Please can anyone help ?! In hospital abroad with sick baby ( graphic pictures)

[Charlotteap]

Hi please if anyone can help,

my son has had bad eczema since a baby on his ankles and back of his knees and we have come on holiday abroad to Mallorca we have made sure to keep him out of the sun and his areas have been fine. However Monday morning noticed scabs appearing and I thought never seen that before. He then started to feel really warm but never went above 37, that night he was so so restless wouldn’t sleep and constant crying. Then in a midnight nappy change noticed out of nowhere scabs and oozing skin all over ! Called the hotel dr who told us to go to hospital.

The hospital was a private one and didn’t have a paediatric she said his chest seemed fine unlike the dr at hospital who worried us and we was sent to another hospital to see a baby dr. Anyway he also noticed sores in his mouth and throat ( which explains why he wasn’t so keen on solids yesterday)

he said the sores in his mouth is cowsackie? Which I’ve learnt is foot is mouth and the skin is impetigo ?

he sent us on our way with antibiotics for the skin (amoxicillin) and also told us to give him nurofen every 8 hour but a larger dose than usual. He’s hardly slept since we fetched him back only if we hold him and seems very unsettled.

ive rung my dr first thing and been waiting for a call back all day to make sure everything ok as the language barrier was difficult and all his documents are hard to read.

my questions
does anyone know if this is definitely impetigo and in England could a cream or Anything be prescribed?

we are due to fly home tonight (12 hours away) is this safe?

he’s completely moving his head away to solids , is there consequence to him being breastfed only for a couple days?

thank you any advice is appreciated

, so tired can’t sleep and just so worried he’s never been ill ( so much as a sniffle ) since he was a baby

also the pictures were last night and they have got worse since but seem to be more dry today and not open but now he has a few open sores on his face , thighs and neck

Looks like hand foot and mouth

Antibiotics will help, maybe an antibiotic cream too

I'd just breastfeed him, he'll eat more once better

Make sure he's covered up on the plane!

If it is impetigo you'd need fucidin

@coxesorangepippin thank you that’s good to know as he really isn’t in the mood for Anything other than cuddles on the bed. And I will definitely make sure he’s cuddled up , I didn’t know if hand and foot only affected those areas

Coxackie is what we call hand foot & mouth.
Hand, foot and mouth disease - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

He’s going to need more than antibiotics to treat impetigo. Don’t worry about him not having solid food for a few days. They’re fine on water for a few days, let alone breast milk. There’s not much you can do for now, I think the best thing is to get him seen immediately when you come back to the uk

@Fiddlerdragon thank you that's helpful, we will be back in our town for 3pm tomorrow plan on taking him straight to the drs or would you go to the hospital ?

My 7 year old just had a similar skin infection. I suspect aggravated by the splash park / swimming pool. Fusidin ointment was not enough, he needed oral antibiotics so follow that course.
It flared up again 2 weeks after healing so on antibiotics again now. No swimming lessons for a while! Plus he is on double the dose that the GP would gave prescibed normally.

He wasnt in pain though it looked horrific.

@paranoidmumdroid1 thank you for your comment and was your little one diagnosed with impetigo ? Nice to hear he wasn’t in pain and hopefully he’s on the mend again!

confusing with the two diagnoses from the Spanish dr and hoping our dr at home can explain better

Could be a staph infection. Will need antibiotics

We went to paediatric a&e after it dramatically worsened despite the GP prescription of fusidic acid cream.
They didnt say impetigo specifically, but that it was a bacterial infection, which impetigo is. Thry took a swab to check it wasnt anything unusual and we heard nothing back on that so presume it was a common bacteria.
It's enturely possible that your child has both a skin infection and hfm. The hfm is viral and could have weakened their immune system enough for them to pick up bacteria in an open sore, especially if you've been in pools.

