2yo scared to open his mouth?

[Whunt18885]

Hi

So about 2 weeks ago my 5yo daughter got a big and had a sore throat and runny nose for a few days. Anyway over the last 7-10 days myself, my wife and my other 2yo (they are twins) all got and recovered from the same thing.

About 9 days ago my 2yo son had the same symptoms but about 7 days ago started to get worse and was refusing his milk, he clearly had a sore throat and started waking up crying. We tried usual home remedies inc steamer, honey with warm water etc but still he got worse so we took him to the NEMS unit at hospital. The pediatrician had a look and said he had 2 largish mouth ulcers and swollen/red tonsils so suspected tonsilitis although she did not/could not confirm if it was bacterial or viral but given the illness the rest of the family had my guess is viral (and almost all cases seem to be viral).

Anyway she prescribed a numbing spray and a 7 day course of some FOUL tasting Penicillin (I think she just worked on the basis of 'cover all bases' ), We have been giving him the meds but even with the spray he was getting insanely upset each time. SCREAMING his head off , I think the syringe and meds were causing a painful reaction because of the ulcers (even when we sprayed the throat spray and waited 10 mins as suggested).

Anyway he was not getting any better and the 1-2 hours of screaming pain afterwards was just making his sore throat worse, he had/has no fever so we are convinced this is viral. We stopped the AB after 3 days use because it was just too brutal and did not seem to be doing anything.

After 2 days of no AB and he seems to be improving a bit, his ulcers are shrinking and he is drinking 3 x 200ml of gold top milk every morning, lunch and eve but he REFUSES to open his mouth. Its like his is constantly making a stern effort to keep it clamped tight. We have offered him every possible non-milk food you can think of - ice cream, banana (mushed/not mushed), yoghurt, cake, chocolate, apple sauce etc but he just looks at it, holds it etc.

He clearly wants solid food as he keeps taking us to the kitchen cupboards but refuses to open his mouth and we don't want to force the matter as that will just make things worse.

My question is has anyone else had this happen? To me it seems like this is more down a phycological issue than a physical thing i.e. 'food in mouth = pain' juts from his experience with the AB.

My gut is telling me to give it 48 hours and if by then (hopefully all ulcers will be gone by then) he is still refusing to open his mouth to go back to NEMS.

At the moment we are not concerned about nutrition as the gold top milk is very high in nutrition and he is having 500-800ml a day and his morning milk has his vitabiotics multi-vitamin drops and the other 2 milks have Calprofen, his nappies are clearly taking on a fair bit of wee and he has pooped every day for the last 3 days so I don't think he is dehydrated or suffering from lack of calories but clearly this is not a situation we want him to continue with, we want him to start opening his mouth!!

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

It will pass. And it will pass quicker if you stop making a fuss about it. Stop asking to open mouth, stop offering food non stop.
Have him nearby when you prepare meals, ask him to help, then set the table and everyone sits down as usual.
Don't make acidic dishes, go for mild, little salt as ulcers might not be healed yet. Food not too hot, just warm.
He needs to be hungry to start eating again, so don't offer bottles.
Pancakes for breakfast. A soft soupy risotto with plenty of butter. A schnitzel cut into tiny pieces.

Thanks for the reassurance, we actually went to the GP today to see if AB were genuinely needed and if so could we get something unflavoured that we could mix with some milk. She has given us an alternative and whilst it's not unflavoured it's much less offensive than the other one and the dosage is only 2.5ml twice a day so we are confident that we can hide that in milk (fingers crossed). She also diagnosed him with a fungal infection as well so he now has a dropper that he has to have 4 times a day and this cannot be with food, annoying as this makes him very upset but it's only 1ml.

I am reassured that the GP was not concerned about him not opening his mouth nor was she concerned about his fluid/food intake given he is having 600-80ml of gold top milk each day. The new meds are for 5 days so I really hope by early next week this is DONE!

Will report back

I will try the stopping of milk but we are going to give it a few days, right now he is still in a state with painful ulcers etc, we plan to see where we are maybe Sunday as by then he will have had 3.5 days of the new AB plus the Anti Fungal, by then I am hoping his ulcers are basically gone so by then we can essentially only give him the option of normal food knowing that there should be no physical issues preventing him eating.