DS came home from nursery on Weds with a patch of dark browny red skin on the folds on the collar area of his neck about the size of 50p piece and really pink cheeks. By the time we got home he had temp of 38.8 and a pink, bumpy rash like rubella had started on his ears and down neck. I gave him Calpol and his temp went back to normal. Rash stayed the same.
Thursday he was covered from head to toe in the rash. Looked most like this images.medicinenet.com/images/Government/scarlet-fever.jpg but was not itchy and he felt well and was acting completey as he usually does. Fever also returned ar 39 but went down again after dose of Calpol. I was worried and phoned GP but they had no appts and said I could take him up and wait to be seen if I thought it was a medical emergency but I didn't since 20 mins later the only thing wrong was the rash (and the patch of dark skin on his neck folds) but I thought maybe it was just a heat rash because of the fever.
Friday - the rash was gone completely. His temperature was raised during the night but went again with Calpol. Then Friday night his temp went up and he had some spots. Down again with a dose of Calpol and the spots were away in an hour once he had cooled down.
Yesterday he was fine again but his temperature was 40. It came down but the Calpol didn't work but Nurofen 4 hrs later did the trick. It didn't get back down to 37.4 but stayed at 38.1 then after the next dose of Nurofen was 37.0. All this time he was his usual self and I was trying not to let him run around too much. He ate and drank as usual, did the toilet as normal.
Last night however his temp was over 40 and he was mumbling in his sleep and crying. I stripped him down to his vest, wet his hair and took his covers off. It took Calpol and Nurofen to eventually bring his temp down after his temp went over 40 then stayed at 39. It was down to 37.7 by morning but spiked again this afternoon at 40 again. It has only just come down to 38 following Nurofen doses today.
I just wanted to give you the whole story. He has no rash but one of his forearms has tiny little dots like scabbed over bumps where there was a pimply rash on Thursday. The dark patch on his neck is now pink and scaly like it has peeled a little bit kind of like a patch of eczema or sunburn.
I have googled as I was wondering how long to let a fever go on before getting his straight to the GP and to find out how urgent it is only to find Scarlet Fever and Kawasaki disease etc as well as Roseola. I have just checked his tonsils and they are a bit swollen and his throat is red but he says it is not sore - he can swallow fine. His tongue looks normal but his lips are dry and cracked with a very red inner area.
Help please? I don't know if I should be straight on the phone NHS24 to try and get him seen just now (although his temp is currently down to 38 but I am scared it will be up to over 40 again when the nurofen wears off) and if this is scarlet fever I am now terrifed (thanks to Googling again) that if I don't get him diagnosed right now he will have some terrible after effects and get really ill....
Thanks in advance for your help with this. Anyone else been through this one recently? What did you do and what was the outcome? Thanks