he has pneumonia

hi again, all!

well, I posted at the beginning of my son's most recent illness, chest infection etc. And here I am two weeks later & he's still ill! He was finally diagnosed with pneumonia this past Friday. He was given amoxicillin for his chest infection the first week as well as prednisolone... once he finished those meds he was still unwell and getting high fevers and coughing. Then the doc said it was croup. Then he was ok for 2 days and got bad again with raging fevers and the cough started up again. He was given one dose of erythromycin but came out in hives so was taken off that. I went back to my docs (AGAIN!) on Friday and he suspected pneumonia so we went to hospital for an x-ray and indeed it's pneumonia. They have allowed us home with open access til our check up on Tuesday. He's now on clarythromycin which seems to be working fine. He's doing OK but today quite wheezy and breathless with mild fever.

It's been a long two weeks. I was wondering whether any of you have had your child fall ill with this? Also, my mother-in-law is desperate for us to ask for a pneumococcal vaccination. We see the asthma nurse this week too and I wonder whether I should ask about it considering Joel just had pneumonia. Also our neice caught meningitis 3 years ago at age 2 and nearly died. Have any of your 2/3 year olds had this vaccine and is it worth asking for?

thank you for listening again and for your advice...

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Hi Landa, my son is nearly 4. He has just one lung as suffers from asthma. when my son was 2 we went through the same symthoms and course of treatment as you have discribed although they never diagnosed pneumonia, well they never told me if they did. ( I have now taken to reading all his notes as most of the time the docs are not very forthgiving with information!!) His consultant suggested that he had the pneumococcal vaccination. He has a flu jab every year as he had flu when he was 6 months old. Since having the vaccination he has been doing a lot better, although I don't know if this is due to the vaccination or the fact he is getting stronger as he gets older.

Have only just found the site but really glad to know that I'm not the only one with, what feels like, my own weekly appointment at the docs or hospital. Hope all goes well.

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thank you so much for your reply. My son has finally gotten well! We are so pleased but it took long enough and so much treatment! I asked the doc we saw at the hospital about the pneumococcal vaccine and she said it was never given to children as a preventative and certainly not to a child my son's age (he's 3 this month)!? So I asked my asthma nurse and she said I should contact our health visitor and ask about it. So we'll see what she says. I don't know whether it's worth fighting for or not. I get so confused!

Again thank you for your advice and thoughts. Glad you found this site and realise you aren't alone in all of this!