@paranoidmumdroid1 thank you so much for another helpful comment, appreciate it. That sounds like that could definitely what’s happened he’s been in and out of pools all week. Just can’t believe how fast it went from a dry patch to full blown spread. So we currently have the antibiotics and I will try get straight in with the gp the moment we’re back to see if we can see the cream. Or would you suggest hospital? My gp is brilliant with me and my ailments but doesn’t seem as knowledgable with babies

Btw no-one said it was due to the splash park, but we went to two different ones over a weekend and a mozzie bite turned into scary-looking open sores all over the back of his thigh. So i'm fairly convinced it was that. My son often has mild tonsil /adenoid infections so again a viral load could have weakened his immune system a little.

I don't think the hospital would do anything other than the oral antibiotics anyway, so i would see the gp for ointment (good luck with the baby not smearing that everywhere!) and follow the course of penicillin or whatever you have. Beware it may give baby an upset tummy.
Take photos of the main patches every day so that you can refer to them, as its often hard to notice gradual changes.
The hospital told me to draw round patches with biro and to get back to them if it grew more than a mm or two.
If by day 4 of antibiotics it's not improving then see your GP again?
We have a london paediatric a&e on our doorstep which never seems to be busy, and a completely overstretched GP practice that takes days to respond, hence going to hospital.
Feel a bit guilty about that given the recent NHS stats, but to be fair the paediatrcian was not dismissive at all so we didnt feel we'd taken up their time frivolously.

Why did they think kawasaki ?

Yes looks like exzcema plus hand foot and mouth sores infected with impetigo. Poor little sausage. Sounds like you've been given the right treatment, though agree Fucidin as well probably a good idea. Breastmilk is the best thing for him for a few days, my kids got through it much quicker when breastfed than post weaning.

They didn’t? OP said Coxsackie, which is hand, food and mouth, but with a small typo.

My son got painful spots that went very sore when he had coxsackie virus. My understanding from my doctor (also abroad) is that it’s similar to hand foot and mouth but different. Spots and sores appear on legs (possibly other body parts too, I can’t remember, but my sons were just on legs and looked much like your baby’s without the dry patches). He still has a few scars from them now several years later. Flying will be fine (for you! I imagine the whole plane will catch the virus though!) I’d fly home though. Better to be home with a poorly baby.

Herpes? Looks very similar to what my son had years ago. He also had eczema.

And yes to calpol/nurofen. I've got 3 dc and over the years been consistently told by GPs and hospital paediatricians to give calpol, not always for pain relief but it essentially takes a bit of the pressure off their bodies to give them capacity to fight the virus or infection.

@paranoidmumdroid1 thsnk you hopefully the doctor from Home rings back and I can have some cream/ointment waiting. Really appreciate your help and advice

@babysharkdoodoodedoodedoo thank you that’s very helpful! He’d been off his food for a few days before the spots so wondering if that was the stsrt without me knowing. I just thought he wasn’t coping with the heat abroad etc

thank you everyone I feel a lot better than I did last night in the hospital.

the doctor prescribed nurofen 4ml every 4 hours but my son seems after a few to start crying and being unsettled once the pain meds wear off, can I give him it every 4 hours and lower amount like the bottle states ? Or stick to what the Spanish dr said

It could be some kind of Staphococcal infection.

Do any adults close to him get cold sores on their lips? Is there a chance someone has kissed him with a cold sore? That could be the cause of the mouth ulcers...

You can give him the nurofen every 4 hours, and a calpol in between? Or a lower dose every 3 hours?

@Charlingspont i am quite vigilant with things like that and we’ve been on holiday a while so only me and DH

thanks everyone the dr didn’t ring but got me an appt tomorrow at 3pm so as soon as we land and get home. Wondering if I can give calpol as well as nurofen ? We’ve been prescribed nurofen 4ml every 8 hours but after a few hours he gets very unsettled again , seems a long time between doses?

just have to get through another unsettled night and then getting picked up at 8 in the morning

Yes you can. Search mumsnet for threads on it, its quite commonly advised by doctors to alternate. I would use the nurofen dose and the calpol dose per the bottle. Unless the hospital weighed your dc and dosed based on weight? I hsve done that myself before as my kids are above average height/weight for their ages.

How are you doing, op? How's ds?

Can totally understand how you feel with this one, DD had awful h, f and m when she was around the same age and it was brutal. She also had eczema on top of it, just awful.