Urgent help

[Cantbelievethisishappening]

So sorry..... I know this is not an AIBU but posting here for traffic.
Can anyone who has had a child with appendicitis tell me how quickly the pain came on. Was it a gradual increase in pain or did it start fairly suddenly ... any other symptoms?

Thank you all for your responses. Saw GP who doesn't know for sure if it is appendicitis or a bladder infection. To make matters worse she gave me a prescription for a drug to treat a possible bladder infection that isn't even stocked anymore. Only found that out when I got to the pharmacy. Waiting for the out of hours to sort something out now. What a palaver.

Noway I don't use NHS Direct after a quite horrendous episode involving phone calls about my other daughter who turned out to have leukaemia. They were worse than useless. Absolute waste of bloody time. I would have had a better service phoning the local Chinese takeaway.

That sounds disgraceful. Doesn't know what it is so gives you a useless prescription for one and nothing for the other potential problem? .

I did ask her how I would know if it WASN'T a bladder infection and she said painkillers would not mask the pain So in other words I need to watch her and keep asking her about her pain and then make a judgement based on that.

I don't have a lot of confidence in your GP! If it was my child, I'd be taking them to A&E to get checked out properly.

I hope she's OK.

Not a Doctor but have had appendicitus - 24hrs from mild to agony ,bad fever, unbearable lower abdomen pain. Sounds like your treatment was pretty useless? See if this works and call back if it doesn't and here's a prescription for a drug that's fucking useless btw, fab. WTF - doesn't exactly fill with confidence??

Would do A and E, not worth the risk. Hope she's okay

Did your GP test your DD's urine? And out of curiosity, what antibiotic was prescribed?

She did test her urine and said there was a very small amount of blood and white cells. She said this could either be a bladder infection or pus from her appendix!! She was prescribed Trimethoprim oral suspension but Boots pharmacist said they don't do it and had no idea why GP prescribed that rather than the tabs which they did have.

Combine I agree.... but then this was a surgery that had a doctor yell at me that my daughter had a stomach virus and to give her some Calpol when she did in fact have leukaemia. They had seen her six times in as many weeks. He was annoyed with me because he felt I was being neurotic on the last visit. He isn't there anymore thankfully.

cantbelieve my DD is on Trimethoprim oral suspension and has been for many years. I have never had any trouble getting hold of it - you should have tried another chemist who would have used a different wholesaler to Boots.

Hope your DD feels better soon.

I was just curious as I'm a GP. It can be difficult to diagnose abdominal pain in children especially in the early stages. Appendicitis typically starts as central pain around the umbilicus (belly button) then becomes more severe over a few hours, moving down into the right hand lower abdomen, often accompanied by diarrhoea and fever. Many children will say it hurts when asked, depending on age, but it's also useful to observe eg can they get on and off the examination couch/walk easily etc, and is there "rebound pain" ie pain when the hand is removed from the abdomen. Urinary tract infections are very common in young girls, ideally you'd want to get lab culture results from a urine sample, but it's not unreasonable to prescribe antibiotics if there is a positive dipstick test while awaiting this, depending on symptoms etc. I would say your DD's dipstick is borderline though and I couldn't make a judgement without seeing her. Trimethoprim is first line treatment for UTI's in my area (Northern Ireland) and widely available as a suspension or tablets depending on age of child/preference, we have plenty of it in the medicine cupboard in the Out of. Hours base where I work. Again I can't comment on protocols in other areas. I hope your DD is ok, and if in doubt please get her reassessed in Out of Hours or A&E.

Another GP here. Laurel 1979 said it all. We're in Scotland and loads of trimethoprim suspension. Probably meant they didn't have it in rather than Unavailable.

Trimethoprim suspension isn't available at the moment. Tablets stocks are fine.