As I wrote yesterday, the little guy has been sick.  It was a high fever yesterday accompanied by a rash all over the body.  Today the fever is pretty much gone, but gets brighter outside where it is hot.

The trouble with rashes like this is that most of the children’s viral infections involve a rash that looks very similar.  So if you google, “roseola” (3 day fever), “measles,” “heat rash,” and a few others, they all yield basically the same result only with one or two “telltale signs” for that infection.  For example, with roseola, there is a high fever for 3 days, and when it breaks there is a rash all over the body.  With measles, the rash starts with bigger spots on the face and head and it moves down the body, and there are also white patches inside the mouth.  Neither of these apply to what we have seen with the little guy.

I think he has heat rash, brought on by being in the hot weather at a birthday party this weekend, combined with the oil we put on him to stop him from getting but bites.  Heat rash basically comes from underdeveloped sweat glands in babies and can result from heavy oils or things like being over-clothed.  The sweat basically gets trapped inside and it creates a weird reaction.

My wife is of the opinion that it is roseola, and that we didn’t measure the high fever that we both kind of noticed over the weekend.  We both at times felt his forehead and thought he felt a little warmer than usual but didn’t stop and check it.  So basically she thinks we are at the end of the cycle of roseola.  My friend whose child had it recently (another reason she thinks it is this!) said roseola really wipes the baby out, so since the little guy was active over the weekend, it probably isn’t this.  I’m not sure what I think about the idea that he might be at the end of roseola.

I went to buy him some antihistamine in case it is just an allergic reaction to the oil we used, and when I showed the pharmacist the little guy’s rash, he literally jumped back like the little guy was a tiny leper.  The pharmacist said measles were going around and it looked like it could possibly be measles, but said to try the antihistamine first and see if that helps. He did mention if it is measles that there is not much you can do anyway.  I looked measles up a lot online and the symptoms the little guy has shown do not show measles as the culprit, but you never know, we go to a lot of playrooms, which I guess is measles favorite place to hang out.

Of course we don’t know what is going on with him, so we are going to plan for a trip to the doctor tomorrow morning unless it is waaaaay better when we wake up tomorrow.  By then we can say it’s been 2 full days, and we can hopefully get a fair assessment of what the deal is.  It’s hard to see a little rash-covered guy, but at least he stillnhas the sparkle in his eyes, so rash or not, he’s still the same mostly-joyful baby as usual.