Strange illness??

[Chelsey2]

Ok, I am trying to figure out what is wrong with my thirteen year old sister.  She has no history of any medical problems.  She began feeling sick December 26th with severe chills and a fluctuating fever.  Throughout the next few days, she would feel okay during the daytime, but get very cold and sick again at night.  Now, her eyelids are very swollen all the time and she has no appetite and no energy at all.  She has a minor cough, dizziness, and a stuffy nose but she keeps saying that nothing really hurts.  We went to the doctor and they did several tests, including strep throat, mononucleosis, bladder infection, flu, and pnuemonia, but they were all negative.  The only thing they found was that her white blood cell count was very low.  So they sent us home and said they think it is some kind of virus and to see how it does the next few days.  Well, she is not getting any better--she just continues to lay down all day and not be able to function.  Does anyone have any ideas what this could be??  My mom wants to take her to the hospital.

[Sazza1979]

A very low WBC could be cause by infection as margypops says, because the illnesses "uses up" the white blood cells, but often the immune system makes MORE white cells to fight infection, so low white cells can also mean that the immune system is not functioning properly. I think your mum's instinct is right, to get her checked out, and get a second opinion. It's not just a sniffle, your poor sister's really not feeling well, and if there's any way to make her feel better, than it's more important to get that help than not to offend the doctors.

[margypops]

when an infection is presant it would account for the low WBC... Did they do EBV test on her , it could be it will disappear as quiclkly, I do think that if it continues another trip to get her checked out again wont hurt and set your mins at rest .I had an infection recently also with w WBC low  and it took 3 weeks to clear , Good luck let us know how she is doing ..check out the EBV forum for the symptoms