Starting on Saturday my son woke up early in the morning screaming and crying. Complaining that his right knee hurt and that he couldn't move it. Since then at some points he can stand on it but its always with a limp and other times with INactivity it would get to where he couldn't walk again. On day two a rash started that covered most of his body. It is now almost gone after being treated with benadryl and hydrocortisone cream. He has a constant low grade fever and very swollen lymphnodes in his neck and under his arms, worse on the right side. Although with plenty of rest his knee seems to slowly be getting better he still has swollen lymphnodes and a fever that won't go away. If it helps any he was sick about a week and a half before with a stomach bug/sore throat, and even though that is all gone he got sick a few days ago but just the once. Does anyone have any clue as to what may be going on with my son?

sometimes viral illnesses can spread to the joints. i forget what it is called. i would call his pedi doc just to be on the safe side. good luck.

I hope by now you have taken him to the doctor.

Wow, yeah, I do, too.

Has he had a tick bite recently? It's probably just one of those summer things, but ruling out Lyme disease couldn't hurt.

there is a condition called parthais (sp?) disease, it shows up more in boys, and its to do with the hip joints but the child normally complains of knee pain and limp etc. My husband suffered from this when he was a small boy and had it pretty bad where both his legs were in plaster for a while. he's now 27 and due to the disease he had when he was small it has badly affected his hip joint and now needs a hip replacement.
if he still complains of knee pain i would get this checked out asap, and ensure that your dr's check your little mans hips. hopefully its nothing but this disease can be nasty if not caught and treated early.

My son suffers from Pethes Disease. He started with complaining about his knee hurting and started limping around. He told my husband & I that he was swinging on the swings at school and jumped off. We took him to the Dr. and they did x-rays of both his knee and his hip. The knee was normal but the hip looked funny. So they referred him to an Orthopedic Surgeon. He took one look at the x-rays and said, "Oh yeah this is a classic case of Pethes Disease. As the other person said it happens to mainly boys between the age of 3 and 10 who are very active. At first he said it would resolve itself in about 2 years. Well our sons condition worsened in about 2 months, to the point he could barely walk some days and was in constent pain. The Ortho doc took another x-ray and said it was a much worse case than most kids get, so recommended petrie casting & plating surgery of the hip joint. Our son was in casts (A Frame with a bar at his ankles) on both legs for 5 weeks last summer, he spent those 5 weeks in a wheel chair, or on the couch. Then 3 weeks later the Dr. cut part of his growth plate in his thigh and plated the hip joint. He had the plate in place for 7 months than the Dr. removed it. He said our son had one of the worst cases of the Disease he has seen in a long time. His hip still pops in and out of the socket and still causes him pain. He still walks with a very pronounced limp due to the shortness of his one leg. Dr. said that if the leg does not catch up to the other leg by the time he is 12 he may have to go back in to lengthen the leg back up. I was and still am amazed that there is such a disease as Perthes. It is more common than you'd think, as we have seen several boys, one who even goes to the same school as my son with those bothersome casts on both their legs. My son always feels very sorry for them as he knows what they are going through. He never had a rash or fever so I don't think the child in the first story has Perthes Disease. Hope mom found out what was wrong and they were able to get the child better. Thanks for listening to my story.:) :)