What is Arthritis Juvenile
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), formerly known as juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), is the most common form of persistent arthritis in children. JIA is sometimes referred t...
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Is anyone else's child constantly sick w/.......
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Is anyone else's child constantly sick with some other sort of infection? On top of dealing with the arthritis my son has been sick with either an ear infection, strep, tonsalitis, sinusitus, stomach problems or just a high fever (104) for days in a row, with no underlying ( apparent) cause. To top it all off, if we get the fever he then suffers from his migraines too. I am at my wits end and I don't know what to do. I know that he has been on to many antibiotics in the last 7 months. Yes, that is how many months that this has been going on. I deserve my own parking space at the primary doctors office. Can anyone suggest something I may be missing and should discuss with the Rhuematologist? We are still working on getting the meds right for him, Naproxen wasn't enough, now we are on Sulfa-salazine 500mg in AM, 750mg in PM, Prevacid 30mg. And the last trip to the primary I refused any other antibiotics for him becuase he thought it might be a sinus infection but wasn't certain, now I'm not an MD but even I now you can take to many courses of antibiotics and its not good. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.
Posted on 05/13/09, 09:05 am |
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Wow! That sounds like quite a lot to deal with and I feel for you and your son. My daughter tends to stay sick longer and get whatever it is to a more severe extent than most other kids at school but she isn't chronically ill. JRA or JIA is commonly associated with immune system issues and, unfortunately, many of the medications our kids need to take to control the symptoms are also immuno-supressive leaving them very susceptible to infection and making it much harder to fight off. Talk with your rheumatologist for sure. Ask about ways to boost his immune system. Let the doc know about all of the infections/viruses as sometimes certain meds will need to be stopped temporarily until the infections clear. Good luck to you both. 
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By the way - I forgot to mention that the 104 temp fever with no other symptoms has been going through our school like wildfire lately. Apparently some type of highly contagious virus. Lasts for only a few days and then gone. We had 10 kids absent from my son's class in one day from it a few weeks ago. Custodial has been sanitizing everything but it still made the rounds for a couple of weeks. Seems to be tapering off now.
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Is it possible that he has a systemic form of arthritis? I have read and seen on the med shows that when there are high fevers with no infection, it points to autoimmune. Can he have another autoimmune disease causing this? I am not too knowledgeable about the side effects of the meds. And, if he has been on those ABx and they don't work, it may not be that he is resistant to them, but he just doesn't have a bacterial infection at all. Viruses can cause fevers, but not usually that long. Kymberli
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