My son Ryan is prone to heat rashes. Has been all of his life. So when he complained of a rash across his midsection, we assumed that once again, he had overheated and broken out in the familiar galaxy of red bumps.
A few days later, he complained of more itching and more bumps. We took a look at the expanding spread of dots and using our parental diagnostic skills (combined with my ten years of hospice social work during which I learned just enough medical information to misdiagnose most common illnesses), we determined that this was not a typical heat rash. So we took him to the pediatrician.
By the way, my son wanted to know how long he has to go to the “kid doctor” since he is now 13 and in his mind, he’s nearly an adult and ready to draw social security. I assured him that we would let him know when it’s time to move up to a doctor who doesn’t use a teddy bear stethoscope.
We got lucky on this particular visit and drew a cool doctor. She whipped Ryan’s shirt up and rubbed her fingers all over his rash (no gloves either). She looked at his arms and legs and touched just about every blemish on him. I was amazed. I remember when my grad school roommate who was in medical school said the proper procedure for a rash was as follows:
1. If you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.
2. If you know what it is, there’s no need to touch it.
I was quite impressed by this doctor who had no problem touching a rash.
She diagnosed him with poison ivy on his arms and a systemic reaction to the poison ivy on his abdomen. I told her I had experienced a bad case of poison ivy when I was a child. She laughed and then told us about her husband who had always confidently claimed that he “never gets” poison ivy. Until one day when he fell off his bike into a whole “mess of it.” A week later, covered in calamine lotion, he confessed that perhaps he does get poison ivy.
Later, after the doctor had prescriped a steroid treatment, I asked her about possible side effects that I should be aware of. She said they were minimal but that she did remember on kid who hallucinated and saw animals on his bedroom wall but thought that was rare.
My son’s eyes got big. I laughed. I thought it was really funny that she told us about the possibility of hallucinating.
We left the doctor’s office that day feeling good that we now knew what the rash was and that the doctor had made the visit a bit more fun. All in all, I think my son will choose to go back to this kid doctor no matter how old he is.
Ron