"I'm not cold!!"

Man, what a rough day! Sounds like you could both do with a nap. I hope it turns out to be a 24-hour stomach thing and all returns to normal soon.

Thanks for the good wishes, JPB. So far OK -- definitely tired, definitely weak, but her temperature remains good and she's kept down everything I've given her so far. (Ice chips, popsicle, jello firming up in the fridge now.)

It's a gray, rainy day, which is not usually my favorite but is perfect for a lounging around, taking it easy, and watching TV sick day.

Wanted to get the name of the anti-emetic in here for searching purposes -- it's Promethazine.

Soz--

Your daughter has a talent for thorough-going, constructive purging.

She's certainly spent a miserable 36 hours, but I get the impression that she's less miserable than she was in January.

How much sleep have you had?

It actually wasn't so bad. I constructed a rather elaborate ramp against the foot of her bed with assorted cushions and my pillow on top and slept lightly but did sleep from until about 11 to about 8, waking up several times to check on her or because she moved, but going right back to sleep. I feel pretty much normal.

The jello is a big hit, her eyes are looking better. ("Sick eyes" are sunken and a bit glossy in a bad way.) She peed again quite normally, so I don't have to worry about dehydration (my big worry every time she gets nauseous, especially after trip to ER last year). Temp is good.

She's asking for things like cereal and sandwiches, also good signs though we need to move more slowly than that.

She's getting allergy testing next week btw. Probably won't change how we treat her if she turns out to have allergies, but good to know sources in case they're manageable.

Wow, what a tough day and night. I hope sozlet continues to improve.

Aw, poor lil sickie sozlette.

She'll remember times like this. Mom right there watching out for her.

Hope she continues to improve, and soon.

This may be a stupid question, but have you ever had blood- and urin samples analyzed during episodes like this? If so, were there any tell-tale antibodies, mineral depletions, abnormal leucocyte concentrations, and the like?

People with allergies often have higher levels of eosinophils in their blood smears, and higher levels of IgE in their quantitative immunoglobulins (at least they did when I used to do those tests decades ago. Not sure if they are done in allergy checks nowadays along with skin tests.

I was re-reading this thread and realized it sounds like she's always sick -- she really isn't. Kids get sick. She got sick approximately three times last school year, and missed less school last year than most of her classmates.

I've been on A2K since she was about two years old, and would often drop references in passing ("sorry I'm not totally with it today, stayed up all night with a sick kid") and then found that looking up those references was extremely useful. Figuring out when she tended to get sick, how it tended to go (I forget this stuff), etc., etc.

So then I started purposely recording things here, in detail, for just that reason.

Since I record everything since I started making a point of it, it seems like a lot -- but really it's nothing unusual. Last year she was even healthier than average.

I've been expecting for a while that starting kindergarten would be rough, germ- and sickness-wise. Several kids have been out sick already, including her closest friend, who she had a playdate with recently. (I didn't know until after the playdate that the friend wasn't as better as I thought. Argh.)

As in, I'm not really concerned about any Deep Problems.


Thanks for the kind words, everyone, your comments especially brought a smile, flushd, thanks.

One more thing I want to record, from email to ENT last year after the ear infection:

She is still somewhat congested, though that is improving daily, and we are dealing with that by giving her Nasonex and a generic version of Triaminic. (Entex was prescribed by her doctor, but was not in stock at the pharmacy, and this was suggested as an equivalent.)

(She was taking Triaminic and Nasonex for several weeks before she had the ear infection; those were prescribed by her pediatrician. This year I'm trying to keep her clear with just saline, at the ENT's suggestion.)

Tell her Auntie Swimpy hopes she feels better soon.

Thanks Swimp. She does seem to be better. Slept well, no temperature, good appetite. Dropped her off at kindergarten, fingers crossed.

So I talked to this kid's mom on the way out of kindergarten today and she asked a bunch of questions and said "Oh that sounds exactly like what my kids had... sorry!"

>profane muttering<

I'm trying to take the view that a) she's gonna get sick, no matter what, so it's a waste of energy to try too hard to prevent it, and b) while this was not fun, it was relatively limited and didn't follow the pattern of the horrible knock-down drag-out illnesses of her first winter here. (Which is good.)

Evidently things went fine at kindergarten today and she's pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now. Main remaining thing is that her throat might be sore. (That was the after-effect for her friend who was sick.)

Tell her the reason she got sick is because she doesn't wear enough clothes. THAT should keep her buttoned up!

No allergies!

None at all, not a one.

