After days of high fever, El woke up one morning and his legs gave way when he stood up. For the next few hours, he was unable to walk. We thought his legs could just be numb and massaged them to improve blood circulation. It was slightly better but he complained of pain.
He was walking with a spastic gait, similar to others with extremely weakened muscles and stiff limbs.
I was quite worried because someone I know said her son also woke up and could not walk suddenly, and the condition seemed to be very serious.
We finally took him to the hospital in the afternoon. It took us many hours to wait for his turn. His pain got so bad that I had to carry him from place to place.
The doctor asked a couple of questions and then pressed his legs and calves to check out the pain. He was ticklish and the doctor thought he was joking. She continued to press the muscles and he complained of pain in those places.
I think she ruled out Zika or dengue since he did not have blood shot eyes or rashes.
She sent him to get an X-ray taken just to rule out any injury to the feet. She also got him to take Ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation. He later had his blood tested.
While waiting, he set up his own Class Dojo class that summed up his experience.
A nurse also got him a wheelchair which was too big for him. He was sliding down.
Someone else asked for a smaller wheelchair for him. He was actually having fun pushing himself around.
After an hour, she saw him again and he said it was not so painful.
I briefly saw a diagnosis that started with ‘m’ and the paper was taken away. After googling ‘child cannot walk after having fever’, I found out that he should have acute benign childhood myositis.
Apparently, some boys aged 6 – 9 may get this after a bout of fever. Most recover without any other issues after three days of not being able to walk or having a spastic gait. I read other cases online, and they seemed to mention their boys recovering after three days.
Thankfully, he did recover after three days and was able to walk.
Unfortunately, he suddenly had severe vomiting after. He puked at least 5 times before he went to the hospital again.
He was given medicine to stop the vomiting and then an enema to move his bowels. Not sure exactly what happened but he was fine after this.
That was the first week of the June holidays. Gar had high fever as well. I suspect they got their fever from the dentist, who was coughing away when she saw them.
In the second week, We went to see an ENT specialist for both El for his sensitive nose and Gar who had very bad impacted ear wax, and it cost us more than $1k for all the medical bills.
Thank god he recovered so soon!! Kids getting sick is most worrying for parents.
Oh, I would be so worried too if my son suddlenly couldnt walk. I hope he is feeling better now. We, parents, feel really bad if we see our kids sick. I totally understand how you feel.
Oh my, I would have been really scared seeing that he couldn’t walk. Glad that all is well now. When the kids are unwell, we get heartbroken too 🙁 Take good care all!!
Oh oh, so scary this experience! When kids are sick, as a parent we cannot help but panic.Take care and get well soon, kids.
Glad your child is okay now. I would be most worried if my kid gets the same symptom. My no2 had a bad fall once, and the bump swell into tennis-ball size. We were so worried for him.
regards, Andy
(SengkangBabies.com)
Oh dear, this is scary! Do take care and boost up everyone’s immunity as much as possible.
I don’t sell insurance but after my own experience of kids hospital bills, I’m only going to government and restructured hospitals and with insurance.
Oh gosh, I hope the two boys are feeling much better now towards the end of the holidays. I never knew about this myositis until you blog about it, well, at least I learned something from this terrible experience.
I hope the boys had a great holiday nevertheless!