Painful swollen gland

[rupertsabear]

DS1 (7yo) has a painful swollen gland on his neck, but otherwise is full of beans. Does this require medical attention?

Possibly, depending on what might cause it ...

Does he have fever? How long has he had it for?

I had a gland which was slightly enlarged on a Wednesday and very enlarged the next day, I went to A&E and they thought that I might have had an insect bite (I had a tiny spot on my head). They took a sample from the spot for testing and gave me wide spectrum antibiotics. When the cell culture came back it turned out that I had a staphylococcus infection (which really required the antibiotics, which luckily enough I had been given straight away). However, the difficulty is that there are also lots of other causes of swollen glands. Since my experience I am definitely a lot more careful with swollen glands and more likely to see a doctor compared with before.

However, if the swelling is reducing and he has no further symptoms, no fever, good appetite, no sore throat, no wounds, it might be worth to wait and see???

Good luck

I think I'll go tomorrow. I'm really hesitating as have just moved countries and don't know any doctors yet, but I'll call the duty service and see where I can take him.