Help please - persistent low grade fevers and Petechiae two year old

[ivy621]

Not sure what I’m looking for as we already have a blood test booked for the 5th, I guess just any similar stories with positive outcomes.
My two year old has had persistent low grade fevers and Petechiae appearing on different parts of her body for weeks. Usually a few small dots but they have appeared everywhere at different times, along side temps of between 37.7-38 almost everyday for weeks. With the two convinced I’m obviously quite worried that something is going on. Last night she had a full blown non-blanching rash on her back and also lots of the dots appeared on her face (I’ll attached photos for context) has anyone experienced this and it turned out to be nothing? She is mostly okay in herself so it just feels confusing. Any experiences or advice would be appreciated! Thanks

Any joint pain or swelling in her joints?

No thankfully not. Only symptoms is the Petechiae and low grade fevers, it’s baffling me as she’s currently happily playing outside I keep thinking if it were something serious surely she wouldn’t be this happy.

It sounds slightly like HSP to me. The rash and fevers make sense, but our son had a lot of joint pain with it. I would get it checked out definately.

Did they say what causes that? She has a blood test booked so hopefully that will shed some light on what’s going on

If she is fine in herself and these are the only symptoms I think you can be reassured that it won’t be anything nasty. The temps you recorded were the doctors concerned at all about it as my doctor say they only consider a fever to be like 38+ .
Hope the blood tests go ok

My son had HSP when he was younger - it's an autoimmune response, often comes on a couple of weeks after a viral infection like strep or an upper respiratory thing, sometimes in response to vaccinations. It's usually self-limiting but can cause complications in some cases. There's a support group on Facebook if you search for 'parents of children with HSP', I think. Definitely worth getting checked out just in case.

Thank you for replying. Just wondering how long the HSP lasted for?

thank you. She is fine in herself the only other thing is a bit more tired than usual, longer nap in the day and sleeping in longer than usual but is eating and drinking fine and still plays. Doctor wasn’t overly concerned but said it’s worth looking at because of how persistent the temps are, her ‘normal’ was always around 36.5 until the Petechiae started to appear.

For my son, his legs and parts of his arms were covered in blotchy bright red purpura for about three weeks, and it faded to what looked like bruises for another few weeks after that. (I was glad it was winter so he could wear long sleeves, because it honestly looked like he'd been battered - it was awful!) The joint pain was only for the first day or two - it was briefly so bad that he needed to be carried across the room, but thankfully that didn't last long. He had a high temperature on the day that he was diagnosed - that and the rash was why we took him to hospital. HSP can cause kidney problems for some children, so his urine was monitored every month for a year, and he did suffer from a couple of bouts of very bloody poop a few months afterwards, which was due to some blood leaking into his gut and was thankfully nothing serious (but we had to take him to paediatric a&e whenever it happened so that he could be checked for a bowel obstruction, which is another possible complication) - so basically the worst of it was about two months, but complications can present for about a year so most children are monitored for that length of time.

If it helps, this is what my sons rash looked like around the time of diagnosis: the first two are just before diagnosis - it started as smaller blotches then rapidly started to spread into bright red splodges. The last two are in the week or two after, when it was a more purple-red rash. (Sorry the quality of the photos isn't great - it was about ten years ago!)

Oh bless him! This is the thing with my little one, they are tiny dots more consistent with Petechiae than purpura so I’m thinking it could maybe be ITP rather than HSP. She hasn’t had any of the big blotchy spots, although her skin does look a bit blotchy in the photo she also gets very mottled. I’m terrified of taking her for this blood test but I know it’s the right thing to do

Hi did you find out what was causing petechiae? My daughter has a few little dots outside her armpit and arms but doctor said not to worry and to keep an eye on her skin. I’m worried still. I hope your daughter is ok.

Hello, no we didn’t get to the bottom of it. She had blood tests and there was nothing alarming, just higher than normal red blood count and haemoglobin which didn’t explain it! Although during the blood test she got very upset and pretty much every blood vessel in her face burst so she then had it all over her face and neck. I’m thinking she just had fragile capillaries!
If they have gone away and don’t spread/get worse or have other concerning symptoms I wouldn’t worry too much. I know it’s hard as I spiralled for months over it.