Q: My 8 yo daughter has been running low-grade fever and is very fatigued for 2 months now. Her throat feels clogged she says and it hurts badly. The doctors have looked at her throat and ran bloodwork
The low grade fever is an uncommon symptom of reflux but the others are seen with reflux. Most of the time, when doctors suspect reflux they will do a medication trial. If the medication makes her symptoms worse then that will confirm their diagnosis. If on the other hand there is no change then they will need to continue to look for things.
Best of Luck!
Stephanie
In general Prevacid is supposed to start working within three days. It can take a full two weeks though to see the full effect especially if she has irritation in her throat that needs to heal. If you don't start seeing improvement though it's important to go back again. I know it can be hard to keep going back when you don't seem to be getting anywhere but if something doesn't work then it adds another piece to her puzzle.
I know she was scoped by the ENT - has she been to GI? They might look down farther or investigate for eosinophilic esophagitis, ulcers, etc.
Stephanie
I think I would call to get a GI appt. It can take a while to get an appt with a pediatric GI specialist. That way if the meds work you are in the right spot for figuring out the meds as he may want to tweak what's she's taking. The other thing is if it doesn't work then potentially he may want to do an upper endoscopy which will look at her esophagus and look for any issues going on there.
Is your daughter getting home teaching? I know here in Maryland, if a child is out that long the doctor can write a note for her to get home teaching which is generally a few hours each week.
I feel like from what you are writing that she definitely needs more looked at. The fatigue and the fever just don't make sense to me for GI to be the main cause. I know she had bloodwork done - did they look at the autoimmune disorders? I know here in MD Lyme disease is a big cause of many of the symptoms you are describing but may be uncommon where you are. Perhaps a visit to a rheumatologist might be something to consider? Or someone specializing in chronic fatigue? I'm not saying she has chronic fatigue but a doctor who specializes in it might know which tests to run to rule out the causes of the fatigue.
I don't want to add more to your list of specialists to take her to and honestly I'm not one to jump on going to every doctor, but it concerns me when an 8 year old can't go to school!
Stephanie
Stephanie,
Thank you AGAIN for your responses!
Yes, my daughter is getting 3 hours a week from a home-bound teacher through our school district...THANK GOODNESS!!
We are currently awaiting the results of the autoimmune blood work and a second (different?) Lyme blood test. I should get those results back any day now.
I will let you know what they say. If they are negative, I will ask my GP what he thinks about taking her to a pediatric GI specialist. Could her esophagus being inflammed and irritated cause a fever?
What about a food allergy or something? She has never been tested, but one of my friends brought that up to me.
Thank you again for your time!
Stefanie
I'm so sorry I never responded back to you. It seems the system malfunctioned and never sent me notices about responses I got and today I'm suddenly getting everything since November!
But, coincidentally today is the day she was supposed to go to GI. Did she go? How is she feeling?
Stephanie
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Thank you Stephanie. The ENT gave her prevacid, which we started taking Thursday. I guess it takes a while to work?! Anyway, it seems like the fever came at the same time these reflux symptoms came so could there be an underlying cause?
Thanks for your response!!!
Stefanie