12 year old. temp around / over 39 for 48 hours despite fully dosed on paracetamol

[nannyl]

DD is 12
Picked her up from school on Thurs and she looked / felt awful.
She went straight up to bed.... had a few mouthfuls of dinner, then had an olbas oil bath, some paracetamol and was in bed SLEEPING before 7pm.

She didnt wake until 10am yesterday, but since then her temp has not dropped below 39, and has been up to 39.5, even when having p.mol 4 times per day. She had 11 hours of solid sleep last night too.

Yes, I've called 111, and yes I'm 3 hours into a 6 hour wait, waiting for a Dr to call back. (actually i did the online form which prompted NHS 111 to call me back and the person who I spoke to said i needed to speak to a medical person)

Can i expect anything other than a trip to out of hours?

Could do without that.... our OOH is at our local hospital, where all the Drs are currently on strike only dealing with life threatening problems and serious injuries.

She is flopped on the sofa, binge watching netflix (fine by me) and is eating and drinking etc. She has a v sore throat, cough, strange voice, runny nose etc etc, but i'm not concerned that she is "seriously ill" or anything like that.

If she sees a Dr is there any chance I can convince them NOT to give her ABs?

As above- but adding in the tongue.

A long duration high fever is not to be dismissed as some posters have done. It is good you are monitoring her and I would still seek a medical opinion.

Sounds like flu OP.

Dont keep taking her temperature you will just stress yourself out. If she’s eating and drinking and relatively ok then that’s a good sign. So treat the symptoms not the number. Regular painkillers, rest and fluids.

Unfortunately if it’s flu she will probably have fever for a few more days but there’s nothing a dr can do about that

I had a temperature like that, not shifting and a sore throat when I had Glandular fever. If she stays unwell or very up and down after the temperature has dropped, GF could be a possibility. I was told lots of rest for some weeks was needed to prevent chronic fatigue.

Thank you all
She decided to take herself to bed at 7.15 and was asleep almost immediately.
(didn't wake up until 10am)

Will see what tomorrow brings.

She has the digital thermometer next to her and ive told her if she wakes to take her temp, and if it does 3 beeps she need to wake me up. She also has paracetamol next to her bed and a drink and knows when she wakes, (after 11 pm) she can take another one if she feels rubbish.

Will just roll with it and see what happens tomorrrow...

Some good advice here, however, I'm curious.... You say you have had a bad reaction to antibiotics, but no mention of your daughter having any reaction, so why would you deny HER treatment that would make HER better, based on YOUR experience, when you have no evidence that they'd be bad for her?

Sounds like flu. It has hit early this year and cases are on the rise, according to the media.

Ibuprofen always works better for my child when treating a fever, it sounds like it has worked better for your daughter if it has helped to bring the temp down. I would keep alternating paracetamol and ibuprofen at the maximum dose.

My 14yo has Covid (day 6).

pissed off with anyone scathing that we shouldn’t test - we have very vulnerable dependants who we may have compromised without testing. He is VERY poorly - 5 days of temp above 38c and unable to get out of bed. This is NOT just a cold.

He’s just improving today finally. i’m glad we knew and didn’t treat it as ‘just a cold’ and kept stringent measures to avoid the rest of the family getting it (way more than usual ‘cold’ controls’ )

hope you child feels better soon too.

Can't remember if i mentioned but tested DD today and it was -ve

Possibly Covid….
Keep a watch out for strep throat, but my money is on Covid.

This sounds like flu, my dd was like this and went on to develop sepsis, she was in hospital for a week really unwell but made a full recovery.

Definitely get a dr to look at her and keep a close eye, my dd throat was so sore she couldn’t swallow and was drooling, she also developed a blotchy rash.

How’s your daughter doing?

Not great.

She went to sleep at 7pm last night. She woke briefly at midnight, had paracetamol and went straight back to sleep, without waking me. At 11am (after 16 hours sleep) I woke her... mainly because I wanted to see how she was.

She is still feeling and looking awful, coughing every time she tries to talk or move. But her temp today (fully dosed with meds) has been hovering around 38.5. (39 yesterday, 39.5 the day before).

She has eaten some roast dinner, had scrambled eggs on toast, and has had a piece of home made cake and a banana, and is drinking plenty, so she's not going to waste away, but she's clearly feeling very unwell. (Shes back in bed and has been fast asleep since 8pm, she has not had a bath / shower since Thursday, but i did get her to change into clean PJs before bed)

I will be calling the Drs the moment they open, as i do feel that a continual high temp should be checked out.
I logged on and got the next available GP appt but its for 5 Dec, (The first available bookable) so I'd like to hope she's better by then!!!!

TBH she's the poorliest she has ever been and im expecting to be told she has flu. But shes a strong otherwise fit and healthy 12 year old, and her body is doing what it's designed to do by fighting it and sleeping lots.

