Scarlet fever anyone???

[hollymh]

Got it! Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP), this is the diagonoses for the above pictured rash my brother had, it began as a sore throat and then the rash that spread down to his legs.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Until I hear anything that doesn't fit, I'm going with skin infection and that means keep taking the antibiotic per doctor's instructions.

The length of time that's gone by cuts out a number of possibilities. So does your young age.

And the fact that you are not 'immuno-compromised' - at least as far as I know.

Scarlet fever would be over by now. MF - just doesn't fit. At all.

We always have to START looking for horses, not zebras. You look for zebras only after COMPLETELY exhausting the hunt for horses, and you almost always find enough horses that you don't ever even have to start looking for zebras.

Your blood/throats all came back negative, that has to be remembered.

As for my 'analysis' - LOL. What a curse, LOL!!!! I have always been that way, though. As a friend of mine said, 'Until I hit menopause, I was exceedingly rational and logical'.

 

[bkreugar]

Holly H YES it DOES look like that. But none on my face... yet. Started out under my arms then went down sides of my torsoand down my arms. Yesterday It had gone accross my chest and started down my legs and up my neck.

BUT now I have taken 3 doses of the AUgmentin and while my throat is still on fire I don;t itch as much and the rash is getting dryer and flatter. So WHATEVER this stuff is it see,s that the augmentin is working. Would LOVE for my throat to feel better.

I don't think it is spreading anymore, I really think the antibiotic is starting to have an impact.

Hollyh what did they do for your brother???

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
ooooo yeah a fungus. I forgot about those.

At the risk of hijacking your thread again.... I broke out all over once, back when I did animal rescue and rehab, after helping a group rescue a bunch of cats locked in an abandoned apartment for over a month. Over a hundred cats. they had chewed into the walls and piping for water, and I won't go into details on what they did for food. The feces were ankle deep and we got ammonia burns, and respiratory issues, even though we covered all exposed skin and wore masks.

I ended up with a strange fungus rash that the doctors couldn't get rid of until I was sent to this little old doctor in this little quaint town several hours away that reminded me of Mayberry. He was the sot of doctor you would expect to make house calls.

he wandered into the tiny two room doctors office, took one look at me and said "wash with selsun blue, leave it on for ten minutes, wash it off, do this for a week" then he left.

It got rid of the rash.

 

[bkreugar]

HollyH I just googled that and it doesn't match my other symptoms and it mentions nothing of a sore throat.

Byt I guess as long as it seems to be getting better thats all that matters for now

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
ouch! poor kid!

 

[welsummerchicks]

YAY! Keep taking the medication exactly as directed for as long as the instructions say EVEN IF THE RASH IS ENTIRELY GONE - - otherwise you'll just make that bug stronger rather than kill it off completely.

This might be an auspicious occasion to discuss the problems of trying to diagnose oneself by reading on the internet.

The internet lacks an awful lot of very valuable information about diseases and disorders.

In fact, when diagnosing diseases, information about a person's age, gender, previous ailments, prescription and natural medicines they take, and what ailments are going around the area, what you've done lately, what your activities are, if you recently vacationed in a different place, those things are far, far more important than a symptom list.

Too, internet information hardly EVER indicates how rare an illness is or where it occurs or in whom. You can start thinking you could have a zillian things, otherwise, without being able to apply that crucial information.

Too, knowledge about diseases is constantly improving, and websites are rarely updated. Too, when you search, you may not notice that google marks many pages 'cached'. With medical information, it is very frequently updated, and 'cached' means a page has been changed - you're looking at the old version - it is probably outdated.

But the fact remains, that the internet is a huge, huge source of anxiety for those looking to see what is bothering them. You're far better off going to a doctor when you have a problem.

Self diagnosing has led to a great many people getting the wrong medical treatment.

HOW? Well in many ways.

For one, if a person believes he has a certain diagnosis, he's going to start believing that, and what symptoms he describes to a doctor, will actually be modified by the patient to fit the preconception he has about his diagnosis. He'll leave out things that don't fit and distort what he does tell.

For two, a person will tend to delay going to a doctor if he believes he has some terrible incurable illness.

For three, a person may not go to the doctor at all, if he thinks he has some mild, self limiting ailment. One fellow I knew had itchy hands and face.

