Amommy2

Hi. I'm not sure if this is the right board to be posting on, but hopefully someone will have some insight to share with me.

Over the past several months my 5 year old son has been getting sick with fevers. He was diagnosed with Pneumonia and an ear infection the week after Christmas, but we went for the follow up visit and everything cleared up fine. We have since been in and out of the ER due to recurring high fevers, some times lasting a week, usually told that since they can't pinpoint the exact cause of the fever it is probably some sort of virus or the flu. It seems like every two weeks he comes down with a fever again. Last week after his annual check up he had a high fever and threw up. I was told by a nurse that he probably caught a germ in the docs office. This was Thursday night. by Monday his fever appeared to be only around 99 during the day, but was still going strong in the evening so I called the nurse line once again. While on the phone with the nurse, I noticed the my son's knees looked very swollen. When I asked him if it hurt he said yes and said he also had pain in his hips. We both though it was a good idea that I bring him in right away.

After almost 5 hours, and lots of tests the results were that his SED rate and CRP were mid range abnormal (50 and 6 respectively). Results were faxed to our pediatrician who reviewed and called me at work the next day asking that my son come into see him that afternoon. When we went in, he looked at him and said he looked fine but did notice that he was burning up and his temp had to be at least 103. They again, ran more tests including rerunning the tests done at the ER. He was negative for flu, strep and any viral infection. They next day another pediatrician called me back regarding SED rate and CRP again... now 53 and 55 respectively (although his ANA was normal). They decided to call the pediatric rheumatologist. The rheum consulted with the doc and had him issue a Rx for Naxoprin with instructions that we come in to see her within 7 days.

After several days of fighting with the scheduler (who assured me there were no openings until the end of April) and our pediatrician's office calling, we now have an appointment early next week.

At this point they are pretty certain that it is a Rheumatological problem, although that still doesn't narrow it down too much. I do have a cousin w/ JRA and we have relatives on both sides with RA, so I'm thinking that this may be it, but everything I look at seems to fit his symptoms. Has anyone gone through something similar, have any ideas on what it could possibly be, or any suggestions on what questions I should be asking the specialist?

Thank you!