Some advice please?

[katie'smum]

Hi,
Katie woke up with a very sore throat today and has had high temperatures. I took her to the doctor who thinks it is probably viral and doesn't want to prescribe anything yet. The advice from the consultant is to start her on Cipro when she gets a chest infection but so far it hasn't gone to her chest. I'm just wondering when do you start your children on antibiotics? I don't want to start her on a course if it is something viral but I also don't want to miss anything! This is her first illness since the tube came out and I feel absolutly sick with nerves and convinced I'm going to miss something and she will get sicker . Thank you for any advice!

Love,

Bea

[Alethia]

Oh Bea When Angus gets ill, I don't generally bother with antibiotics unless paracetamol and ibuprofen aren't controlling his temp. I'll leave those with decanned kids to give you the wealth of their experience though. I hope you're nervous about nothing, i.e. it doesn't come to anything much.

Love,

Kate
XXX

[KJKK8437]

A blood draw should be able to tell them if the body is producing viral antibodies or bacterial. It would be standard procedure here in the ER for a child with a fever. Can your doc do that for you?

[JWorthington]

Hi Bea
I'm so sorry Katie is sick. could the doctor do an npa (nasal aspirate), as a newly decanned child then I think they should be erring on the side of caution. Our community nurses would usually arrange to do that for us and bypass the gp, they would just take it straight to the lab and phone for the results themselves. Sam usually gets augmentin when he is bad and an increase in steroids, that is because his respiratory consultant gives the orders - and you take notice of what she says!! She's been fantastic with Sam. But I have to agree with Kate, I don't like giving ab's and tend to stick with paracetamol and ibuprofen unless I can't get the fever down, and obviously look for signs of respiratory distress. I hope she is better soon.
Julie x

[saywhatyouwill]

we usually try antibiotics if it's gone on for a while. we give in samples all the time but get tired of the length of time they take to come back. i don't see the harm this time of going with abs>?

[katie'smum]

Hi,

Thanks very much for the advice. I went to the GPs a couple of times, more for reassurance than anything! So far seems a little better without having started abs so fingers crossed!
Seems so silly to be panicking when in the past I've dealt with home ventilator,home 02 etc. but after 7yrs it just seems so scary without the tube and really didn't know what to do for the best!
Thanks again for advice, it did help to calm me down!

Love,

Bea.

[Alethia]

How's Katie doing now? Are you feeling better about things too?

[Gretchen(Celia's mom)]

Bea, how is Katie?

[drct1245]

Originally Posted by katie'smum

Hi,
...
Seems so silly to be panicking when in the past I've dealt with home ventilator,home 02 etc. but after 7yrs it just seems so scary without the tube and really didn't know what to do for the best!
...

We did the same thing w/ Ayden's first illness (only a cold on top of that) after decan - it just sounded VERY different. On top of it all, you don't want to do anytihng that would compromise the airway. Just like the first cold Ayden had w/ a trach... we took him to the pulm.

Hope fully she is all better by now.

[katie'smum]

Hi,

thanks for your replys, Katie seems a lot better but still a bit tired. Glad we have had the first cold with the tube out and seem to have got through it ok. She still has quite a big open stoma and to be honest without that I'm not sure how it would have gone! I think her doctor is in no rush to close it as he knows her airway is still narrower than your average 7yr olds. But knowing all this does make it quite a scary time when she gets sick! Thanks again for your support, now I just need to find some way to be less stressed about these things!!

Love,

Bea.