Mystery Diagnosis - Royer Style

I love all of the medical shows on TV, especially "Mystery Diagnosis." I'm always trying to guess what they have as I hear the story unfold. So, with that in mind, I'm going to give you a timeline of what led up to this:

(For the life of me, I couldn't get a very good picture of the rash. It was SOOOO red!)

March 9: Jaynee's one year well child visit. Not only does she get four shots, but the doctor also notices that she has a slight ear infection and prescribes her an antibiotic (which she's never had before).

March 10: As I'm packing to leave for California the next morning, Jaynee throws up several times as Jared is rocking her to sleep.

March 11: I leave for California, and the kids stay with my mom for the day while Jared is at work. My mom texts me that Jaynee has had several BM's, which is not typical for Jaynee (most of you know why).

March 12: Jared takes the kids to Portland for the day. On the way home, it becomes evident that the flu-like symptoms aren't for Jaynee alone because Gavin throws up in the car and then several times that night. Jaynee continues to have BM problems.

March 13: They all stay home from church, but Jared says that the illness seems to be dying down. Although my parents and brother end up with it at their house that day.

March 14: I get home from California and start my own course of flu symptoms within 24 hours of being home. Jared also feels sick that evening.

March 15 - 18: Pretty healthy few days. Jaynee is still on the antibiotic for the ear infection. On March 16th, we begin 10 days of house/dog sitting for my parents.

March 19: In the late evening, Jaynee feels very warm, but falls asleep before we can give her any Tylenol.

March 20: We wake up to a very red-cheeked Jaynee. As I change her out of her pajamas, I notice that she has a red-spotted rash all over her body. It gets worse throughout the day, with the small spots merging to create large red patches of rash. The rash is the worst on her face, ears and neck and it seems to bother her a lot. She doesn't fall asleep until 1 am.

March 21: This morning her rash was definitely the worst it had been. I counted the seconds until I could call the doctor. They definitely wanted to see her and got her right in. By this morning, her rash looked like this: (Note in the pictures of her body, her skin just looks like it has a pink tinge to it. That's because the rash has covered her arms and legs nearly completely and the spots have all merged into a big red mess). She was still mostly just spotted on her torso, which barely showed up on these pictures.

So, what do you think? I'll give you some choices(these are all things that went through my mind)...

a) allergic reaction to antibiotic

b) allergic reaction to some other environmental trigger (recent exposure to dog, etc.)

c) reaction to vaccination

d) Fifth Disease (remember proximity of flu symptoms to rash??)

e) Roseola

(The teacher in me has to utilize wait time....)

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The doctor's first, nearly immediate, diagnosis was roseola. She also said it could possibly be Fifth because of the flu symptoms. Either way, she suspected a viral cause rather than allergic reaction.

BUT

That was before she knew that Jaynee had recently been in for her vaccinations (this was not her regular doctor we were seeing, since they were just squeezing us in). When she looked at the list of vaccines and counted the number of days from that appointment to the appearance of her symptoms (10 days on the dot) she was fairly certain that this rash was caused by the MMR vaccination.

So if you guessed "C" - give yourself a pat on the back!

Jaynee is now almost fully recovered from the rash, but does get a little spotted still when she gets warm.