Small patch of what I think is petechiae on DD back. I am spiralling with healt anxiety

[miniworry]

Just noticed this on my daughters back- it doesn't blanch. I have health anxiety and I'm now i'm spiralling it could be something like leukaemia.

No temp, she does bruise easily but not in unknown places really.

Can anyone tell me what I should do next- should I call 111?

That's just from friction! I get those all the time. She was probably wearing a backpack and happened to lean against a wall or wiggled around a bit while talking to someone. Or they were playing piggyback and some other child was holding onto her back. I once had the most horrendous looking patch of those and it turned out to be the clip from my bra rubbing against the chair of a restaurant that happened to be at exactly the same height when I Ieaned back. It wasn't painful at all and I had no idea at the time. I don't have ITP or any other issue with bleeding.

@PocketsAndSedition I have taken all your kind ladies advice and I will go to the gp to try and get some help with my anxiety as it's no way to live 🥺 but my brain just tells me if I dismiss something as anxiety I'll miss the opportunity to help them.

Sorry to hear this.

Have you managed to access some therapy? This is the sort of thing therapy is designed for - any traumatic experience shapes future feelings and reactions and behaviours.

I get bruises like that particularly if I scratch the skin on my chest or if I vomit under my eyes both of which cause the blood vessels to break

first of it is petechiae and they are often harmless it is just were the blood vessels have broken under the skin and I have had blood tests over the years so know what it is and when it fades

that said it can be a sign of other things including anaemia

Problem is that reassurance would just feel so good, OP would want it again and again. Over every little thing. Then she would almost invent problems just so she could seek that nice reassurance feeling again. There is no satisfying the anxiety. It is a monster that grows & grows when fed.

My dad & twin had life-threatening meningitis as toddlers, my dad was left part deaf. My grandmother didn't develop health anxiety as a result. And she had a load of crap to deal with (she was very young while bullying husband was away fighting in WII, they divorced a few years later which was a lot of social stigma). Dunno what it is with modern people. Maybe the beliefs that they "should be in control" or now allowed to make risks or only low-risk option is morally correct and people who take risks are "bad people" one shouldn't be like that, oh no...

@lljkk that isn't helpful at all. Why post unless you can be kind? I didn't ask to have this crippling worry about my children's health 🥺

@itsgettingweird I haven't had any therapy or anything - I take sertraline but it's obviously not doing a very good job!

We have an appointment at 9:45 this morning.

There’s your answer then, she’s banged it.
Taking photos of your child’s body, seeing if a small bruise blanches, paying for private blood tests for her is very worrying. This is more than health anxiety as it involves a child. You’re going to transfer your anxiety onto her if you carry on. Please see your gp about your anxiety before it escalates into something much worse.

Going to professionals for health anxiety is considered counter productive and takes away valuable resources from sick people who genuinely need the service. The problem is that the vast majority don't just stop at one visit or one blood test. It often escalates to children being forced to undergo all kinds of unnecessary and invasive tests for harmless symptoms. The doctors may easily spot that it's HA and add that to the notes (sometimes very subtly or with coded phrasing) which makes it significantly harder to get taken seriously if the child has a genuine medical emergency in future.

The best solution is to "sit with the discomfort", wait for it to pass (the rash will certainly be gone in a few days), and then learn that it wasn't a big deal. So the next time someone comes up, she can deal with it more calmly. The picture clearly shows a friction rash and taking away a GP slot for something like that doesn't help anyone. The child might end up with unnecessary blood tests, it makes the whole episode more serious that it actually is, which feels scarier in retrospect and will only reinforce future health fears, and it obviously takes GP time away from genuinely ill patients.

Asking on MN is also the wrong place because there are lots of people here who are very ghoulish about children's health. They want a medical drama to follow so they will always tell the OP to go get it checked because of the tiny chance it could be the worst case scenario to feed their own para-social voyeuristic urges.

Please stop photographing your child’s body and posting online!

