Mystery hives in the a.m.

[Mookie86]

That looks awful.  Poor guy! 

[MommyOfTwo+1]

Back from the dr.  She didn't really say that she thinks its viral.  She did seem to think it was more of a reaction to something.  So for now we are going to do Benadryl and Zyrtec for the next week or so, or until the hives are under control, then we have the referral to the allergist, so we will stop the meds the usual 5-7 before the allergy appt where I'm sure they will be doing a spt. 

So hopefully the meds will help keep things under control at least and if it is viral then I'm guessing when we stop the meds they won't come back and when we do stop the meds if the hives come back it is more likely its an allergic response.  We shall see!

[eragon]

freeze soft toys overnight, then wash and tumble dry.
 bedding HAS to be washed at very high heat or the freeze stuff.

my son has had this sort of thing recently , its sort of overload, a mix of pollen, and dustmite at the moment. bad in uk at the moment .
( hubbys asthma is dreadfully annoying at the moment, i am waking him to take his ventolin, and he has upped the preventors. so am asking him to go to docs, its bad enough i have to sort out the kids health, let alone his!)


son has that dermagraphism as well, which means in normal people speak,....that you can run a finger over his skin and he gets a red mark or wheal. he gets marks from chairs or belts and seats. and apparently this is normal. for him anyway.

son has doubled antihistamine intake, turned his pollen filter up high, damp dusted his room, and got new allergy bedding, boil washed his covers etc. and finally nagged to high heaven on the benifts of applying his eczema lotions and potions in order to cut back on the feeding and so breeding of dustmites.  think i have wasted my breathe here though....

[Mookie86]

When I had viral hives, at first they came back whenever the Benadryl wore off.  Further into the course of the illness, I could go about 12 hours without Benadryl and then they'd come back.  After about two weeks, they discontinued entirely.

[MommyOfTwo+1]

I did wash all his bedding the other day in hot water, which here at our house is HOT! I didn't freeze his animals but I did put them and his pillows in the dryer on high for a few hours so hopefully that did some good.  I know that new allergies can come on suddenly but if it is allergies GEESH!


Mookie - I was thinking maybe 2 weeks then on the Benadryl/Zyrtec then the 3rd week no meds and spt testing during the 4th week? If they are viral that should be plenty long seems how it has already been 4 days.

[YouKnowWho]

I had an issue today with DS2 after his nature walk.  He sat down to eat lunch and boom, face full of hives.  But it's pollen season, windy and he is the king of mystery hives.  I don't think food because most of the kids hadn't unwrapped lunches even yet.  Felt horrible for the PA allergic dad when I came back because he said he felt PTSD from their daughter's recent reaction.  I saw the hives, told the teacher and whisked him to the bathroom to wash his face down all in about 10 seconds LOL

But this is my child who on top of having food allergies is prone to weeks on end of hives with no known cause just for fun 

[momma2boys]

Wow, that looks miserable!  Poor kid!

[twinturbo]

In either case antihistamines are the go to treatment but I'd keep viral as still
a possibility in the back of your mind. We saw two ER docs plus allergist before his ped and 2nd ER doc dx'd properly as viral. Viral, unfortunately, can get worse but (fortunately) it is rare. Like anything, watch it. It ain't fun.

[MommyOfTwo+1]

So far so good this morning!

We had an interesting night last night with the on-call pedi calling to tell me to get my baby to an ER ASAP because a blood draw from earlier yesterday showed his potassium at being way too high of 6.6.  So at midnight I had to get the boys out of bed and take everyone to the ER (because it figures DH is out of town!).  When I got DS1 up he said he just had one or two hives on his arms.  He didn't complain of being itchy at all at the hospital.  And 2 hours later the little guys potassium levels showed as being normal at 4.2 and we were sent home.  Gave DS1 another dose of benadryl.  When he woke up again, some but not many hives.  Gave more benadryl and then a bit later Zyrtec with breakfast.  So far so good! Aside from him being super tired! Not sure how much of the tired to blame on the meds or because of all the "fun" last night!

I'm also still keeping an eye out for any sickness from a virus that has perhaps just not totally manifested just yet...

[twinturbo]

Ugh... my heart goes out to all of you. 

[MommyOfTwo+1]

Thanks twinturbo.  He actually is finally doing much better.  The Zyrtec seems to actually be doing the trick.  After taking that aside from just a little one here or there, nothing! Do you think that because the Zyrtec itself basically took care of the whole issue it would be  more allergy related? We haven't even had to double it up with benadryl!

[twinturbo]

Good to hear. Tried to reply yesterday but got jumped by children. Short answer is allergist & ped were mostly indifferent to which antihistamine to use but agreed that the bummer for viral is that we'll never really know the cause of reaction and in allergic kids there's more vectors to consider. In hindsight I would have preferred Zyrtec.