To take him to a&e

[anxiousmotherof1]

My 1 year old is having fever for the last 10 days ! I have taken him to the gp 2 times and they insist is viral and it will go away on its own . I cant help but be concerned . I have always known that if a fever lasts longer than 5 days it ahould be investigated .
I am thinking of taking him to a&e to be seem by a pedestrian ! Am i overacting ??

If you are going to go, get on and do it. A&E on a Friday night gets worse (in terms of length of queues and behaviour) as the night goes on IME

I'm glad you've called 111 OP. Funnily enough we've just spent 7 days in hospital with our 1yo DS who had the same issue (but wasn't playing or his usual happy self at all). All the tests they ran came back negative so they concluded it was a virus of unknown source, but upon admission his temp shot up to 41.8 and didn't come down with paracetamol- he very quickly became very poorly and I was so grateful we were at hospital when that happened and not at home. Definitely worth taking him just so you can feel supported- 2 GPs have told you it's viral but then that's what we were told and it was life-threatening with DS at one point. Virus doesn't necessarily mean safe. (Not to panic you, and I'm sure DS will be fine but please do take him!)

They booked me
In for tomorrow morning to see a go again !

Ok... I suppose at least you can raise your concerns with the GP. Maybe emphasise that his temperature is just going straight back up again and he's drinking a lot more than usual? Hope you get answers and that your DS recovers quickly x

OP if you are worried about your 1 year old you should take him to A&E. Don't wait around for call backs ect. Get your baby seen to.

Some people on here need to think before they post. Yes A&E shouldn't be used for everything and anything but telling someone not to take a sick baby could have serious consequences. No A&E doctor is going to blame a worried mother for bringing in a 1 year old with a persistently high temp.

GPS don’t always get it right. Dd had a temp that would go down with meds too. Then would come back to 40 soon as effect was gone. Gp ( went twice ) said it was viral. After 8 days I took her to ooh and she had the most awful tonsillitis. Then the doc started to question ME as to why I had waited so long to bring her in .

Get the child seen. I find it crazy that I’m the Uk there is an obsession with not getting medical help even when needed. When my baby had a v high temperature I was advised to go straight to a and e. I did. He ended up in hospital for 3 weeks. He had Kawasaki disease. The high temperature was the first sign. And I was told that quick acting and straight to a and e had been very important in ensuring that he had the best results possible. Worry about your child, not NHS resources. Better to be safe than sorry. Be selfish in this kind of case. And I mean that in the kindest way -put your child first. I hope he gets better soon.

“In” the Uk....

I am a doctor too. I think it would be very reasonable to take him to A and E to be checked over. We never mind checking over a very little one as they can deteriorate quickly.

GPs can’t take and analyse blood tests on the spot - hospitals can.

Your son needs blood and urine tests and probably a chest X-Ray to rule out anything serious.

I feel so blessed that the (second) GP who looked at my daughter had the ability to put her ego to one side and admit that she didn’t understand why my daughter wasn’t getting better, and we should go to a&e to have tests - when I spoke to her after my daughter had come out of intensive care she was blown away that it had been so serious (around 40% of kids with my daughter’s illness die within weeks of diagnosis).

I realise my daughter’s situation makes me very biased towards the ‘go to a&e’ side of the argument, but until this happened I was the kind of mum that would insist my kids go to school rain or shine, and that they should get the school to call me to collect them if they still felt bad at lunchtime.

Honestly, if my husband hadn’t said that he really thought my daughter should see another doctor ASAP (she’d been once a couple of days before) I probably would’ve left it.

We’re home now but are looking at a very long outpatient treatment period and a slow recovery - other parents on my daughter’s oncology ward tell similar stories of ‘we thought it was just a virus’.

I wouldn’t risk anything, knowing what I know now!

if tonight you notice any increase in his temp or anything you are concered about just go to a&e. I can imagione you are not going to get much sleep tonight op

Another one saying please take him to A&E.
Always trust your gut feeling with these things. My child went through something similar with the GP telling me twice that it was probably just a bug and then maybe an ear infection. I just didn't feel he was right and we took him to hospital. He ended up in intensive care for nearly a month and was very very ill. We thought we were going to lose him several times during that stay. I wish I'd listened to my instincts earlier.

