Herpangina....our awful experience

Well, vacation bible school was a few weeks ago and Bonnie came home after the first day with a fever.  She went straight to bed and slept that afternoon from 1-5:50 p.m. I KNEW she was for sure sick then because she never takes naps and she took a LONG one that day.  Her temperature was high for a few days and she had blisters on her throat and was very uncomfortable.  However, she just drank ice water and slept a lot and watched tv until she felt better.  It wasn't that bad compared to round 2 with Ava.......

As soon as Bonnie felt better, Ava woke up from her nap that day crying and had fever. We looked in her throat and she had blisters ALL on her tonsils and down her throat.  She was miserable to say the least.  I called the doctor and told him her symptoms  and they were almost exactly what Bonnie had a few days prior and he confirmed that both girls had something called herpangina which is a form of the coxsackie virus that also causes hand, foot, and mouth disease. It's all viral so there was no chance of an antibiotic doing any good. Treatment was just rest, Motrin, Tylenol, and as much liquid as we could get down them. We all pretty much did not sleep for an entire week that week.  The really bad part happened when Ava broke out into hives.  They were very mild that first night. I gave her Benedryl and it made them go away for the night. The next morning they were gone but by lunchtime, they were back in full fledge. They were so bad that I was afraid they would increase to the point that she might have trouble breathing---I'd never seen anything like it.

I gave her more Benedryl and called the doctor and he wanted to see Ava so I woke her up from her nap and took her and he put her on 8 days worth of steroids to clear up the hives. I had been giving her Benedryl every 4 hours and it was not doing anything to make the hives clear up. I gave her about 4 days worth of the steroids and stopped because she was finally all clear and the steroids were making her so ill, angry, and hyper. I didn't want to leave the girls to go on our cruise with her acting like that. She has done really well ever since and I hope the girls never have to go through anything like that again.