If I’ve seemed to have fallen off the grid over the last week or so, there’s a reason, and as I sit up at 3 am typing this – miserably sick – I’m pretty sure that reason is strep throat.
The household illness began last Wednesday night – Thanksgiving Eve – when G seemed puny, out of sorts, and unlike herself. By early Thursday morning she was running a fever, miserably unhappy, vomiting and barely eating.
Thanksgiving 2012 was officially “off” for Jon and me, and the two of us spent the next 4 days in the house tag-teaming 24-7 care for our sickly toddler while also entertaining a very bored 5 year old who was NOT sick, and who had no one to play with for those 4 days because her little sister was sick, her older sister and brother were away for the holiday, and her cousins were out of town.
This situation around Casa Hickju translated into almost zero time for me to sit at a keyboard over the long holiday weekend to do any blogging.
Here’s poor G during the holiday break, feeling just awful. I think this may have been on Saturday.
I did call her pediatrician, and spoke to his nurse who obviously told me that if G got at all worse, or if she quit taking in enough fluids that she’d need to be seen without delay. I think that both the nurse and I assumed that this was some kind of virus.
Well, as sick as she was, she did remain willing to take her bottle and sippy cup even when she wouldn’t eat. And she did start to turn the corner after the first 72 hours, so we never ended up taking her to the pediatrician.
By Monday, when I returned to work after the holiday break, G was mostly recovered, and Jon took her to his office with him. By Tuesday, yesterday, I’d say she was 99% back to good health.
Then, late yesterday afternoon I started to feel what seemed like a cold coming on. By bedtime Tuesday I had a very sore throat and generally felt rotten. I didn’t necessarily connect it to what G had had. She’d never mentioned a sore throat (although now I realize it must have hurt and that’s why she wouldn’t eat but only drink), plus she had been throwing up, and I didn’t feel sick to my stomach. But I was definitely too ill-feeling to do much of anything productive Tuesday evening, meaning that my LBA (Low Blogging Activity) streak continued unabated.
On Wednesday morning I still didn’t feel great, but maybe some better, so I went on to work. However, before I went to work for the day, I fussed at C a bit because she was saying she didn’t want to brush her teeth for school because her tummy “felt sore.” C does not love brushing her teeth, so I assumed she was stalling.
As it turns out, however, her tummy DID feel sore, as evidenced by the call from her kindergarten teacher explaining that poor C had thrown up right in the middle of class, meaning she needed to be picked up and brought home for the afternoon. When I heard this, I felt absolutely awful for having doubted her when she’d told me she felt sick before school that morning.
As for me, I didn’t feel great in the early part of the day on Wednesday, but as my workday went on, I began feeling progressively worse. By 6 pm tonight, I was as sick as C, although she’s still having tummy problems and I don’t seem to have that particular symptom (knock wood). Both of us are achey, feverish and have sore throats.
J and E stayed clear of C and me all evening tonight as the two of us lay in the bed together being miserable. Both J and E are hoping to be spared getting sick. And Jon was awesome, taking care of G, getting E from basketball practice, etc. while I lay in bed feeling like my throat and head were on fire.
As I was lying there next to a sleeping C Wednesday night (definitely still on my LBA streak for the week), I could literally feel the heat radiating off her feverish little frame. And as she breathed in and out, whimpering now and then in her sleep, I suddenly realized that every time she exhaled, I was definitely getting a whiff of…. the dreaded sick breath. In fact, not only did C have the sick breath, she seemed to have a particular type of extra notable sick breath that I know all too well from years past.
Oh my gosh,” I thought to myself. This isn’t some virus that G had, and that C now has. Plus, I don’t just have a nasty cold. This is STREP THROAT.
It’s been a while since strep throat made an appearance, but there were a couple of times when Henry, J and E were all little that strep throat tore thru our family one child after the other, refusing to go away for up to two weeks of successively sick children. And as the mother of five kids, I’ve certainly come down with strep throat a time or two myself after one of my offspring brought it home from school. It’s a truly unpleasant illness.
I definitely remembered the distinctively yucky breath that kids with strep throat often get, but I couldn’t remember whether strep throat can also cause vomiting in children. So I googled it on my iPhone and sure enough, along with all the other ways strep throat can make a person feel rotten, in kids it very commonly includes nausea and vomiting.
So now I am pretty sure that this bug we’ve had moving through our family over the last week is indeed strep. In fact, I will be really surprised if when C goes to the pediatrician in the morning, and I go to some walk in clinic, our respective strep tests don’t turn up positive. Of course I could be wrong, but I really don’t think I am. The only good news about strep as opposed to some unpleasant virus is that strep, being bacterial, can and should be treated with antibiotics, meaning that it can be knocked out relatively quickly.
So that’s the plan: strep tests and bed rest for C and me tomorrow. And if I happened to see you in person on Tuesday or Wednesday, I apologize in advance for having potentially made you sick. I never would have left the house or gone anywhere near anyone else in the past 24-48 hours if I’d had any clue that I was coming down with something contagious like this.
So how about you? What’s your personal experience with strep throat? If your kids have gotten it, do you usually get it too? Have you ever had it yourself when you haven’t been around any sick children? Is strep making the rounds in your neck of the woods at the moment?
