The mysterious rash...

Just as I was thinking we were all getting healthy again after the strep throat, Gunnar started running a fever again on Sunday, then all day Monday and all night that night. It got up to 104 and he was miserable. He just layed on me all day those days. I called in to the doctor's office and they just told me to watch him and if it got that high or higher again the next day to bring him in. Well Tuesday it finally came down and he seemed better again. Then Wednesday I fed him lunch (which happened to be some toast with peanut butter on it)...and immediately after he ate I noticed a rash showed up kind of behind his ears. So I started to get worried that he was having a reaction to the peanut butter, even though he'd had it one time before. As the day went on it started to get worse and was spreading. Again I called in to the doctor and they told me to bring him in the next day if it kept getting worse. At that point they didn't really think it had anything to do with the peanut butter most likely, but more to do with the antibiotic he was on. Well Thursday morning when he woke up it went from his face, down his neck all the way down to the top of his diaper on his front and back and it looked horrible.

(these pictures don't show nearly how bad it looked) I could tell he felt horrible again too. So I made an appointment to get him in. When the doctor looked at it he said it was most likely a reaction to the antibiotic and we should just take him off of it even though he was only 5 days into the 10 days he was supposed to take it for. Other than that he said we could give him benadryl to help it. We left for Price that afternoon and it just got worse that night and on Friday. Finally yesterday it had mostly cleared up except for where it had spread to his legs and arms. So we figured taking him off of the antibiotic was getting rid of it.

But then Lars started to get the same rash!!!

Yes he was on the same antibiotic, but we kind of thought what are the chances that he has the same allergy to it? Anyway just like Gunnar's his has gradually spread to cover his whole body and looks horrible! I took pictures of his too, but promised him they wouldn't end up on my blog :)

His sister is a nurse and as she got thinking about it and remembering that Gunnar had had a high fever the couple days before his rash showed up she thinks that it was a virus called Roseola and sure enough when Lars looked it up on the internet all the symtoms (that Gunnar had) matched up (first the high fever, runny nose, fussiness and wanting to be held constantly...then after the fever dropped the rash showed up...it even looks just like the little picture in the article if you click on the roseola link! Thank goodness he never had a seizure with the fever). I'm totally convinced that this is what it was.The only weird thing it said is that it's pretty uncommon for adults to get it. And that it's mostly in small children and people whose immune systems are compromised. So the only thing he can think is that when he had strep maybe since his was weak he got it then. Hopefully his will clear up like Gunnar's did. It says it's just mildly contagious.

Anyway I know everyone wanted to read about this! But maybe it will help any of you with babies/small children if one of yours ever gets these symptoms. Obviously my doctor didn't diagnose it right. I think so many times it's a guessing game or a process of elimination for them. Luckily this particular virus isn't very dangerous.

Thanks for helping us figure it out Shelley!

Stay tuned for a much more fun Easter post tomorrow...