Being kind doesn't always = being honest. If you’re asking for advice online, then you will get a range of opinions. Some you’ll agree with some you won’t. You may well go to the gp and they tell you the same thing, will you tell them to be kind?

Just to reiterate what other posters have said, I know you are wanting to be helpful to the OP, but seeking reassurance in this way only makes healthy anxiety worse, not better. I know this because I have had bad health anxiety in the past. I managed to get it broadly under control by reading a book called 'Overcoming Health Anxiety'. Two of the key thinks it recommended were stop googling and stop reassurance seeking (which to be fair googling is but it always, always backfires). Obviously there is a lot more to it than just that, but it can help break they cycle of finding a symptom, obsessively checking it, seeking information, seeking reassurance, getting reassurance, feeling better..... And then finding a new symptom and on it goes.

@miniworry - I'll see if I can find a link to the book, but please consider the advice you've had here to make na appointment for yourself to get some help for your anxiety. It's such a horrible way to live and you can overcome it.

Now I feel really guilty that I could be putting her through some potential blood tests and taking up GP time, but what if I don't get it checked and this is my chance to catch something early?!

Omg its on her eye now too.

@miniworry it was this book

If you use the Kindle app you can get it for £3.

OP in the nicest possible way, children are healthy. Virtually every single symptom a child can have is caused by something harmless and will go away by itself. There is nothing "early" to catch in children because they are at the healthiest point of their lives. Every single child will probably have concerning or puzzling symptoms at some point in their childhood but it won't be anything serious because, once again, their bodies are healthy. They will fight of whatever virus it is, mystery skin rashes will heal themselves, and aches and pains will also go away. A lot of children also experience emotional issues as physical pain so it's extremely hard to ever get to the bottom of vague symptoms.

Yes, some kids do get seriously ill but it's such a tiny number it makes no sense to worry about it. The chances are smaller than being in a car accident, so does that mean you will ban your child from ever getting into a car or walking on a road?

The advice from NHS is that if you have a pinpoint rash under the skin, which can be seen but not felt, and which doesn’t blanch when pressed, then you should get it checked out because there are a number of potentially serious causes which are better treated if caught early. OP has confirmed the pinpoints are under the skin and can’t be felt, and they don’t disappear when pressed.

Having had a family member for whom a similar and seemingly innocent looking rash turned out to be a symptom of leukaemia, l think OP is doing the right thing by following NHS guidelines and it’s beyond me why so many armchair doctors are advising her that it’s nothing - seemingly because she happened to mention she had health anxiety. OP is now at the point where she’s doubting herself and thinking she’s wasting the GP’s time. Well done everyone. Great advice all round.

Yes. Fretting over this does suggest you have a problem with anxiety. Maybe you should seek counselling to avoid passing this on to your DD.

How about getting the rash checked out at the same time, given that it ticks all the boxes of being a legitimate concern ?

Two things can and are I think true the OP needs help with her anxiety and it is worth getting this checked out in case they want to check out anything with blood tests as it can show nutritional deficiencies or like me she might just be prone to it

But what you're not considering is that for someone with health anxiety, seeking reassurance is not a neutral decision. It reinforces the anxiety and, itself, can have a detrimental effect on the child. I'm sure no parent would wish a life of such anxiety on their child but when the parent's anxiety co-opts the child, it tells the child that this is normal behaviour and therefore they are more likely to develop the same aberrant response.

OP you’re not wasting anyone’s time. There are a number of potentially serious causes which are more treatable if caught early and your GP won’t think you’re unreasonable at all for asking for advice. It’s unlikely that the cause will be serious but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get it checked out. It could be something as simple as a vitamin deficiency which may still need treatment.

I'm taking her to A&E as it's now on both eyes. I feel sick.

Which is all well and good, but OP has reported that the rash meets the NHS criteria for further investigation. The fact that she has health anxiety doesn’t change that, yet posters are still telling her she’s being unreasonable, based on photographs and googling, which is no substitute for proper medical advice.Had she not mentioned the health anxiety l suspect the responses would be very different.

Let us know what’s happening when you can OP. Fingers crossed it’ll be something simple.