Kawasaki Disease and treatment in Jaipur
I am sharing this personal story today about my Son (15 years old) who recently suffered from Kawasaki Disease. As it is very rare and life threatening disease, I would like to share my personal experience on how to deal with it in Jaipur. It’s most common in infants and young children up to 10 years. Our case is little unique and surprising as it is rare after the age of 10.
Let me start with basic symptoms to judge if it could be Kawasaki Disease.
- High fever which last for 5 or more days (More than 102 degrees to 104 degrees)
- Peeling Skin
- Bloodshot eyes
- Body rashes
- Swollen lymph nodes in the neck.
Steps on how did we reach to the conclusion that it was a Kawasaki disease.
Our child got high fever and we seen a general doctor close to our house. He prescribed paracetamol & antibiotics suspecting normal viral fevers for three days. After completing these three days course, we went to the doctor again as there was no relief in the fever. The fever was continuous and we kept on recording which was above 102 degrees all three days.
Doctor now suggested few tests to check what could be the problem as there was no relief by paracetamol & antibiotic medicines. The reports included Blood test (CBC & Hemoglobin), Typhoid test, Malaria test, Urine test. Surprisingly all of these tests were negative and there was no known infection in the body. The only alarming signal was very low hemoglobin. Hemoglobin was just 5.3. The local doctor then suggested to see child specialist as he had no clue what causing high fever whereas all the test were negative.
We went to see child specialist and he suggested few more test in order to find out the possible reasons of fever. The test include Blood test (All possible), Stool test, Chest X-Ray and Blood culture test. Meanwhile he prescribed paracetamol & different antibiotics until we waited for the reports. Unlucky we as after paying huge amount for these test, Doctor still could not find out the possible reasons of fever. All the test were negative.
I noticed that even Doctor was not happy to see negative results even though his commission from the lab was already credited into his account 🙂 He was clueless. I understand as this was a matter of worry now as fever was continuous for two weeks now with no relief and my son got very weak and frustrated. There was no symptom of Kawasaki Disease apart from continuous fever so Doctor did not suspect this disease. Kawasaki disease can be hard to diagnose, because there is not a test for it.
The Doctor admitted him to his hospital to monitor his condition and kept on doing tests for couple of more days with no real finding of the cause and fever still was continuous. After ruling out all these negative test Doctor then started looking at the other part of the body and he suggested Heart Echocardiograph.
Finding of Kawasaki Disease
After looking at 2D echo reports from pediatric cardiologist, the Doctor suspected Kawasaki Disease as there was some problem in coronary arteries and a condition of inflammation in the walls of some blood vessels in the body. This came to us as a huge shock when we heard about life threatening Kawasaki Disease. I am 40 Years old and heard about this disease for the first time in my life.
Doctor now included aspirin in the medicines and suggested us to start IV immunoglobulin injection (IVIG) treatment immediately. The other shock also came in no time when we asked to deposit 2 lac to start this IVIG treatment. Yes, you read it correct 2 lac, IVIG treatment is very costly and I understood the importance of having medical insurance at that moment which I was not having 🙁 I already spent above 50 thousand since last two weeks and my office was also closed as I was looking after my son.
Only fathers can understand my feeling. How does it feel when your 15 years old son is suffering from fever for 3 weeks with no relief and life threatening rare disease is found in the end.
Never lose hope is a wonderful quote and I am learning all these stuff during this difficult phase of my life. I contacted one of my known Doctors and She suggested us to admit my Son in Government hospital as this IVIG treatment is offered for free in Government hospitals. Its never easy to go through the process of Government hospitals and I got tired circling in the hospital and was about to admit myself into the hospital 🙂 You know what I mean.
However, it was all fine at the end and my son is doing well now. He was released from the hospital as there was no fever after having aspirin and IVIG treatment and Hemoglobin was close to 8 at the time of release. Happy Me 🙂
Please email @ [email protected] if you need any information .
Thanks