Thanks for asking

You’re supposed to call the GP for urgent same day appointments, the new online booking an appointment system is for non urgent, routine things.

Thank you
Im sure the receptionist will cancel it when I get a sooner one. (or i can log on a cancel it myself)

TBH my Drs surgary is normally amazing and I can often book appts for the same day, or tomorrow online. I've never seen a 3 week wait before.... for example log on at midnight and get an appt for 9am.

She sounds really similar to when my dd had flu, my dd was also a strong, healthy 10 year old and she still ended up being in intensive care for a few days.

I hope she turns a corner soon.

The actual temp measure doesn’t really matter, it’s how well or ill they are. If she’s out of bed and watching Netflix it doesn’t sound too bad. Paracetamol only tends to take temp down about 0.5 and Ibuprofen more at about 1.

MY daughter gets v high temps too - I’ve always been told not to worry until it’s way over a week.

We ‘treat the child, not the numbers’.
A kid who is eating and drinking is not usually seriously unwell regardless of temp
a child with a normal temp but not eating/drinking /weeing altered consciousness is very unwell.
try not to focus on the numbers but rather how she is in herself

I had flu in 2017. I was working in intensive care and had a high dependency patient who needed frequent sheet changes. Incontinence pads had been banned due to concerns about pressure sores and he was incontinent.

As the afternoon wore on (13 hour shift) I started to ponder how heavy the sheets were. Then I started to think that I was doing a really bad job that day because I just didn't seem to have the knack of gathering the sheet in my hands to roll under him. Then I thought how much my shoulders ached as I lifted the sheets. I was so glad that shift was over.

I was on placement at my sister hospital so I had a 45 minutes drive and I just couldn't muster the thought of driving home. So I thought I'd grab a bottle of coke and drink that. I didn't know why I couldn't just pull it together. I was in the hospital basement. Very little footfall down there. I took a swig of coke and choked. Suddenly I couldn't breathe and I was coughing and spluttering. A passing doctor saw me and happened to be from ITU. She wanted to take me to A&E and I was refusing, saying I just needed to get home. She insisted that I couldn't drive and said she'd drive me home myself.

I went home, realised I felt really quite unwell, and took my temperature. It was 38.5°c. I went to bed and apart from crawling to the toilet, I slept for 10 days. It was flu. I've never felt so poorly again, even when I had Covid.

It really isn't unusual for your DD to be sleeping. If she is eating roast dinners drinking and, crucially, weeing, along with a gradual improvement, then she's doing ok.

Have you looked for pus on her tonsils? I have always found if a high temp does not go down after both para and anti inflammatoriez then it’s usually a bacterial infection like chest / tonsils / ears etc. my son regularly had over 40 degree temps

A doctor wanted to take you to a&e because you drank down a Coke the wrong way?

Did she actually abandon her shift to drive you the hour and a half there and back?!

What happened to your car?

In the deep dark basement! Your storytelling is fab

I would be concerned about a temperature that doesnt lower with both iburofen and paracetamol

It was a bit more involved than that. I had laryngospasm so just couldn't breathe. It resolved but she knew I wasn't at all well and I didn't. As I said in my post, I was confused and all I could think of was how tired I was and that I needed to get home.

We had both finished shift and she was heading through the basement to get to her car. She lived about 10 miles away from me and I was 30 miles from home, in no fit state to drive, so she decided to drive me home on her way. My Dad and my husband retrieved my car from the hospital car park the next day.

The basement was dark - anyone who works in an old hospital will tell you that. It's dingy and it has all the ducting and tubing for the hospital running along the ceiling. The odd abandoned hospital bed and a vending machine. That's it.

Anyway, my point was that proper flu does make you sleep.

sounds awful.

I dont think DD is as unwell as that (thankfully)

But she was asleep by 8pm and I only woke her at 11am because I just felt i should check her after 15 hours.

I have a Dr (or advanced nurse practitioner?) appt at 2pm so she will be getting checked out. I was 3rd in the queue at 8.15 and given an appt straight away.

Temp now only 37.9 which is a huge improvement.

She has a really nasty chesty cough and once she starts she can't stop. She still looks awful, but has eaten a crumpet and drank some apple juice, and is back on the sofa with netflix. Yes she's unwell but her temp is going the right way.

I've looked at her throat. There was 1 "thing" on it Thursday night, which was looking less significant last night

She has had 44 hours asleep in bed since Thursday night :o

If she had "real proper flu" I think I would expect her to be even worse, but I'm greatful she is eating and drinking.
I have never had flu but I imagine it to be "can't get out of bed" level of illness, not eating and drinking.

Some people (as much as 5% of the population) have flu (meaning influenza A virus) every year without even knowing - it can be totally asymptomatic or mild. But it's more likely that the common cold to make you feel really crappy.

Rates of flu A are high in the 5-14 and 15-24 age group currently, so this could well be influenza. It's going to be a bad winter for it.