Thursday

Sarah's rash took a turn for the worse last night, she was just crying becasue it was itching like crazy, especially on her back. The doctor had prescribed Benadryl, an antihistamine three times a day, but i can be taken every 4 hours if needed.

She went to bed and was sleeping by 8 PM, but just after 10:30 PM she came out, crying hysterically because the intense itching had woken her up. I applied a little Benadryl cream directly on her back, gave her another dose of the oral medication and tried to make it as comfy as possible for her. Benadryl have one side effect, it can make you very sleepy, so luckily she was able to fall back to sleep pretty quickly.

Then she woke up again around 4 AM crying again, and I gave her another dose. After that she was able to relax a little in our bed and slept until after 9 AM. There was no way I would let her go to school like that, so I let her stay home. The good news are that the rash has definitely started to go away, and I have not given her any more Benadryl today.

So now she has to stay away from all medications that contain sulfa or sulfonamides, since that is most likely the culprit. The antibiotic she was on is called Septra (sometimes Bactrim) and it is a combo of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim (a very common antibiotic). Luckily she tolerates other antibiotics well...

She obviously had to stop taking the Septra for her ear infection, but it has cleared up really well, so I am not too concerned about that, Unfortunately it looks like we will not be able to get an earring into that ear anymore, since it is all clogged up now (it was such a new piercing anyway, just about 7 months old). So she will have to re-pierce that ear later on if she wants to keep wearing earrings...