Anyone kid's with this 4-5 day fever?

[Golden]

I have a 3 year old with this wicked fever. Up to 104.4 at one point, but only up to 102 the last 24 hours. I'm not one to medicate a fever, but he was so miserable. Responds well to motrin - brings it back down for 12 hours. When the fever is down, he is totally normal, eating drinking.peeing, pooping fine, tackling his brother. Sleeping fine even. The glands in his neck are swollen. Has a wet, not even really running, clear snot nose.
He's never had an ear infection and isn't complaining of pain in any area.
If he had an ear infection, I would think even when the fever came down in between doses, he'd be symptomatic. I've given him lots of SA since the beginning.
Is there such thing as asymptomatic strep?

Anybody else got this? There is a snowstorm tonight into tomorrow and the doc is an hour away, but going on 5 days with no improvement is making me jumpy!

[carfreemama]

How is your lo today? No answers, but I know last year dd had an 8-day fever, sometimes spiking back up to 104 and then down a bit. She also had a full-body, red rash, like her whole body was badly sunburned. We went to the clinic 3 times and the third time, we were set to go to the hospital. Then it stopped. Overnight. The rash took several days to go away but the fever broke and the next day, dd was back to normal. So not the same thing; but in the end, the fever didn't turn out to be anything scary. Didn't like that illness one bit, though! Is your little one any better today? Snowstorm here, too. And isn't that always when this happens?

[soonerorlater]

We had a 5-day, high fever just as you described (responded well to Motrin, which is the only way he could get any sleep -- so miserable during the day, but got some sleep at night.) Took him to ped on Day 3, they couldn't find anything wrong. I took him off Motrin completely on Day 4 to see if he could just sweat it out on his own, but he showed no signs of improvement at all. In fact, he seemed even more miserable. Day 5 (Friday) we went back to the ped. DS had a screaming case of strep throat (confirmed via lab test). The first time I went, they looked carefully at his throat and said it looked fine, so they didn't do a culture. The second time, his throat was full of pus and the culture was positive.

I hate abx generally, but it totally knocked it out and he was a gazillion times better after 24-48 hours of abx (and we finished the whole course, of course.) When they work, they work.

Hope your little guy feels better soon! The lesson I learned was to 1) trust my instincts and 2) that sometimes it's worth having him checked out more than once.

Good luck!

[Golden]

see, soonerorlater, that is what I was fearing, although he has had not problems eating or drinking anything.

the long and short of it, is that he seems to be better today. He was 99 when he woke up and it hasn't gone up, so I am hoping this is it. It's just weird and stressful when kiddos have such high fevers with no other symptoms.

[LynnS6]

We had a virus like that last year. I remember calling the ped on day 4 or so, and they said that there was a really nasty 5 day fever going around -- and sure enough, after day 5 the fever went down and they were back to normal after a few more days.

[soonerorlater]

FYI, my DS has also had (at least twice) viral-type illnesses with 102-103 fevers that lasted a few days and that was it. The fever was the only symptom. Sorry I didn't mention that before. : I mentioned the strep thing because it took 2 trips to the ped to figure it out.

I think that's why I mentioned trusting my instincts. With the strep, for some reason I just *knew* that it was something more than a virus, which is why we went back to the doctor again.

Sounds like your little guy is improving though. Great!

[afishwithabike]

My Ped gave us info on the virus diet. i can't remember what foods they are now but I am sure it's available online. He also told us to drop two to three drops of hydrogen peroxide in their ears then wipe it out once it stopped bubbling. It seemed to work well.

[babycarrier]

we are in ct and just got over this a couple of weeks ago. My guy was just awful. After about 6 days where his ears had been clear, he had a horrible ear infection. I had no idea but he just wasn't himself when the motrin wore off and took him in for another look by the doctor. Ear had been clear only a few days before.

We did use an antibiotic after about 2 weeks of being miserable and he responded within 24 hours.

[Golden]

So all is well here. I guess it was just a virus. The 99 degree fever was gone by mid morning 2 days ago and he went to school yesterday.

Isn't it weird how some kids fever high when they fever at all, while other kids are high at 101? Both my kids are total opposite. My three year old fevers high all the time (but never this long!) while my other can be seriously ill with only 101. It's like they have a set point or something.

Be well everybody!

[The4OfUs]

I'm glad all is well. Some nasty stuff going around this year already! Just thought I'd add our recent high fever bout with both kids, for anectdotal evidence for anyone else reading. They both were over 103 for 6 days, acting very droopy when not medicated - I'm not a huge "gimme drugs!" person either, but they were so miserable and both refused (and I mean crying, physically fighting me) tepid baths and washcloths. Both had ear infections (DD a double), both ruptured an eardrum. Both are better now, thankfully.

Nasty, nasty stuff.