever

While I was single parenting it when Tim was in Canada for a week, Natalie decided to come down with Scarlatina. She had experienced a fever ten days earlier, but I didn't get the correlation until later. She had been waking up crying in the middle of the night, but wouldn't ever tell me what was going on. Her volcabulary is still limited so there are many times that she has to show me what she is talking about or just point. Two different nights, I gave her ibuprofen and then she slept through the rest of the night. I knew that she didn't feel very good, but couldn't put my finger on the problem. I was getting worried when she said her legs were "heavy" when she was walking up the stairs.

(The flash really washed out the red effect of the rash. It looked a lot worse in person.)

Sunday she started having a moderate fever (over 101F) and came down with a rash on her arms and torso. The little red-raised bumps were pin-like. I figured they would go away like any other viral rash that kiddos get at this age. But Natalie started complaining about her hands and her belly hurting her. Her heart rate was in the 150's -160's and her respirations were around 60 per minute. She was looking bluer than her norm. She just wasn't herself. So I got a friend to watch the other three kids and took Natalie to the urgent care center our in town.

The doctor thought it looked like Scarlatina even though Natalie's throat didn't look like the typical strep throat. Scarletina is caused by the group A beta-hemolytic streptococcus bacteria. This was conciderably worrisome to me because this bacteria can settle in heart valves and cause serious problems-not something that we need to be dealing with.

So we left urgent care Sunday night with some Augmentin and started the first dose.

Her rash progressively got worse-which I expected. Poor girl had what looked like a terrible case of eczema all over her arms and legs. The rash left her torso and settled into her hands and feet by Tuesday. It was dark red and felt like sandpaper. She itched really bad. I treated that mostly with topical hydrocortisone and Benadryl.

Thursday, Natalie woke up with hives all over her face and the left side of her body. Talk about itching...she was just a trooper and didn't complain, but I could see her constantly scratching her arms and legs. Back to the clinic we went and her Augmentin was changed to Azithromycin. That one did the trick and now she is back to her normal active self. (She's getting into everything and irritating her sisters.)

During our trip to the clinic, we found out that Natalie's pulse ox was down to 72-73%. It had been awhile since I had taken her pulse ox and was a little surprised that it was so low. That would explain why she's been huffing and puffing more lately when she does anything strenuous. It's time for a cardiologist visit so we'll see what the next step is then.