Prolonged fever, when to worry?

[Ceebee87]

My 11 months old DD has been v unwell for the past 7/8 days. We’ve been to urgent care twice and to the gp. On each visit they initially had some concerns with her fever, rapid breathing and oxygen levels but after observations the doctors said she is just fighting an infection or virus. She’s almost at the end of a five day course of antibiotics but still seems very much the same. She’s still getting fevers after 8 days, they seems to be coming less frequently now but still there nevertheless; maybe every 8-10 hours? She has blood in her snot, is v lethargic and sleeps maybe every half an hour. But then sometimes we get bouts of energy, where she is active and will eat and drink milk as normal and think we’re turning a corner.

The doctors admittedly were unable to tell if it was viral or bacterial so the antibiotics were prescribed just to cover anything developing into a bacterial infection.

Should I be worried or is this a normal amount of time to be fighting off an illness. My DS1 was very ill at the same age but I seem to remember him bouncing back after 3/4 days. Has anyone else experienced these symptoms?

She may need a different antibiotic if still having fever. Drs usually say to come back if no improvement after 48hrs of antibiotics.

Are you continuing to give her calpol round the clock? I would assume she’s spiking fevers in between doses. I would personally give mine ibuprofen and calpol to control a tricky fever and I’d see what happens after the course of antibiotics is finished. If no improvement, I would go back to the GP. In the shorter term, things that would make me take her in right away would be if she became hard to wake, if the fever couldn’t be controlled by calpol/ibuprofen or obviously if she had a febrile seizure.

Do you have an idea of what testing they have done? Have any samples been sent to a bigger hospital for broader testing? At this point it would help to get an accurate diagnosis (if possible) especially if more antibiotics are needed.

If its viral then antibiotics won't help. But as said, they were probably prescribed to cover incase it was bacterial. So my guess is that if its an infection, it's viral. If you're worried, better safe than sorry. Always with children. I trained as a children's nurse and what you're describing sounds pretty worrisome. It might be something else as well. Fever's from infections tend to go away after the initial incubation period and shouldn't really last beyond 2-3 days.

Just go back and have her seen again. Sometimes a second opinion is better. As I said, better safe than sorry. Babies' bodies are so tiny, their tolerance level for dangerous things are way less than those of an adult. Best of luck 🙏 xx

Thanks for all the replies, I ended up ringing 111 as she couldn’t even stay awake for a nappy change and flopped onto the sofa. They sent us to urgent care. She had a fever of 39.5 on arrival and we got seen to quite quickly. Just waiting on blood tests now but it’s likely to be a secondary bacterial infection and she needs stronger antibiotics but thankfully looking like it’s nothing sinister! Thanks again for replying. Sometimes I feel like I’m overreacting but looks like we did the right thing x