WONDERING SOMETHING...WBCOUNT

January 25, 2005

dear all

I wrote a letter regarding my 11 year old daughter, under NEED HELP

by momaof340 and i was just wondering something, of course as i said

in the letter she has not been diagnosed yet and we are still

waiting results of thyroid and mono before he moves on, well in one

of her blood test when her fevers were running high, it showed a

elevated wbc, i noticed in one of the letters some have mentioned

that that their children would get an elevated count when in flare,

is this normal.....my family dr said it may be sign of infection and

put her on strong antibiotic last week for that, yet she showed no

signs of any infection, such as ears, throat or so on. You would

think i would have these answers considering i have dealt with auto

immune myself for many years, but when its yourself you just go

through and do what the drs says lol....now the past couple of days

the fevers seemed to have stopped and she is feeling much better and

taking less advil....im amazed....do you suppose she just came out

of a flare, her knees and ankles seem just pretty much normal, any

imput would be great....i know with some childhood arthritis's i

have heard that they can get short flares and possibly be fine for a

long time yet.........any suggestions....thank you, i would love as

much imput from you folks as i can get as i believe us parents start

to have more answers than the drs at times, from experiences (sorry

drs, no insult intended) thank you

hugs

janet aka momaof340

January 25, 2005

Hi Janet:

Yes, the kids do have flares that come and go...usually Mickey's are of

a much longer duration (months) and we only get control (until

recently) by giving her large doses of prednisone in addition to the

mtx and indomethacin. When Mickey was first diagnosed, they ruled out

various infections with various blood tests, swabs, urine tests, etc.

They also drew fluid from the two swollen ankles she had at the time to

make sure that she didn't have some sort of sepsis that caused them to

swell. Then they did a bone scan... where they gave her a sedative so

she wouldn't move, injected her with something (radioactive I think)

and then put her in this big scanning thing from head to toe... on a

sliding table that slid her under a bar that made the image I guess. I

got to see the films... you could see wherever there was inflammation

it was bright white... otherwise it looked like normal xrays. She had

only complained about her ankles (which were both visibly swollen) and

her one knee, but the bone scan showed problems in the elbows, wrists,

a bit in the hips and then of course the knee and both ankles. It was

weird. STILL the diagnosis was only tentatively juvenile arthritis

because apparently there is something called reactive arthritis that

can be a brief flare that is a reaction to some infection and the body

reacts with an overall kind of arthritis. But with reactive arthritis,

the symptoms usually subside after 6 - 8 weeks. Mickey has systemic

onset jra... which involves (or did in the beginning, and only when she

has a new flare now) daily cyclical fevers. A small spike in early

afternoon which would subside, then a big spike in the evening that

usually wouldn't break until one or two in the morning. She was wiped

out from it. Very anemic in the beginning.

I would be inclined to think if a big dose of antibiotics have cleared

up the symptoms, that maybe there was some bacterial infection of some

sort, whether they were able to identify the source or not. Which would

fit with the high wbc. They do also go along with flares, too, so who

knows. Hopefully your doctor will figure it out. Good luck.

Lynn

mom to Mickey, 10 sojra

On Jan 25, 2005, at 3:43 PM, janet wrote: