Thursday, March 01, 2007

Trouble Stops With One, Trouble Starts With Another

Now that Roanen is only waking about once a night, we had to start having difficulties with something else. Yesterday morning Russ took the kids downstairs at about 6 AM, then called me down to take a look at Josey. His eyes and hands were really puffy and red, and he had red marks on his hands and legs. We called Telehealth and described him, and the nurse told us to go straight to the hospital (which they do an awful lot so I wasn't too concerned...). By the time he got to see a doctor, about an hour later, his eyes were puffed about halfway closed, his marks were redder, he had massive amounts of hives on his hips, bum, legs, arms and feet on top of the original marks, and his hands were starting to really itch. We were told it was an allergy, given some Benadryl and sent home with no further instructions other than to give him the medication every 4 hours. Wow, thanks for all the info! The Benadryl helped to a point, but as soon as it started getting close to the time for another dose, he would break out badly all over again. We were up half the night trying to figure out what it could be. He hadn't been anywhere, eaten anything, or come into contact with anything even remotely different, so we couldn't imagine what he could be reacting to. This morning his face ended up looking chapped and red and I took him in to the doctor's office to see if I could book an appointment for him, since I'd prefer not to be dosing him with allergy medication every 4 hours for the rest of his life. I made an appointment for 3 pm, then headed into Ottawa, giving him a dose on the way. His hives and marks gradually got better over the course of the day, even when it was time for more medicine, so by the time we got to his appointment his face was totally clear, and he only had a couple of marks on his hands. I was told to keep track of what he eats when he has this reaction, and that it could just go away on its own, yadda yadda yadda. Use the Benadryl to control it and it won't cause any problems, etc. Within half an hour of getting home his hives started to come back, so whatever is causing it is something in this house. We'll probably have to do a major cleaning this weekend to try to eliminate whatever it is, and watch it from there.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

After you got home did you notice if he spent much time on the "new" couchs? Or what about crawling on the carpet in his room? It may have taken this long for him to have reacted to the dog hair or your major cleaning of the couches lately may have just thrown his system over the edge?

Some kind of Mom said...

Is it possible that's seasonal allergies with the snow melting? I can't remember what it is in the spring that people get allergic to when the snow melts.. mold? Poor Josey!