AIBU to think there's not much else the doctor could do?

[vvviola]

DD1 had to go to out of hours doctor on Saturday morning (she complained about sore ear/throat on Friday night, and still seemed miserable on Saturday morning and had weird red circles under her eyes). Doc practically recoiled when she saw her throat - tonsillitis and strep throat. Gave her a 10-day course of penicillin and has us alternating ibuprofen and paracetamol.

Within an hour or so of seeing the doc DD's face started to get redder.

Now, Sunday evening, I've realised that she seems to have classic scarlet fever symptoms (red face, white around the mouth, very slight rash on her body and armpits - but no fever, possibly because of the constant ibuprofen/paracetamol, and her tongue seems normal).

I can send DH to the doctor with her in the morning if necessary, but the only thing as far as I know that you can do for scarlet fever is a 10 day course of penicillin - which she is already on.

Obviously if she gets worse he'll take her straight away, but AIBU to think we should give the antibiotics a bit of a chance to start to work first? Or should I be phoning to make an appointment first thing tomorrow anyway? (It isn't a notifiable disease here in NZ if that makes any difference)

No other antibiotics until the reaction is under control, but she does have an antihistamine. She's seeing the doc again the the morning so depending on how she is, he might give her a new antibiotic then.

We've still got our anti-chicken pox itch supplies from last year, which came in handy for DD2's massive eczema flare up as a result of her allergic reaction 2 weeks ago, so at least we have all that to hand already!!

We are just the most incident prone family at the moment!!

I am mildly surprised that they weren't on the lookout for that given that you and DD2 are allergic. Our GPs have chosen never to given DD penicillin based purely on the fact that DS is allergic. The only other allergic person that we know of in the family was my grandfather, who was found to be allergic when he had penicillin for the first time, aged 85.

We carried on stuffing antiBs into poor baby DS for 48 hours before finally seeing a decent GP who realised that it was the antibiotics which were making him ill and not the underlying virus , so certainly don't beat yourself up about not spotting it.

I've always reminded doctors that I'm allergic when they are prescribing for the DC - but it is usually dismissed. The attitude is that penicillin is so useful that they prefer not to exclude it unless absolutely necessary.

The out of hours service isn't great. It seems to be hit and miss how clued in the doctor is - this year we've had an ear infection misdiagnosed (DD2) and bronchitis missed (DH), but also some great service when DD2 has been sick and when DD1 sprained her ankle.

Reaction still isn't under control, so she has been given steroids to help, plus a new antibiotic.

She's also off school for the rest of the week.

DH tried to take her out for a treat after the doctor visit, but she burst into tears and asked to go home because everyone kept looking at her

Poor kiddo. I got my allergic reaction to penicillin just before I had to take my A level German oral exam. I wasn't as bad as your poor dd, but was covered head to toe in a very obvious rash. I spent the night before the exam making sure I knew the German for penicillin and allergic in case the examiner asked me about it but of course s/he was far too polite to do so!

Hope the steroids make a difference to dd soon.

Oh your poor girl. Fingers crossed she's on the mend soon.

Poor kid. One of my colleagues sent her ds to school with meningitis so don't beat yourself up over it (he was ok)

Oh love her. Hope she feels better soon. The allergic reaction sounded just like my DDs - problem was, she was on the antibiotics for scarlet fever in the first place! Definitely not always the easiest thing to spot.