Darn Hives

Ally woke up with what looked like red bites all over her leg, belly, and arm last Friday. I thought she had a reaction to the carpet at church from the night before when we went to Pack Meeting--she'd had similar "bites" before from crawling on the church carpet way back when she couldn't walk. But those had been few and limited to her knees, mostly.

But Saturday she woke up and the small red mosquito-bite-looking things had turned into big welts--hives! I called the advice nurse and she said it could be the cleaning solution on the carpet (I know the carpets were recently cleaned), but that it could very well be something else. Like her amoxocillin for her earache. It's actually common for kids to get a rash toward the end of the 10-day treatment, and she had been taking it for a week. So I stopped the antibiotic, gave her 1/2 teaspoon of Benadryl like the nurse said, and then I took Ally to see her doctor. On a Saturday, yay. Luckily Kaiser has clinic hours on the weekends, so it's really not that big of a deal. This is what poor Ally looked like Saturday morning, when we first discovered her hives:

The hives on her face concerned the doc. Any swelling of soft tissue (mouth, tongue, face, underarms, genitals) can be a sign that the body may go into analphalactic shock.)

So then doctor gave Ally a steroid shot (a horrible experience for the both of us that made Ally hate going to the doctor even MORE) and then we waited and watched Anastasia while the shot kicked in. I took Ally home, where she konked out for a few hours. That evening, the welts hade subsided quite a bit (enough for David and me to go out on our date while Grandma and Grandpa Hoyt took Ally--thank you!!!)

Sunday we went back to the doc for a follow-up, and Ally was prescibed an oral steroid for 4 more days, along with 3/4 teaspoon of Benadryl every 6-8 hours as needed. She was acting a lot better--happier and more active) on Sunday. No more itchy hives by the end of the day!

Today we are still containing the hives, though. A few started to come back this morning, so we're definitely sticking with the prescription regimen. Hopefully they will all clear up soon! And hopefully we'll be able to figure out why she got them in the first place--from the amoxocillin (an allergy to penicillin), from her cold a couple weeks ago (hives sometimes occur 1-2 weeks after the body recovers from a virus, I found out), or from something in the environment, either that she contacted or ingested. It could be anything! But the important thing is that she's doing better.