111 guy told me to give DD Ibuprofen with chickenpox wtf??

[ARRGHHHHHxxxxx]

Cut a long story short.

DD has severe chickenpox. Has temp, needed advice so called 111. Spots started showing Wednesday 2 days ago.

Spoke to a lady, who took details said another person was gonna call me. Another lady called and said my DD needs to be seen as she requested photos so I sent them. She said someone will call me to be seen. A guy rung and this part of the convo went like this.

111 guy: Have you given Calpol
Me: yes
111 guy: what about Ibuprofen
Me: ibuprofen?
111 guy: yes
Me: you can't give that to a child with chicken pox
111 guy: erm yes you can depends on the stage
Me: I'm not giving her ibuprofen I know not to give a child it for chickenpox, it states it on the NHS website.

Imagine if this was a first time mum not knowing what was right and what isn't. I'm fuming.

So when you called 111 you got through to the normal staff members who then put you through to a doctor?
are you 100% sure it was an actual doctor because 111 staff just have basic medical training on how to deal with callers they’re not medical professionals, most of their calls are from suicidal people wanting help. It’s a very stressful job.

He told me he was a doctor. He wasn't the first person I spoke to.

A lot of times in medicine it comes down to balancing risk. Like all things in life I suppose. There may be a small risk linking ibuprofen and chicken pox, but perhaps the doctor you spoke to felt the risk of an uncontrolled temperature was higher.

DS had mild chickenpox (only a handful of spots) but was advised against ibuprofen because he has ezcema and more likely to get skin infections. With DD being non verbal the priority was to make her comfortable and doctors advised we give her ibuprofen and paracetamol.

I think this shows a little knowledge is dangerous.

The initial call handlers are not doctors. They are call handlers. However, they triage calls and will the either advise you to seek immediate help or have a medically trained person such as a doctor or nurse or pharmacist phone you back. They might also arrange an appointment for you somewhere or a prescription.

If he said he was a doctor, he was a doctor.

This has cracked me up so much 😂

OP, I’m so sorry because you do seem very stressed, but why call 111 only to ignore their advice say “it could have been anyone”!?

I have read it but if you have related the exact words it is open to interpretation. He said it can be given dependent on stage in response to your statement, whilst it might not have been a great thing to say in that context, it didn't come across as he had taken all the information he needed and that was his recommended course of treatment.

When one of mine was very poorly with chicken pox, the paediatrician prescribed ibuprofen for exactly the reason that the very small risk was far outweighed by the much bigger risk of running a fever of 41 degrees.

Obviously, it's always worth trying paracetamol first, and I wouldn't give ibuprofen without talking through the exact situation with a doctor. But I'm assuming you must have felt your child was really quite poorly for you to be phoning 111 in the first place? So it's very likely that the advice to try ibuprofen was the correct advice in your situation.

I know what your saying @ARRGHHHHHxxxxx I went to the doctors this week and the guy I got seen by, told me to take Ibuprofen too. BUT he never showed me any ID or his qualifications, he too claimed he was a doctor for all I know he could have been the cleaner 🙄

@ARRGHHHHHxxxxx he was a doctor. They triage, you sent photos, they passed your call ONTO a DOCTOR. That is what 111 do. @VerityUnreasonble is right.

I think 111 can be a bit hit and Miss. a doctor once recommended to me that I put pillows in the cot of my 7 month old to prop them up when they had croup. Needless to say I didn’t as I think we as patients or their parents have to think about the advice we are given.

Poxclin rub into spots a few times a day its magic!

If this is your attitude there's no helping you. If you'd seen someone in person how do you know they weren't just someone in a hospital masquerading as a Doctor? They could have faked their qualifications or stolen the identify of a real doctor.

Honestly, stop being ridiculous.

I'm very sorry you're in such a stressful situation.

If you don't want to give your child ibu profen then don't. I didn't when mine has CP. But with all medicines their is a risk benefit balance. You see this most when pregnant, breastfeeding and dealing with kids though also at other times.

You don't have to take their advice but it's boot complaint worthy. Just do what you think is best and give DC an oaty bath. Good luck!

Why are posters trying to do some sort of Gotcha?

When you phone 111, there are several avenues they can take. One is to arrange for a doctor to call you back. It is often a doctor on call at your local OOHs medical centre, often based at your local hospital. Occasionally it can be centralised. The operators triage you only and signpost your issue on.

We’ve had the following outcomes from a 111 call:

Local doctor (GP) called from out of hours urgent treatment centre, based at a hospital.

Local doctor (GP) called and arranged prescription for collection directly from pharmacy.

Ambulance sent.

Appointment booked for specific time at urgent treatment centre.

Local paeds A&E informed we would be attending immediately, but not ambulated.

There’s lots of outcomes. Trying to catch her out saying he wasn’t a doctor, is a nonsense.

And unless seen by a doctor and the child’s health to necessitate it more than the risk, the guidance is to absolutely not give ibuprofen during CP.

I actually applied for a job at 111/999 once (as a nurse) they offered it to me but I turned it down in the end as the shifts just didn't really work for me.

They were weirdly insistent on seeing evidence of my qualifications and ID when I showed up to the interview though.

@NuffSaidSam that's bollocks. I used to work for 111 and the recruitment process was VERY thorough. In fact it was brutal.
There was constant updates and training. our calls were audited weekly and it was a tough role. It certainly isn't joe bloggs from the pub in the phones

Unless you allergic like DD which we didn't know about till I put poxclin on ...oats in luke warm water and old fashioned calamine lotion.....works wonders and sadly time but only if mild case. .

Well my GP friend didn’t know that Nurofen is contract indicated for chicken pox. She thanked me for telling her and said that she would inform her colleagues.

OP is obviously stressed , most of us know how having a sick child feels .

What people must remember though is that the NHS advice for parents is very much an idiot’s guide to keeping a child alive. The rules for what we’re allowed to use to medicate our kids and what we’re allowed to try are formulated to present the safest outcomes and to make a drs job easier if the child should need treating. What doctors can do is make judgments based on a wider set of knowledge and overrule the idiot’s guide.
the correlated risk of getting NF if a chickenpox kid has Ibruprofen is about 0.02 in 10,000 or something ridiculous. And they’ve only assumed causation from correlation on the basis that many children with this complication had had Ibruprofen. of course, you can get NF without taking Ibruprofen and the chances are that if you’ve got a severe enough case of Cpox that’s likely to cause NF it’s also causing a nasty fever too! Hence the NSAIDs being more used in kids with the severe cases…So it’s possible the Ibruprofen is a red herring and these kids were always gonna get really sick.
But at those odds… if my little one was really uncomfortable and feverish despite having calpol I’d have no qualms in breaking open the neurofen.

@ARRGHHHHHxxxxx if you sent in photos to the first person the doctor would have also been able to see them as they would have been on your child's file. So the doctor did see the photos.

Erm, you know the posters were joking, right?

@RedToothBrush there are call handlers and clinicians at 111. The clinician teams are made up of nurses, doctors and paramedics. There absolutely are medically qualified people running the service 24/7. Call handlers take initial calls and triage them on the the appropriate service.

I assume having a sense of humour/ability to detect a joke wasn't required for the role?

It’s actually concerning how many doctors don’t know, or haven’t retained it.

It’s contraindicated because it can cause major secondary skin issues. At worst, necrotising fasciitis or sepsis, at best, horrific scarring. Aspirin can also cause Reye’s Syndrome which is horrendous, but that’s only likely to be given to older children or adults.