rheumatic fever

Posted By myers-cruz on March 16, 1999 at 14:32:17:







My daughter who is a competitive gymnast was diagnosed with "reactive arthritis due to
a strep infection."  Prior to this she had a dog bite and had been on antibiotics
amoxycillin and was near end of that treatment when she apparently contracted a strep
infection at school. The residual antibiotic apparently masked all the tests they gave
my daughter while in the hospital: a whole body nuclear scan, throat culture, etc so they
did not give her any antibiotics/tylenol despite her fever. Once the fever became low grade for
approximately half a day they released her. She had a relapse and what started as just
pain in the hips, now involved her lower back, right wrist, knees, etc. Before we could
get the appointment to the specialist her hands peeled (sloughed off). The specialist gave
tolectin and overnight her pain was gone and she was fine.  The doctor mentioned how the
peeling hands were reminiscent of rheumatic & scarlet fever but stopped shy of actually
stating she had rheumatic fever.  She did followup care for 6 months but being a gymnast
they felt she was "so flexible" but in actuality she did lose some rotation in her hips.
This occurred almost 3yrs ago and recently I learned more about rheumatic fever. The specialist
said if the joint pain ever returned to immediately go to them and not go through our HMO
process. Did my daughter have "rheumatic fever"?  Should I routinely have my daughter's
heart checked out?  She is now 14 (almost 15) yrs old and still a competitive junior
olympic gymnast. My concern is she may collapse suddenly like that ice skater a few yrs ago.