Lumps and bumps

Claire made 4 visits to the doctor in 8 days, thanks to some mysterious lumps, bumps, and rashes.

The first issue was a swollen lump in her groin area, discovered on Sunday June 24th.  You can see it in the picture below.  (Her tummy is on the left, left thigh on the upper right of the picture).  Multiple people thought it might be a hernia. So nothing serious but the thought of possible surgery for our little pumpkin was daunting.  Once we were back in Atlanta we visited the pediatrician to find out.  It had gotten much smaller by Wednesday when we went in.  The PA told us that it was two swollen lymph nodes.  That, combined with a rash she had on her back and sides suggested possibly a little viral infection.  Since it was already much improved, we were advised to watch it and went on our merry way.

Fast forward to Sunday July 1st.  A few red bumps that I thought were bug bites have grown to nickel to quarter sized red spots.  She has three, one on her head and one on the side of both knees.  I consider taking Claire to the doctor again.  Monday morning she wakes up with one spot gone from her knee and a new spot on her elbow.  And they look like the pictures below.

Head

Elbow

Knee

Ok, definitely taking her in!  The doctor suspects Lyme disease given the target/bullseye shape especially in the one on her head.  After hearing that we had been playing in grassy fields in Maine he is even more suspicious.  Since the treatment (antibiotics) is not painful or invasive, he decided to go ahead with it.  So we left with a prescription for 20 days of amoxicillin.  Claire's first antibiotic!

Then Tuesday morning, she woke up with more bumps.

4 bumps along her forehead

Large lump next to the original rash

Another lump next to the elbow rash

More spots on her leg

Spots all over her head and legs, a few on her arms, a rashy spot in her ear, and a red bump on her lip.  Some internet research indicated that Lyme rashes could stick around for a while.  The thought of Claire walking around with all these spots for weeks saddened me.  But then I began to question whether these bumps were actually Lyme disease.  Most of them didn't look like the ones the day before.  And a few were swollen lumps that were hot to the touch.  I hemmed and hawed about taking her back in.  I didn't want to be THAT mom.  We were just there the day before!  So I took the middle ground and left a message for the triage nurse at the pedi office.  I figured, let them tell me if I need to come in.  But a little more than an hour later I was driving myself a little crazy with concern.  I should have just made an appointment!  Jeff was upstairs napping after a night shift.  I finally convinced myself that it was worth waking him up to take a look.  He was groggy but was able to communicate that he wasn't too concerned. So I was able to relax a little.   The triage nurse finally called back 2.5 hours after I called in.  She got some quick details about the bumps, relayed them to the doctor and informed us that he wanted us to come in.

So we went back in Tuesday afternoon.  We saw the PA who was perplexed.  She went to get the doctor.  We could hear him in the hallway on his way in talking about med reactions and what other antibiotic they could use.  So he was suspecting a reaction to the amoxicillin.  Until he saw Claire.  He just plopped down on his stool with a "huh?" kind of look on his face.  He took a closer look but no answers magically came to him.  So he referred us to a dermatologist.  We got the go ahead to do some Benadryl and to keep going with the amoxicillin.

Either the Benadryl really helped or the antibiotic kicked in later that day.  Claire's spots started looking a lot better.  The redness really faded.  Fortunately we had the pictures to share with the dermatologist.  He didn't really think it was Lyme.  And he trained in Pennsylvania so he saw plenty.  But since it was a possibility he wanted us to stay on the antibiotic.  He mentioned that he could biopsy the rash to check for Lyme, but it's not a great test for it and he saw no reason to put a 16 month old through a biopsy.  He really thought it might just be her body overreacting to some insect bites. He really wasn't concerned at all once we said she had been acting herself.  He prescribed us a steroid to apply to help with itching.  Which we didn't fill.  Jeff felt that since we hadn't even tried hydrocortisone yet, we didn't need to go even stronger.  And he also thought that the doc might have prescribed it to make us feel better, like we had gotten more out of th appointment than "nope, just bug bites, have a good day!"
 
It was nice to know it wasn't anything overly concerning, even if we didn't have a definitive answer.

And it really did start looking better.  Here's Claire on July 6th, the day after the derm appointment.

Much less red than before

Small lump and barely red

Bumps gone or faded

So to review, here's our doctor visits and the resulting diagnoses.

6/27 - pediatrician - swollen lymph node
7/2 - pediatrician - Lyme disease
7/3 - pediatrician - ???
7/5 - dermatologist - possible Lyme disease but probably bug bites

Crazy!!