Constant illness - no cause identified. De register from school??

[Yetanothervirus]

Dd is now 8. Since she started nursery at 3 it has been constant illness. The first year I expected it and we had a lot . HFM, sickness bugs, constant fevers and coughs / colds.

All vaccines up to date and good diet/vitamins.

We decided to vaccinate for C Pox as well.

We also had roseola virus made her really really unwell and she was hospitalised 3 times with croup and ‘viral wheeze’

Since then it’s been relentless except for during lockdown. just years of illness. Every other week she suddenly gets another fever and virus.Since last September we’ve had x 2 sickness bugs, 1 ear infection, 3 throat infections (1 with a chest infection at same time) , A UTI and multiple heavy colds with fevers for the first 1-2 days.

The GP says ‘normal childhood illness’. I pushed for bloods. All normal. We went privately for an ENT assessment and no abnormality again we were told just childhood illness.

Attendance is 49%

Dont really know what to do except de register to stop this cycle

My ds has the swilling and hives a lot between 5-9yo. His FBV showed raised eosinohils (a white blood cell that activates in allergic reactions giving the non medicalised term as I’m not medical and that’s basically how I understood it!).

They never found an allergy but certain foods are higher in histamine and they did set him off including hay fever.

Antihistamines did help and after one particularly bad flare up with swilling to lips he was prescribed an EpiPen.

He just grew out of it 🤷‍♀️

So I’d definitely push for further investigation into other things and mention her school attendance and effect on her education.

This isn’t true - a few oral probiotics can’t just recolonise the gut overnight. It can take months/never recolonise to the same levels.

I'd ask for a full panel of bloods that covers thyroid, celiac and allergy tests.

I'd push to see peadeatrician and I would make sure DH did the talking in the appointment. They will brush you off as a neurotic mum otherwise.

What isn’t true? Said it was easy and it is, I didn’t say it was fast.
I know from personal experience.
I had to take antibiotics for 9 months nonstop. My gut biome is fine. It just takes a bit of effort every day with probiotics you can buy cheaply in any supermarket to recolonise it.

Sorry after reading your update I wonder if it’s undiagnosed allergies. My son has very severe allergies - carries an epi pen for three of them and often presented with the symptoms you describe before we got his full allergy results. Also allergies linked to other conditions where the immune system overreacts, could she have something else like this?

Please fight hard for your child. Don’t accept everything from the doctors and nag for referral until you’ve gotten to the bottom of it.

Do your finance allow you to pay for some private consultations?

Hoping things work well for your daughter

Make sure they have checked iron levels and B12. This can have a big impact on illness. Does she take multivitamins? I’ve heard echinacea can be good at helping to boots immune systems so maybe give that a go

Full blood count doesn’t actually mean all the blood tests though.

have you checked her ferritin levels as this is often not tested.

if you can, can you see if her tonsils are pitted (holes from scarring from tonsillitis) tonsils can be inflamed even when tonsillitis isn’t there and make your tolerance to stuff low. They’re basically a sore spot that never really heals if you keep getting infections in them.

Please - advocate for your child, argue the toss until you cannot argue any more. My DD Is y3 and 7 coming 8, today she had her tonsils and adenoids out and grommets in. This is after YEARS of exactly what you are describing.

She came under ENT when I asked for a hearing test - this was in reception. She has Audhd but at that point was undiagnosed; I asked for a hearing test due to her shouting and constantly asking us to repeat things, she was also unwell frequently and I had read about an anecdotal link between Illness and glue ear. They said she had glue ear and we spent 2 years backwards and forwards with this. In the meantime time she continued to get (antibiotics needed) level ill frequently - around 7-10 times a year often needing more than one course to clear the infection. At one point she missed an entire half term of school and it took 3 different courses of antibiotics to fix her.

I begged the GP to do something and was told to do a blood test "when she was well for a sustained period" obviously that didn't happen. In the meantime the glue ear/ENT Referral remained open and ongoing. We saw ent doctor, not hearing nurse, in summer of last year who saw all of these symptoms and infections and thought they might be related so put in a referral to the consultant. We saw a different GP after yet another long infection who referred to the paediatrician towards the end of last year - we saw paeds at the end of Jan who were truly useless blaming these incidence of illness on......a teddy bear and me being a single parent and having a dirty house (I am married with a clean house!?)