Hope you get answers tomorrow. I heard a saying once about pregnant woman, better a bad patient than a bad mum. I think it applied to being a parent too

I agree with brokenfurniture and babydreamer I actually think you should go despite the 111 advice, that person has not seen your DS, you have. He is a baby. I am very surprised they have not advised you to get him seen now, 2 doctors on this thread have as have lots of parents with similar experiences. Please put your son first and go, the NHS has far bigger wasters of it's resources than someone who thinks their baby is very poorly and have overestimated the seriousness, if that is the case they will check him over and send him home.

I have seen threads on here with people considering going to a&e for possible broken toes, even if their fears are confirmed they have a broken toe. Your sons condition will hopefully be a simple virus but if it is something more sinister then it's an emergency which is what a&e is for!

Plenty of water too. Don't put too many clothes on

I would go to a and e as you’ve seen a GP twice and they didn’t help or do any tests.

Just pack a few nappies and a drink and go to a & e. It will have a lot of noisy time wasters in I expect.
Your DS will be the most popular patient. No one will think you are unreasonable. In fact the opposite.

I would go to a&e. My niece had a fever for 3/4 days and after being fobbed of by GP went to a&e and it was a chest infection. Niece is also 1 year old. Also, don't most medicines (calpol etc) say to speak to the doctor if taken for more than 3 days? If you've been giving it religiously for 10days I would certainly be taking him to a&e. I know overdosing is unlikely but my dad once overdosed on paracetamol after taking it as the packet stated for over a week so it is possible and should be checked out

OP please just go to A&E. You should've gone hours ago. 111 advice and phone call gps are not a substitute for the real thing where they can assess baby properly.

My DS has been to A&E about 10 times in his 2 years- mostly for v high temps, lethargy, non blanching rashes and tremors... each time he had infections missed by GPs.

Each time they missed it, he ended up incredibly poorly with multiple red flags for sepsis (though thank god) it was never that.

He was admitted twice with bronchiolitis and twice with tonsillitis. He also had treatment for croup.

No doctor has ever said I was wrong to being a baby with an unresolvibg high fever. Every doctor has said that mothers instinct is an important indicator, and should be taken seriously. Just to say, I can smell when DS has a bacterial infection and needs ABs, and guess his temp to within .2 degrees by kissing his forehead. I know my kid- and you know yours.

No doctor will ever be upset to see a child with those symptoms, and your intuition telling you something is wrong. Many would be furious with the shocking dismissal that runs across this thread.

If the fever comes down with medication then I’d stay home. If it doesn’t I’d see the out of hours GP.

A doctor has commented on this thread that the fever coming down with medication is no indicator of whether the person has a virus or bacterial infection. It's very dangerous to give advice to NOT get medical attention if you are not medically trained, I wish people were more careful when doling out advice.

I also really hope the OP hasn't answerwed for a while because she is at a&e

As a former paediatric A&E nurse I can say that, at our hospital, a child under 2 years old would be assessed by a paediatric nurse and then referred on to see the on call paediatric Dr (there is always a registrar grade and senior house officer grade paediatric team Dr on duty 24/7) Our hospital would never have an issue with seeing a child so young who had been unwell for 10 days requiring regularly antipyretic to manage fever especially if their behaviour is out of sorts for their normal.

I agree with pp’s who say that they can do more in-depth tests than are available at GP surgery’s or walk in centres, and there are blood tests which will indicate whether an illness is viral or bacterial in origin.

Given the number of trained medical professionals who have come on here to say a&e I am appalled that 111 didnt send you there.

Take him to hospital I've just come out of the other side of this with my 3 year old turned away 3 times with a tummy bug that had been going on for 10 days in the end he developed sepsis due to burst appendix whilst we were on holiday

I had a similar dilemma: 1 year old high fever but otherwise normal bar grumpy and tired. Calpol worked but this would wear off and the fever would come back.

After 5 days we went to the gp; they said viral. After 7 I still wasn’t happy and again they said viral, went to the a&e unit where they kept her under observation and the fever broke to a rash which turned out to be roseola.

I don’t think anyone minded one bit that it was roseola and nothing more sinister and I don’t regret for a second taking her in regardless,just in case, as it had lasted such a long time.

I would take your LO In to A&e; you won’t regret taking them no matter what it turns out to be, but you may regret not.