Unexplained fever

[ReGINerate]

Has anyone child experienced unexplained fevers? I’m finding it scary and frustrating.

My 4 year old son is in hospital with unexplained high fever. 6 days ago I noticed he was limping and lethargic after nursery pick up, he denied anything hurt and was able to hop and jump normally when I asked him. That night he woke with a raging temperature, (~40c a guess as my thermometers are broken), and complaining of right knee pain and very irritable. Gave some calpol and monitored for a few hours. In the morning he was less irritable but wouldn’t weightbear and still had raging temps so took him to a&e who were concerned he had silent septic arthritis, and starting process of investigations with bloods (raised crp, slight raised wcc) and X-ray (normal hip and knee). MRI was booked but then cancelled as his leg got better. But he was still having persistent raging temperatures with no suggestions of source (eg sore throat, runny nose), that weren’t really responding to antipyretics. This led to extensive tests of blood, cultures, chest X-ray, swabs etc. All results normal with exception of raised CRP…suggestive of some form of infection. Son is mostly well with it…washed out when having a fever but when we get it below 38c he’s fairly ‘normal’. Of course I think the worst that he has leukaemia etc but the consultant(we are in a childrens hospital) has told me they’ve tested everything and it’s all normal. He’s pretty concerned too (due to presentation) and has been chatting to Colleagues at other hospitals. We have started antibiotics (day 5) despite not finding a source of infection. finally today the temperature has dropped below 38c although still spiking to 40c overnight, but hopefully we are coming to the end.

would love to hear others experiences (positive and negative).

Hi. I have experience with this with 2 of my children who had completely different problems. My oldest had high temp for 2 weeks and this lead to investigations (including bone marrow aspirate for leukaemia). I wondered about Limes disease. His crp was 200+ and esr 100+. Fevers progressed for a further 4 weeks and during this time his movement became very restricted - multiple joints swollen, barely able to walk. He ended up with a diagnosis of systemic juvenile arthritis.
My others son had very high temp for 5 days and progressively worsening pain in his leg. 111 send an ambulance. (He’d been to the gp on day 4 who had been dismissive even though his temp was 39.6 and HR 120). A&E suspected septic arthritis (crp was 314) and he had a wash out of his knee. Anyway, it didn’t help that much (pain wasn’t actually in his knee) and after much googling (bedside in hospital) I suggested osteomyelitis. MRI confirmed it as did blood culture and we were then in hospital for 14 nights having 6 hourly iv antibiotics.
Unfortunately a lot of diagnosis take time whilst a pattern is established. My advice would be to record everything (temps & blood results) in a diary as if you move between different specialties you can recall facts to the doctors easily.
Good luck, I hope they get to the bottom of it.

@ReGINerate how is your little one doing? Have the antibiotics made any difference?

Hello, thanks so much for your reply. He is much better and now discharged from hospital but we are clueless to the cause. They considered PIMS but apparently not sick enough for that. Just glad to have him home

@ReGINerate do glad you are home. Thanks for replying

Hi,

sorry your son has been unwell. Just to say we had a very weird virus here last week where toddler DS had temperature spiking at 40 several times a day and complaining of joint paint. We saw a doctor on day 4/5 who said it was just a virus but it was pretty horrible.

Our daughter aged 6 has had a temperature reaching 39.2/4 which we are managing with medication but as it continued, took her to A&E after consulting a Dr via 111. They diagnosed it as a viral infection as she also developed a sore throat, swollen glands and a rash on her body though the Kawasaki Virus was dismissed after the results were obtained from tests that were taken. It’s now 3:35am and we are applying a water towel to hear brow to reduce the temperature which is a concern, penicillin has been prescribed so we give that 4 times a day as well as Calpol and neurofen.

Has anyone encountered similar for their child and what can we do to manage this?
Many thanks in advance,
HkP

Sorry to hear this. Have they ruled out scarlet fever?

My son is absolutely fine now but we never did get to the bottom of the cause. His inflammatory markers were sky high and suggestive of bacterial infection but no source could be found. He did start on some iv antibiotics but had a huge allergic reaction on the 3rd dose.
it’s such a worry when they are ill isn’t it? I have my fingers crossed that it passes for you soon x