Rashy

My poor kid can never catch a break. Sighhhhh.

This is sensitive, TMI info, so you may want to not read.

A little over a week ago, Sam told me that his butt has been hurting, and it had been for a long time. He didn't tell me because it is embarrassing. Well, I looked at it, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing!!! I had never seen anything look that bad. It was like terrible, terrible diaper rash, except he is 8 years old. We started out by putting Desitin on it. A little weird, but what else could we do??? Anyway, after a few days, that wasn't helping. I went and got Preparation H stuff to see if that would help. It didn't. In fact, it was getting worse and worse, and was hurting him terribly. So we decided to take him to the doctor. Our pediatrician couldn't get him in that day, so we took him to a good walk-in clinic.

The doctor thought it looked like Strep! Can you believe that?! Apparently you can get that type of infection in other areas. She had to do a culture, and prescribed a cream to put on it. That was a Thursday.

By Saturday, he had a faint rash all over his body. His butt hurt so bad it was bleeding, and he couldn't go to the bathroom or sit down very well. We called the pediatrician and explained what had been going on, but we still didn't have the culture results. He said to check in with him the next day.

Sunday comes and the rash is a lot worse. He was screaming (real, terrible screams) when he tried to go to the bathroom. It was awful. We called the doctor back, and he came to the office on a Sunday just to see Sam. He couldn't believe how terrible his butt looked. It was the worst he had ever seen. He took another culture. It was so bad, he didn't think it was Strep because he had never seen it look like that before. Also, the rash confused him. He wasn't sure if it was because of the other rash, if it was something new, or what. He was pretty confident it wasn't contagious though. He knew it had to be some sort of bacterial infection, so he prescribed and antibiotic that works well on skin infections.

The antibiotic did help his butt some, but not the rash. Yesterday, I checked on him at lunch time and the rash was even worse. It was everywhere, even under his hair. At dinner time, I checked him again and the rash was terrible. This time it was bright red and itchy. Before it was itchy, but it was mostly clearish. We called the doctor again. This time we got our regular pediatrician. She said with strep like that it is very common to get a rash, and even for it to get worse. The antibiotic just hadn't gotten to the rash part yet, but was working on the worst spot first.

Today, the rash is terrible. It is starting to hurt him, and it looks awful. They finally called and left a message with the results of the culture. It is strep. I am fairly positive he has Scarlet Fever, which is the result of Strep not being treated properly. That's what happens when a kid doesn't tell you something is going on for too long. Thankfully he isn't contagious, and apparently never was, but I feel so bad for him. He is embarrassed about the butt part, embarrassed about the rash everywhere, and it is pretty scary for him. He thinks something terrible is happening to him. Imagine how embarrassed he would be to know I blogged about it. Muahaha. I am a mean Mommy. ;)

Anyway, remind your kids to tell you if there is a problem, even if it is embarrassing!

Here are some pictures. They don't even do the rash justice. Also, there is a picture Avery has been dying for me to take. They just planted a new garden in front of our school and Avery thinks it is the perfect picture spot. He asks me every day if I have my camera, so I brought it today. :)