Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Again?!

I'm home with feverish Kirk. Again. It's just way too similar to what happened two weeks ago. He was hot all night and tossed and turned and we administered Tylenol every 6 hours. When we got up this morning he was burning. He had an ancillary (armpit) temp of 102.2 so I decided to keep him at home. Of course once the latest dose of Tylenol kicked in he was close to normal.

I feel like he's been to the doctor 80 million times in the last month or so. I decided to just call the Nurse Line. I feel much better about being able to simply keep him under observation instead of rushing him in to a clinic now.

The thing is, I'm 90% sure it's teething, possibly with a small cold thrown in for good measure. But there seems to be a major rift regarding teething: is fever a symptom or not? Doctors, parents, and daycare providers all line up on one side or the other. Kirk has other symptoms that are acknowledged as teething signs--he didn't eat much last night, he's got an excess of drool/snot, he's grinding his teeth, he's occasionally tugging on his ear. Then again, those can also indicate other issues, which is why we took him in last time. But he got a clean bill of health from Doc just last week so I'd be shocked if he's got another ear infection again already.

Molars are supposed to be a major bitch. Last weekend while pushing Kirk in the swing at the park, he leaned back and laughed and I saw that one of his molars had cut through. Interesting timing. So I'm inclined to think that he's working on another molar. I don't remember fever being involved for the front teeth. He was extra bitey, but that's about it. I'm not ready to pick a side but I'm definitely leaning towards fever=teething.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no opinion on the fever/teething debate, except to say that I have heard that linked before.

Hope the boy feels better soon!

Anonymous said...

BOTH my kids did the fever thing while teething but I got mixed info from doctors about it. I don't care what they say, kids can get a fever while teething!
Molars are a bitch for sure!

Zany Mama said...

Zane got fevers a lot when teething, although they were usually mild.

Hang in there - there was a point when Zane was about 15 months old when I finally looked at the nurse and said "uncle" because he was sick so often. She told me that it usually subsides by the time they are two. I think there's some truth to that.

Anonymous said...

Zany Mama's comment reminded me...my sister and I both had a lot of ear/nose/throat stuff, including high, persistent fevers, until we each had our tonsils out at age 3/3.5. After that, we both had fewer illnesses. So it is something to keep in mind if he stays sickly. :)

belsum said...

Well, I hope that it ends when he turns 2-ish. And I hope that he doesn't have to have his tonsils out or tubes put in his ears or anything major like that. That's scary.

Thanks for the confirmations and commiserations everyone. I am just so frazzled right now. Between lack of sleep and worry over my poor boy, I yelled at my boss this morning and then started crying. Great. I rule.

Jon Hunt said...

I had that same exact shit with Nadija. She got "sick" so many times that first year it wasn't even FUNNY. I'm sure it was teething.