He ignored it as a minor symptom. He had hodgkin's disease. This delayed treatment several years.

And people don't do this intentionally or consciously. This is just what happens. This is just how people think and behave.

But in general you have to remember that where and under what circumstances and to whom, is far, far more important than a symptom list. Symptom lists are basically - bupkiss.

 

[StupidBird]

Didn't know scarlet fever brought on the fibromyalgia. Hmm, timing is right part of childhood for it and I didn't run a fever. My sister got it from me, she got reallllly sick, so ma hauled us all in to the pediatrician's. He didn't take long to diagnose it, ordered a shot. To which I, in sibling fashion, nyaa nya naa! you gotta get a shot! At which point he turned around to me, said to stick out my tongue (which was peeling) and said same for you! Then I got the nyaa nay's. I had it worse, stepping into rhuematic fever with heart valve damage.

cool. now I can better pinpoint the progression of things, and it's not likely (fingers crossed) that my kids will get this if it takes that to trigger.

Good luck with the sore throat and rash.

 

[FireTigeris]

Quote:
not all of them would be resistant, it would be like having a laser gun that only kills people wearing "green", not everyone wears "green", and one they 'figure it out' (well the survivors reproduce) no one ever wears "green" again.

That's what resistance is like. It works like a rule that everyone will wear a different color their whole life (and their children would wear some of each color), then all the people wearing "green" start dropping over dead (they can't reproduce) so "green" is killed and the rest go on... then you kill "orange", then "red',... ((that's the augmentin, its a broad spectrum antibiotic- kills from "red"-"green")

 

[welsummerchicks]

A lot of antibiotics are able to kill a wide range of different types of bacteria.

A lot of infections are from a predictable group of bacteria - for example bladder infections tend to be a very familiar gang of criminals, and there's selection of antibiotics for that particular gang of criminals.

Often, too, even if it isn't the absolutely perfect antbiotic for a given bunch of bacteria, it will slow them down considerably, giving the body a chance to rally.

Most antibiotics work on extremely simple, basic principles. For example, bacteria, if they don't have their 'skin', simply - well - it's pretty unattractive. They simply fall apart. Literally. Without the pressure from the membrane, they just - well - schmizzle away. So a good number of antibiotics just prevent them from making that skin, or dissolve it if it's already made. The body's immunse system can then easily engulfe and destroy.

When an antibiotic doesn't work quickly, it can be due to several different things - the infection consists of a large number of bacteria, the person is doing something that inactivates the antibiotic (for example, some medicines can't be taken with certain herbs, other meds or even - fruit juices....).

It's important to know though, that it is actually rather unusual for an antibiotic to 'immediately' work. In some diseases/antibiotics you might notice a difference in as little as 24 hours, but frankly, that's rather unusual. The antibiotic may take time to get up to the right amount within the body, then take time to get into the 'compartment' it affects (a 'compartment' is a - well - nonexistent thing, it's basically 'the area of the body where this medicine has an effect').

Resistant infections are actually still unusual, despite the press. The way to not create resistant bacteria is to always take antibiotics exactly as prescribed, and always finish them, even if you start to feel well. Otherwise, a few bacteria remain, and they may learn some way around the antibiotic.

Certainly the less often people take antibioitcs, the fewer chances there are for the bacteria to 'learn' some way around the antibiotic. So it's important to only take antibiotics when it is necessary and when one has an infection that antibiotics will kill.

Antibiotics have NO effect on viruses. And a good many respiratory infections are, in fact, not bacterial, but viral. Secondary(sneak in after a virus tires out the immune system) infections that ARE bacterial, are also, actually unusual and are only more usual in people who are immunocompromised.

There are hundreds of different kinds of bacteria. There are more of them (mass-wise) than plants and animals combined. They grow just about everywhere. There are more bacteria in your body than there are cells in your body. Only a few types actually cause disease in humans.

Most of them are our friends - going around making cheese and things like that. A good many are probiotics - and help us to digest food and absorb nutrients. In the environment, in the world, there are bacteria everywhere. All over the place. Most don't make people sick - and even the 'bad' ones, to make someone sick, they have to get past an impressive array of defenses.