Fever Frenzy

As many of you know, little Carolyne has become our fever expert. Back in June of '06, Carolyne experienced her first high fever episode... six days of fever reaching up to 104.5 degrees. In the 10 months that followed, Carolyne had recurring high fever episodes every 4 weeks. These episodes led us to the Pediatric Rheumatology Clinic at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The purpose of our visit was to diagnose the cause of Carolyne's regular fevers... the signs were all pointing to Periodic Fever Syndrome, or PFAPA. To make a long story short, after our visit to the Vanderbilt Clinic, Carolyne began taking Cimetidine, a medication used to treat ulcers that has been found to prevent fever attacks in PFAPA patients. She continued the Cimetidine for three months and, to our surprise, was fever free. After a three month trial with the medication, the doctors suggested stopping the medication to see if the fevers would return. Typically, in PFAPA patients, the fevers do start again without medication. Fortunately, Carolyne remained fever free for one full year. In July of this year, the fevers returned. This time around, I began charting the fevers and even marking my calendar for future occurences. Luckily, this time they began occuring every 6 weeks instead of every 4 weeks. In September, I marked my calendar for October 16th. Carolyne's fever recurred yesterday, October 15th. Is that crazy or what? So today we found ourselves at the doctor's office one more time. Our pediatrician now feels confident with the PFAPA diagnosis. Unforuntately, there is no known cause for PFAPA, no test to diagnose it, and no specific treatment to cure it. We do know that most children outgrow the disease by 10 years of age. So, we will start the Cimetidine again next week. The good news... the fevers do not have a viral or bacterial cause, therefore, they are not contagious. Hopefully, the Cimetidine will do the job and ward off future recurrences.