3yo DD Fever Over 5 Days

[lesoranges]

Long time lurker, first time poster - hi 👋

My DD is 3, and presented with a fever on Tuesday. It is brought down by a combination of calpol and inuprofen, but has been as high as 40.4.

Other symptoms include:

• A sore throat (Or so, I believe - she is behind with her speech, so struggles to tell me what exactly hurts but seems to be experiencing difficulty swallowing and does not want to eat/drink)
• A rough rash on her chest
• Sleeping a lot - she can be roused easily to drink water, or take medication but then tends to fall back asleep within 10/20 minutes.
• Red dry lips, and gums
• Red tongue with pus on it (attached picture - sorry in advance)

We did take her to the GP on Thursday morning, who said it looked like a throat infection. Couldn't tell me if bacterial as no pus on tonsils but gave me what he called a "back up" presecription of penicillin. He said to only give them to DS if she got worse over the next 24 hours. I gave the first dose Thursday evening, as she seemed more unwell than she had the previous day.

Fast forward to this morning, we are now 36 hours into antibiotics. DS has woken up again with a temperature for the fifth day in a row, and has gone straight back to sleep after being given medication.

I was worried about scarlet fever when I initially took DS to the GP, and did mention as such. Though, I understand the treatment for scarlet fever is antibiotics anyway, so DS should improve on current prescription?

Now just mainly worried about ongoing fever and lethargy. DS is mile a minute when well, and usually even when sign 😂, so seeing her like this is tough. DS is drinking water so not concerned about dehydration.

Current thought is if no improvement today, I take her to A&E tonight.

Just wondering what others would do in this situation?

An unexplained fever of 4 days or more in under 5's our GP send up to A and E for paediatric review.

They don't know it's a throat infection. They don't know what it is. Personally i'd be wanting a review today. Not tonight. 111 may be a better bet depending on your local a and e department.

36h in to antibiotics with no improvement I'd be going back to the drs. 111 or A ,& E given it's the weekend.

The appropriate antibiotic depends on the bacteria. There are antibiotics that work for most bacteria such as penicillin but it might be that a different one is needed. My daughter had a UTI and was prescribed an antibiotic but the GP also sent the sample to be tested. It came back positive for ecoli and not responsive to the antibiotics prescribed so we had a second antibiotic prescribed instead.

They thought I had whooping cough in the March and the GP had to look up with antibiotics whooping cough typical responds to.

Hi @lesoranges my daughter recently had very similar and, not to alarm you, but you should take your child to A&E as symptoms sound similar to my DD who the medics thought had Kawasaki Disease. Please either call 111 now or just go straight to A&E. I hope she feels better soon.

Thanks all.

Called 111 and waiting for a doctor call back.

In the meantime, DD has woken up and requested food, which is hopefully a good sign.

If you hit 5 days of fever every day in a row it is always reasonable to get seen again. Most GPs would be relatively likely to send up for a paediatric review with that story. Generally a better route than via A&E where you might wait a long time in an unsuitable environment for the same outcome.