On Friday (day 8 of his antibiotics) Gabe woke up from his nap with a crazy looking rash on his bottom. I thought it looked like bug bites and actually tore his sheets up looking for bed bugs. Nothing to be found and then I noticed over the next 30 minutes that the bumps were spreading. My first thought was that he had chicken pox, though he has been vaccinated against it. But as the rash spread it became clear it was more like hives. I put in a call to the ped's office office and the doctor on call told me it was likely a reaction to his antibiotic - Augmentin - and that we should discontinue it immediately. Sooth with oatmeal or baking soda baths, use calamine lotion, etc. We had planned on going out to my parent's house and Gabe seemed pretty happy despite being a little itchy so out we went. We got there late in the evening. And that's when it all 'broke lose' really for lack of a better phrase. Gabe's hives went from minimal to a crazy rash covering his entire body:
(the white stuff is calamine lotion)
He was clearly unhappy and so uncomfortable. In the morning we ground up oatmeal and bathed him in it and gave him benedryl, neither of which seemed to help him. We covered him in calamine lotion which might as well have been water. He cried non-stop and just itched and itched and while he itched the hives just got worse (yes worse than what you see above). I called the on-call doctor again and she said that since it was getting wore, despite discontinuing the antibiotic, I should take him in to a local ER or urgent care. When we got to the urgent care they said it was definitely hives, probably from the medication, and prescribed an oral steroid.
That really seemed to work and that night his rash went away considerably and he was happy (and hyper!) as a clam. I left him at my parent's house with Nathan and took Elena with me to go out to eat with my parents, brother, and the rest of our extended family in the area to celebrate my brother's graduation. When I got home we finally got Gabe in bed and it was the same as the night before. Crazy itching, very uncomfortable, lots of crying, and no one slept. We gave up around 3am and then at 5am decided we should just head home. He was covered in new hives on top of the ones that had been fading. He finally slept in the car (and so did I) and when we got home we tried another baking soda bath. That only seemed to make things worse and then I started to get pretty worried because the spots that had been there from the first outbreak had turned into bruises. We decided to head into the ER.
Thankfully Gabe is going to be just fine, he just has a very severe penicillin allergy. The ER doctor said that with the way our bodies fight allergens we can expect the hives to come and go for the next two weeks. He gave Gabe a stronger steroid in the hospital and sent us home with a prescription for the same steroid the urgent care clinic gave us, but at a stronger dosage. We are just to continue as before - steroids, benedryl, zyrtec (which he takes daily for seasonal allergies anyway) and calamine lotion and oatmeal or baking soda baths. But for the most part, we just have to wait it out. It will likely be a very long two weeks, but I'm so glad we know now that he has this allergy and I'm thankful that his first reaction was not a life-threatening one. They said that if he's ever exposed again it could be.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
