Hives and Being Heard

When Teddy had his skin biopsy done earlier this week, we noticed he was a bit off earlier in the day. As Teddy is non-verbal and has a high pain tolerance, it's tough to know exactly what is going on and whether little things like being more mopey in the morning are a sign of something wrong or just a poor night of sleep. We took his temperature, which was normal, and continued on with our day. He seemed to be acting fairly normal throughout the morning, and then we had his skin biopsy.

As I mentioned, he fought less than I expected. Normally he hates anything medical. He did resist laying down and had to be held (by 3 of us), but he almost immediately stopped fighting. That might be typical for most kids once the numbing injection sets in, but Teddy hates being held in place. It was really odd that he didn't resist the entire time, but I was grateful for how well it went.

But as soon as we got home, his behavior continued to be off. He came up to me multiple times to snuggle or to hug me and be held. Now, Teddy likes close contact and physically touching people, but that's more to direct us where to be not to get snuggles and loving. 

Then I had to hop on a meeting for work, and Teddy left me alone the entire time. That's when I decided we needed to visit the walk-in clinic to get him checked out. Primary symptoms: extra snuggles, not resisting a skin biopsy as much as expected and not getting into everything ... really great to explain to a doctor, right?

But while I was in my meeting, he started breaking out in hives. So we headed right to the walk-in clinic. I walked through everything with the front desk and the nurse. As I explained things to the doctor, he said that it's really hard to determine the cause of hives. He was focused on the skin biopsy and a possible reaction to the numbing medication, and he seemed more ready to just treat the hives than look for any underlying cause we could find. He did check Teddy's lungs (as Teddy always sounds wheezy.) When I asked him to look him over and check his ears for example, his response was that he didn't know what he'd see in the ears that would cause hives, but he did check anyways. 

This was early on, and it still looked wicked.

It's honestly the first time in a long time that I haven't felt heard when I brought Teddy in for concerns. He didn't even check his throat, mouth or nose for any signs of illness. While I realize hives are nearly impossible to diagnose the root cause of without allergy testing (and that's still not a certainty), it's also impossible to know if Teddy had a fever that was masked by the medication following his biopsy ... or a sore throat ... or a headache.

So we got sent home with steroids, and Teddy continued to worsen. The hives spread over his entire body until he no longer had splotches and dots but instead his entire body was red and hot to the touch. He rolled around trying to find relief from the itching or pain. He scratched himself. He was miserable. 

We got a second dose of steroids in him, and he finally settled onto Dave and fell asleep in misery for a nap. Then he woke up from that and promptly puked all over Dave. 

Let's just say it was a really long afternoon and evening. Thankfully he was feeling a bit better in the morning and was no longer a giant hive although he was still itchy. Our best guess is it was some virus that caused viral hives, which he's had once before.

I certainly hope he doesn't have these again anytime soon.