She had the complete backscratch test -- I lost track, but several (10?) sets of 6 pokes. She was a champ through that. I'd prepared her by saying that it would feel like a cat walking around on her back with little poky claws, and then the nurse said the exact same thing, which she thought was hilarious. (She's not allergic to cats! I was worried about that -- didn't realize how worried until I noted how relieved I was that she isn't.)

The allergist hazarded a guess that it could be that she has large adenoids, and that there just isn't much airspace back there. That's come up before. Ball's back in the ENT's court, will have an appt. with him on October 2nd. (The allergist asked if I wanted a copy of the allergy report sent to the ENT and I said yes and gave him the name so he could do so, the allergist was impressed and said that our ENT is one of the very top guys out there, I was like I know, he's fabulous.)

What I suspect from previous dealings with the ENT is that he'll ask how she's functioning in terms of vocabulary, school, etc. (very well), and if it doesn't seem like she's being negatively impacted, that he's likely to say we should just keep an eye on things. She's used to the saline routine and it seems to be going well overall.

Even though there wasn't any result that we can act on, very glad that we had the testing done just for the additional info.

Oh and she's been totally healthy since she got her strength back last Tuesday after barfiness on Monday, no more sore throat or anything else, full of vim and vigor.

A colleague's daughter has these weird episodes of barfiness/purging.

It apparently happens 2 - 3 times a year, starts around 2 a.m., is usually done by 9 a.m. She's in grade 4 now - and she just goes to school late those days. The doc says it's weird, but not rare.

Yep. E.G. was like that when he was a kid, too.

Did some adenoid research, evidently they're at their largest at around age five, and have atrophied by seven or so. Also it seems like a big reason to have surgery is snoring/ sleep apnea -- sozlet sleeps really well and doesn't snore.

So I'm hopeful that this will be a matter of waiting things out.

By the way, I realized that I have skipped over some things since I've been in "keeping a record for myself" mode. So a brief recap:

- The winter of 2004-2005, our first year here and her first year of preschool, sucked. Totally. She had several ear infections and several long horrible illnesses -- fevers, vomiting, total wet noodle for days at a time. These were so frequent that I was totally wiped out by the time spring rolled around, like dangerously so. Since then, have been focused on avoiding a repeat.

- The winter of 2005-2006 was much better. She had one set of ear infection (both ears, within a couple of days of each other), and a couple of barfy-type illnesses. All illnesses were brief, if intense. She was congested for a lot of that winter but not all of it. It wasn't clear if the congestion was a series of colds or allergies or something else -- her pediatrician has thought it was allergies for a long time.

- Summers are always fine.

- We went to Colorado at the end of July, in the mountains, where it gets down to 40 degrees at night. There were also a lot of kids who were in varying degrees of health. During that trip, she became congested again. That has gotten better or worse, including disappearing for a couple of days right before school started, but has been pretty much continuous since then. It doesn't affect her much -- her energy is good, sleeping well, appetite is good, etc.

- At her pre-kindergarten check-up about a month ago, her pediatrician said that he was virtually certain that the congestion was due to allergies and set up allergy testing. He also strongly recommended decongestant; I said I would talk to the ENT about it, since the ENT had previously warned me off of it in terms of increasing risk of ear infections. Pediatrician reluctantly agreed. Spoke to ENT via email (love this guy), he wasn't dogmatic about it but reiterated that he'd recommend saline + immunity boosters (plenty of fresh fruit + veggies + sleep, etc.), and that's all. Have followed his advice. Do saline (bulb syringe + home-made saline) in morning and evening, sozlet's fine with it, works really well. She's complained of ears popping and there is definitely fluid in her ears (there was at the last ENT appt. in early July), but ears are fine thus far, hearing is good, etc. (Knock on wood.) (By comparison, last year the pediatrician recommended decongestant in similar circumstances and within a week or so she had a couple of terrible, eardrum-bursting ear infections.)

- Her best friend in kindergarten got sick about 3 weeks after school started. Sozlet got sick shortly after, similar symptoms. High fever and short (for her) bout of vomiting -- about 2:00 PM to about 3:00 AM in one day. Fine after that. Didn't seem to be any connection to congestion per se.

- Allergy tests are done -- no allergies at all. Allergist suspects large adenoids are the culprit. Will follow up with ENT on October 2nd. Until then, will continue saline + immunity boosting and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

Er, not so brief.

Sozobe, you may have seen this news already, but just in case -

it looks like scientists will be working on an ear and sinus infection vaccine.

LINK re vaccine

I only just saw your post, Osso, yes, isn't that super-duper cool?! It sounds like sozlet will probably grow out of the problem before it's on the market (unless I want to enroll her in trials -- would prefer not to, especially as this year seems to maybe be going better for her, knock on wood), but as a general concept, SO great.