Ohio doctors - pneumococcus?

May 2, 2007

Hi everyone,

Anyone here worked with a smart, responsive, and knowledgeable

pediatrician in Ohio? We are in the SE corner but would be willing to

travel for the right guy or gal, at least as far as other Ohio

destinations are concerned - and possibly into KY, WV, and PA. But

really, Columbus (OH) would be ideal. We're being told that the

infectious disease docs at Children's Hospital in Columbus would be

the place to start.

We have just come off a hard weekend where we spent Friday night in

the ER at Children's Hospital in Columbus, fending off a CT for

suspected appendicitis. This turned out to be most likely one of

Leo's periodic fevers, which maxed out at 105, plus a gassy belly

that was much better once he could say, " I tootered, Mama! " We were

lucky to be discharged late Saturday afternoon after much stress and

fear.

So now we are thinking we need to do some serious diagnostic work and

nail down a diagnosis before Leo starts glowing unhealthily from

excess radiation. He's had fevers for a year, now, and the weekend's

adventure convinced us that we need to become much more proactive.

On top of the weekend's stress, we learned today that Leo has (had?)

streptococcus pneumoniae (aka pneumococcus) in his blood. It was

cultured on Friday night and results came back this morning. Anyone

have any experience with this? He's now on heavy-duty antibiotics -

and was previously vaccinated with Prevnar - but I'm wondering how

the heck this bacterium got into his blood. I'm also wondering how

this might be related to the weekend's attack, which was different in

some ways (fever for only about 36 hours, plus no obvious throat

involvement. Could the pneumococcal bacteremia have caused the fever

this time? And if so, wouldn't he have been a whole lot sicker,

considering he didn't have any antibiotics until today?

I'll be grateful for any tips. If you don't feel comfortable posting

doctors' names, I'd be glad if you'd contact me off-list. Thanks a

million!

Warmly,

Patty and Leo (3.10, likely ) and Sam (7.5, healthy)

--

R. Stokes, Ph.D.

Instructor, Women's Studies

Ohio University

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