Strep Throat and Scarlet Fever

A closer look at what Scarlet Fever looks like. Described as sandpaper-like.

My baby, who was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever. Still a little puny, though trying to still be himself.



Somewhere around two weeks ago, my daughter got sick. Fever, chills, nausea and sore throat. When my boys managed to not get sick within the following couple of days, I thought they had finally escaped because when one gets sick, within a few hours or maybe a day at the most someone else would be sick too, until we were all covered. Except my husband of course who like never catches anything from anyone around here, through kisses and all. I credit his mom for feeding him onions and garlic and bell pepper in everything she cooks. He says, nope it's all the milk he drank coming up.

Well anyway, several days later my two oldest boys catch whatever this thing is. They started to get better and neither me nor my youngest son caught it. Yes! At least we'd escaped, or so I thought, again. When it seemed as though the dust settled and we were in bed around 3 nights ago now, I noticed my baby had gotten REALLY hot! I've been describing it as him feeling like an iron. And he probably could have cleared out some wrinkles, at least in a delicate garment. His little hands and feet felt like ice. I pulled out the meds and started administering. My hubby wanted to take him to the hospital, but I remember another time when my oldest was around 3 months old and his temp was high and they gave him meds and sent us on our way, so I decided not to. I soon thereafter noticed I was getting chills and my throat had slightly started to hurt. I geared up for the battle ahead.

The next day, my husband says that the baby has a rash. Okay, i'm not going to panic. We didn't bother about it so much. It wasn't SO bad. By the next day the rash had spread something fierce. After researching a little, my hubby says "I think he has scarlett fever." I thought this was not possible. We don't go out much, let alone being around someone who has scarlet fever, the ancient not heard of much disease. I mean, wouldn't he be so much worse off?

I was going to let him take him to the hospital alone, but my throat had gotten so bad, it hurt to even talk. I described it as feeling as if someone had cut [the inside] of my throat. It didn't take much insisting on his part to get me to go, and so we're off. Dr. comes in and looks at the baby and says, well (key words) the rash looks kind of like sand paper, so I think he has scarlet fever. She orders throat swabs for the both of us. Mine comes back positive for strep, and though strep and scarlet fever go hand in hand, I thank God to know my baby's test came back negative. I had no idea his ears were bothering him as well, because he hadn't been picking at them, but when they looked into them, they too were red. They administered some ear drops and very shortly thereafter he fell asleep.

We were both prescribed antibiotics, because strep can cause heart and kidney damage if left untreated. You can find information in this article on Answers.com. Stay healthy!