I suspect sepsis - have I been fobbed off?

[teamaven]

I called an ambulance for my 5 year old daughter this morning (who is never ill and I’ve never phoned an ambulance so to me it was serious). She woke up at 1:30am screaming and crying that her lower left side hurt. She said she couldn’t move and wouldn’t settle all night despite us thinking she’ll be fine and trying to go back to sleep - then started complaining of a headache at the back of her head and her temp went up to 39.9.

She was extremely hot to the touch, a bit confused and lethargic so I panicked and called an ambulance. After an hour of Neurofen her temp went down to 38.4 and stayed like that for a couple of hours.

I suspected a urine infection (possibly that had developed into sepsis!) because she has had one before and her pull up (she’s still in them at night) was so heavy and absolutely reeked. Her urine test showed signs of infection so the doctor agreed it was probably an infection that had travelled up.

Now, I did ask him to do a blood test anyhow and he said it wouldn’t show anything, but would it not show how bad the infection is ie sepsis? He sent us home with 10 days oral antibiotics and daughter is asleep now but I’m scared that based on her symptoms it was much worse than just a urine infection? The very high temp, lethargy, confusion, headache?

Can anyone provide what the usual pathway is when a child comes in with those symptoms? I feel like we shouldn’t have been sent home - at least to be observed over a few hours?

The smell of the urine was absolutely powerful, high fever, lots of body aches. His leukaemia was acute and came on in 24 hours. He came up with a pin prick looking rash on him.

Well that’s different. In that case you definitely should go back. And if she really can’t walk or weight bear due to the pain then it sounds like A&E is the right place.

We had many of those symptoms - appendicitis

Read up on Martha’s law OP.

I have no experience with sepsis, but I have had experience with a serious UTI/kidney infection - no pain (typical of what you would get with cystitis), but I have never felt more ill in my entire life. Raging temperature, hot then freezing cold/shivers, aching all over so much that I could barely move, heart palpitations. I ended up collapsing and losing consciousness in the doctors surgery and getting an ambulance to hospital. Sharing this to illustrate that UTI's can be absolutely horrendous, so it could absolutely be that which is making your daughter feel so unwell, and not sepsis. I hope the antibiotics take effect quickly and she starts to feel better soon

One of the worst things about mumsnet is the people screaming "don't go to A&E". If you have an ill child, you don't know what is wrong, and you are scared, then you can choose to go to A&E, and that is an absolutely fine thing to do. If you are not scared, and are happy you can safely care for the child at home and see a GP in the morning, then you shouldn't go to A&E. A&E is abused but ask any A&E worker who frustrates them and they NEVER say the scared parents (even where the kid is fine, they want the kid to be fine!) They say the people who have a bad cold, or a hip that's been hurting for weeks, or a persistent cough...it's all the people who use A&E like a GP's surgery, it's not the people sitting at home at midnight scared their child might not last the night.