Part of Connor's sleeplessness was a sickness he developed. After fighting a cold for a week my mom told me to take him in because he just wasn't getting better and his cough was sounding worse. We got into not our regular doc and said he kind of had a bronchio-something and a borderline ear infection. He gave me Amoxicilin to start treating it then the nurses there had the pleasure of suctioning him out with this machine. They told me they got TONS of boogers out. They also recommended the Nose Frida where I can suck out the boogers with my mouth. I was so apprehensive because I'd heard of this and it sounded DISGUSTING but it actually hasn't been too bad and has helped a lot.
So I started him on his 10 day course of Amoxicilin and we finished the 10 days but he had ONE dose left so I gave it to him because it said to finish all the medicine on the bottle. Later that afternoon I noticed a few hives on his face and called him nurse mom to ask her opinion. She said to call the doc and by the time they'd called me back the hives were gone. So they said to hold off on the Benadryl and go to Instacare of they got worse since it was near closing time.
I was feeling kinda bad because I'd noticed a weird red mark in his diaper area a few days before but didn't much of it because it went away and an allergic reaction or hives never crossed my mind, especially in that area.
Well, a couple hours later I changed his diaper and noticed how red his chest was and his side was horrible. So I called my mom (who was in the midst of my sister's wedding details) and she rushed over. I was trying to finish up dinner that I was taking into my visiting teacher and it was all just chaotic and stressful. Especially after the nurse told me to watch him close and just make sure he keeps breathing. Thanks. My mom had made me nervous because she said it's really rare for babies to have an allergic reaction, especially after the first time on a medication. But the doctor said it is super common and they're starting to think that penicillin allergies are actually allergies to what they mix it with and not actual penicillin but nobody is going to test that and just err on the side of caution. They said a reaction can start with the first dose or happen up to a week after the last dose. Connor's reaction happened on his very last dose.
We got to Instacare after I dropped off dinner and the hives were starting to fade but I showed them the pictures of my poor baby. They confirmed the allergic reaction and gave him a steroid shot and told me to give him Benadryl when I needed to. So I gave him quite a few doses, inconsistently, only when he needed them and 48 hours after his last dose he had the worst outbreak of hives I'd seen. The doctor's office said to give him Benadryl consistently for the next few days and that it could take up to a week to get out of his system! Poor Connor!
After a couple days on the Benadryl I laid off of it and he's been ok every since. A few days later he had his 6-month well baby check-up and his ear was still infected so they prescribed him Cefdinir (which is EXPENSIVE) to combat it. It's a distant cousin to Penicillin so I was on edge giving it to him but he's handled it ok except that it's destroyed his gut (just like the Amoxicilin did) and we've been dealing with explosive diaherrea for almost three weeks now. But his ear has cleared up just in time for him to get another cold so I'm hoping it doesn't turn into ANOTHER infection. The red marks in the photos are all the places he had hives. :(
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