Our ENT consultant appt was at the end of Feb and he immediately picked up on the glue ear and that she has severe tonsil scarring (she's only had it twice to our knowledge) and that it's likely the tonsils are starting the infections off - by the time she is "I think you need a Dr" unwell the tonsils don't appear too inflamed and the infection is on her chest.

He also guffawed at the paediatrician diagnosis...some other hilights included "she's too tall to have a deficiency" and "have you thought about selling your dog?" All of which were put in the report!

Please, don't give up.

One of my kids is allowed back from school after D&V because they always get it with even a mild fever and so far it’s never been a stomach bug. Their attendance was so low as catching everything going + the 48 hour rule so it was agreed by school and GP that there was no need if they were able to eat and well in themselves to stay off.

Has she been checked for periodic fever syndrome (PFAPA)? My son was eventually diagnosed with this by a pediatric rheumatologist. We noticed that he developed a fever roughly every three weeks even during lockdown, when we had no contact with anyone else. Like you, the rest of us never seemed to catch what he had. Might be worth ruling that out if everything else has been checked?

My son was like this, 17 and strong as an ox now x

My son was ill at regular intervals when little. Every 3 weeks an infection and high fever. After visits to GPs over and over I pushed for a paediatric referral. After several tests he was diagnosed with a disorder called cyclic neutropenia where basically the bone marrow stops producing neutrophils on a cycle of 3 weeks. It so happened that when he had bloods taken previously, it didn’t coincide with the ‘dip’. The disorder is very rare so unlikely to be the case for your daughter but please be your child’s advocate and push for a referral and full investigation

For gods sake, no. That’s cruel - she feels very unwell. You wouldn’t drag yourself into work if you felt weak and had a temperature with other unpleasant symptoms, so the ‘Calpol n crack on’ thing is no different.

DD was ill for a solid 2 years after starting nursery and that was bad enough so I can’t imagine what it’s like now she’s 8. I would deregister and home school for a year if at all possible, her body (and mind) need a break from these relentless illnesses. And so do you.

I forgot to say op, my oldest dd got lots of rashes, they were viral rashes. Terrified me the first time, they are very common and would usually show up towards the end or after her viral infection.

Also just be warned the NHS won’t focus on the cause, if the regular/standard tests don’t show up something common ( even consultants tests) they will switch their focus to managing the symptoms rather than getting to the root cause.

It could be something that’s missed. I kept getting infection after infection, ending up crying in the doctors and had over 50 blood tests that were “normal”
I saw a lovely locum GP and had some more bloods, the same evening I get a call asking where I am and telling me to go to hospital
Few more bloods sent to a specialist lab and some haematology appointments and it turns out I’m severely neutropenic so can’t fight infection

unless I cannot function it’s exactly what I do and so do my children. We were actually told by school post Covid not to keep the children off unless they’re not well in themselves and the GP has been advised against calpol if they seem to be coping well with a viral.

however, OP has revealed more details as to their child’s illnesses and I agree with others that a full blood panel is likely needed and to check for other issues.

also try the methylated form of b12

How do u manage your neutropenia @lunalovegoood25?Do u take GCSF?

Yes, GCSF injections :) do you have it too?

Coeliac disease? Might be worth a test. I think all fairly normal and no deregister fro. School won't help as she will come into contact with these germs one way or another. Send her in as much as ypu can and it will improve- build her resilience (&yours) kids can have a day at school not feeling the best but they can gwt on with it.

No. But my son does. He has cyclic neutropenia. Are you well?

Please see your GP again. This sounds more than usual childhood illness. If no joy would consider paying to see a paediatrician privately.

No but mostly due to other health issues! I still get a lot of infections as my count drops to below 0.5
I also struggle with the GSCF side effects

Do you? Fortunately my son is ok with it. He is on Lenograstin 3 x week