Ruling out meningitis

[LisaG]

Anyone know if the white blood cell count would be elevated if an infant had meningitis?

It would seem to me that it would be highly unlikely to have a normal WBC and meningitis?

Other symptoms (friend's 13 day old infant) are fever of 100.4 (gradual onset, not sudden), significant abdominal pain and lethargy - baby's older sister (28 months) had fever and stomach ache a couple days ago. Baby is sensitive to light altho not more so than prior to these symptoms.

Doc at Children's wants to do a spinal tap (of course).

[Doodlebugsmom]

Check out this link and scroll down to get to the laboratory work-up and indicators of viral meningitis in infants:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1168529-diagnosis

Hope your friends baby feels better soon. I'm a little surprised the doc is jumping to the conclusion of viral meningitis. My ds has had a low-grade fever and vomiting and headache since Thursday night. This morning his head hurt so bad that I took him to urgent care where he received some Zofran and IV fluids. He came home and slept and woke up with a horrible headache again. We called our neighbor/friend who is an ER doctor and he came over immediately to check on him. I mentioned I was worried about viral meningitis and he said that right now, DS doesn't look like he has it. However, if he gets worse get him to the ER or call him back to come over. He didn't seem close to recommending a spinal tap. Ds's fever has not gone over 100.9 since he started getting sick on Thursday night. My neighbor recommended alternating Tylenol/Motrin as needed to control headache. I normally hate to give that stuff, but when DS is crying hysterically about his head hurting, what's a Mama to do? Good luck!

[LisaG]

Thanks mama!

Last I heard via text msg., the doc's being agreeable with delaying/not doing a spinal tap. Best news is the baby is acting much better and sleeping some, so fingers crossed it's just a bug.

Hope your little one is soon feeling better! That's so nice you've got a neighbor with that kind of expertise.

[Doodlebugsmom]

Originally Posted by LisaG

Hope your little one is soon feeling better! That's so nice you've got a neighbor with that kind of expertise.

You're not kidding! That's not the first time he's come for a house-call.

I'm glad your friend's little one is starting to feel better.

[34me]

Probably wouldn't work for an infant but we just had an epidemic of bacterial meningitis (3 deaths, 8 cases I think) and they told us a pretty sure sign is not being able to put chin to chest due to excruciating pain.