Thanks!

A big thank you to those of you who kept Little Bean in your thoughts and prayers. The last week has been pretty hard on all of us (but mostly Little Bean, of course). You probably couldn't tell how bad our week was considering I had a lot of posts up, but that was due to the fact that I happened to schedule a bunch of posts out just prior to him getting hives.

I have never seen or been around someone with hives before, but it was truly a pitiful thing to see. Poor Bean had big, red, painful welts all over his body, from head to toe, and spent several days just laying on his bed, doing a lot of scratching, crying and thrashing about in pain. The hives collected on his joints (ankles and wrists and shoulder blades) and caused intense swelling, which in turn caused bruising. For a few days there, he couldn't even get out of bed or walk. :(

We started out giving him Benedryl every 4 hours, but when that didn't work, we took him to an after hour appointment and saw a doctor. She diagnosed him with urticaria (hives), and said we could double up Benedryl and Claritin 24 hour to help with the painful itching. When this didn't work, and the rash spread even more, we called nurse advice and she suggested we take him to urgent care (this was all over the course of a few days). The doctor there started him on a round of steriods to help, since the over-the-counter meds weren't working. We scheduled a follow-up with our pediatrician the following day.

The oral Pred helped a lot, but Bean was still pretty miserable. Our pediatrician actually re-diagnosed him with a specific kind of hives called erythema multiforme. Since then, he's been getting better and better, and I couldn't be more thankful! Seeing him in so much pain was pretty awful since there was nothing I could do to help. His asthma has been acting up again, so I'm wondering if the hives wasn't from the change in seasons, since his allergies and asthma tend to flair up when the seasons change. I guess it isn't something I'll ever know...

Anyway, he is doing a lot better now, and I can't thank those of you that prayed for him enough! I hope this was a one time occurance! We ended up missing school time Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, even though by Wednesday he was well enough that he was asking for me to fill his workboxes. I wasn't going to do that though because I knew he'd just get worn out and cranky. We were finally able to do some school time Thursday and Friday though.