The Spotty Dotty Flu

Well no, it's not the flu at all, but I think we had a kids book about the spotty dotty flu.

Rachael has been fairly miserable for the last week. Been refusing her food, had a temperature, runny nose, drooling, loose nappies, clingy and lasck of energy, the whole kaboodle. So we presume teething. Don't we presume teething for everything? Anything unexplained in a baby we write off as teething. It's a most convenient answer because they can teethe for months before getting their first tooth, then there's 19 more after that to get in the next two years, so pretty much they're getting teeth at any time. The confusing thing was, which tooth? At 5 teeth- two bottom, three top, the most obvious answer is the matching top tooth. But it's progress down the gums is happening, but at a very slow pace, it's not looking like it's going to come through anytime soon.

So we are expecting the other "number 3".
Saturday she was pretty unhappy, and we gave her some Panadol overnight to help (we don't use it very often). Sunday was a very cranky day, even for ma, so there was some more Panadol at lunch time before she went to Jack's birthday party, and she really picked up. About 6 hours later, after her afternoon sleep, things got bad again. This is when (while she was crying), I noticed a white spot in her mouth. Turns out she has the tips of a tooth coming through- a molar on her left side.

That's not supposed to be next, there's supposed to be 6 more before then. Looks like she hasn't been reading the baby books again.
Big tooth coming through; that explains a lot.

Monday Rachael developed a light rash on her back. I figure it was either heat rash from the fevers she's been having, or a minor food reaction from the party. Tuesday the rash spread to her tummy, so we took her to the doctor. Turns out she's caught a virus called Roseola infantum.

The basics of it is that Roseola infantum is a virus that 95% of children will have by the time they reach the age of two. The child will have fever for 3-5 days, then get a rash for about two days when the fever goes away. Some kids will get the fever without the rash, so parents may not even know they've had it. It has a incubation time of about 9 days, and is only contagious before the symptoms appear. What I find odd that if just about every kid will get the virus, it's not listed in the Babycentre rash guide I looked up.

More info:
http://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/factsheets.cfm?doc_id=11173

We were initially concerned we'd have to cancel Rachael's birthday celebration on Friday, but after research, it seems she would have been contagious a few weeks ago, but probably hasn't been for the last week anyway, so the party is still on.

What the chances a kid is going to cut a molar that's not due and have a virus in the same week as their birthday party?

The spots should go away by tommorrow, so we're just left with the teething symptoms. Mainly the food rejection. I hope she gets back onto solids soon, because a 12 month old who is only drinking breastmilk (and lots of it- more often than the old 3 hourly) is getting very messy in the washing clothing department, and tiring overnight, even though we are co-sleeping at the moment.