Also, do any of y’all have any great home remedies that might knock out this wicked sore throat? If so, please share. At the moment, I can’t sleep a wink because swallowing and breathing hurt so much, and ibuprofen + throat lozenges don’t seem to be making much of a difference.
If that’s what it is, throw away the toothbrushes of all infected people after 24 hours on antibiotics…because it is bacterial, it can reinfect that way.
. So sorry you are all sick, and hope that it passes quickly!! I am on my second big viral illness of the month…
I catch strep super easy – and the last time we had strep was a year ago – right before Christmas. I caught it first, then my youngest daughter. That was 2 days back to back at the doctor. THEN, my 1 year old (at the time) started running a fever, and despite the Urgent Care Doctor telling me that kids that young don’t normally catch it, I took him immediately (day 3 at a doctor!) and he had it too. BUT, once we all had antibiotics, it stopped the spread. My husband and our two older kids didn’t end up getting it.
Also – if you do not treat strep, it turns into what was formerly known as Scarlet Fever. It’s happened to me twice, and my doc’s called it Scarletina. It’s a yucky rash all over and a high fever. It’s how the body tries to get that strep nastiness out of your body. It can be complicated in kids, I think.
Anyhow, FEEL BETTER! Get Medicine! Rest! It might be sick time, but it’s still extra time with your babies.
Would you believe that we have never had strep throat? I had it as child but never since. I’ve gotten tonsillitis as an adult, but the last time was about 20 years ago, and I once got it frequently. I’m sorry you are feeling so bad.
This is my family too. I remember getting strep once in my teens and feeling SO proud that I’d finally gotten it!
When my older kids were little, the family next door at the time, with whom they played almost every day, would have one to three bouts of strep a year (with it stretching out as each kid got it from the one before too). One of the kids did always throw up as she was getting sick, too — so my neighbor used to have her strep-tested every single time she threw up for several years, unless a stomach bug had been running through the family. She was often able to catch it pretty quickly that way.
Even with all our exposure to them, I think only one of my three kids has ever had strep. Once.
Ahhh- a very similar thing happened to us! My little guy was playing with a friend and the next day the friend came down with strep throat. A few days later my little guy started throwing up and was running a high fever. Strep throat never even occurred to me since he didn’t say ANYTHING about his throat feeling sore. After two days of a scary high fever I took him to the doctor who took one look at him and said “This is strep.” I was floored. I had no idea strep could induce vomiting in little ones. And I felt like the worst mom ever that he had been so miserable for several days and an antibiotic could have cleared it up.
Lesson learned… no matter how many years you’re a parent there’s always something new to learn…
Hope you’re all feeling better soon!
We are dealing with the same thing. My son’s rapid strep test came back negative last Friday but I got a call from the doc on Tuesday and the test that was sent to the lab came back positive. I apologize to all the kids at school that he exposed on Monday and Tuesday……whoops. He has now been on antibiotics for two days but this morning my throat has started feeling sore. Guess I better call the doc and see if he will call in meds for me as well. As a side note my son is allergic to penicillin and the doc called in a script for the liquid form of azithromycin, it is the most vile, horrible tasting medicine on the planet. Getting my son to take it is drama drama drama……ughhh!
We;ve had surprisingly little strep in our family, but it is much known from the notes we got home from school when someone in the class got it. You might want to get G checked out as well, or at least run it by the pediatrician because I remember in the dark ages, some kids with undiagnosed, untreated strep ended up with not just scarlet fever by rheumatic fever which can cause permanent heart damage among other things. Strep is not something to play around with. You can recover and still get damages from it.
I second this as well … that happened to me, and I was an adult. I was misdiagnosed with a simple cold and not given anything to treat it. The symptoms went away, but returned with a vengeance two weeks later. I went back, got on antibiotics and the strep was treated, but it had already done the damage. Two more weeks later, I woke up with every joint in my body on fire. I went back to the doctor and was told I had rheumatic fever. There was nothing that relieved the pain, and at a follow up visit, they found that I also had developed a heart murmur, which to this day still merits extra attention at my physicals.
Take G in and have her treated with antibiotics as well. Be sure that you all take every last one of the antibiotics and don’t stop just because you feel better. When you’re done, get some probiotics for everyone to get your guts back into shape.
You can take probiotics with the antibiotics. You don’t have to wait until you’re done with the prescription meds. Just don’t take them at the same time. Take the probiotic on an empty stomach with a big glass of room temp water. Wait 10 minutes. Take your meds after that.
Best wishes Katie for better health soon. I don’t think it’s so bad for C to have to entertain herself. You discover inner resources and inner creativity when left to your own devices. She has plenty, why not use them!
Sipping water with a tbsp of unpasturized (real) apple cider vinegar helps at our house. If you are brave, gargling with it straight (or slightly diluted) also knocks sore throats out. And definitely finish up the antibiotics! Hope you feel better soon.
Oh dear.
Sorry about the crummy illness. Because your throat germs have been multiplying several days by now, I don’t think there’s anything to soothe it (painkillers maybe?). It should start getting better once you take your medication.
My own theory is that G’s vomiting was killing some of the germs in her throat so that her pain wasn’t as terrible as yours. But as the others said, go have her tested & treated so that the bacteria doesn’t cause secondary complications.