My 3 Year Old Has Valley Fever!?
In mid- October, my little guy got these red rings/bumps on his upper thighs. We put cream on them, but had no success at clearing up this rash.
A few days went by and the rash remained so we took him into the emergency room to get his rash checked out.
The ER said that it was ring worm and to give him over the counter Benadryl every four hours for three days and to apply cream on the rash.
We did as we were told and nothing worked. Instead, we got this:
Back of his legs
Side of his legs
All this in a span of 6 days!?
Two days later, we took him into the doctor who really was clueless as to what this could be.
The bumps were up and down both legs, his feet and a couple bumps on his tummy. The doctor thought it was something called
which in laymen terms are these bumpies/nodules that are caused by an internal infection. We were told not to do anything for it, let it run its course and see what happens within 7-10 days.
Fortunately it went away before the 7-10 days time line. UNFORTUNATELY, it returned beginning of November!
We called the doctor and he told us to give him Benadryl every 6 hours and if it didn’t clear up in a couple of days, bring him back in.
Lo and behold, it didn’t go away so again, in we go.
This time, we saw a different doctor (ours was not available) and she recommended blood work (thank goodness!) and a TB test.
We did not get the test results back until after Thanksgiving and found out that my little 3 year old baby has Valley Fever!
In short, Valley Fever is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil and dirt in some southwest states. Some people have no reaction. Some people get flu like symptoms. Some people can get the fungus into their lungs and it can cause severe complications (meningitis and death).
Fortunately for Buddy, it just caused these bumps on his legs.
His case was not severe enough to warrant treatment so we just had to run it’s course.
One thing we were told is that because he has had Valley Fever once, it is possible to reoccur frequently – hence the reason the original bumps disappeared but then reappeared later.
I am grateful that he is okay, but it is definitely something that has caused more awareness in our home. It’s scary to hear your little boy has Valley Fever!