Doctor Doctor

I started this post a few months ago and it got saved in my massive Draft pile so I'm finally finishing it!  Let's start by saying how much I hate mosquitos.  HATE THEM.  But, when you grow up in Texas, you are no stranger to mosquitos, especially in the warm weather months (so, basically 8 months of the year at least).  Obviously, like everyone else I do not like getting mosquito bites but I don't think that much of it.  Then Hannah was born....more specifically, Hannah started playing outside.  That child is a mosquito MAGNET!!!  She can be wearing clothes with only her face and hands exposed and I promise you, in the ten minutes she spends outside she will get at least one mosquito bite.  Seriously, it's ridiculous.  Even with bug spray on.  The mosquitos will even find their way UNDER her clothes!  Now, I'll admit, Hannah is on a pretty all natural diet and anything that I can get natural or organic I do.  Austin and I both didn't want her getting sprayed with anything that wasn't deet free.  Well, for our child, that didn't work.  I don't even know how much money I wasted on all natural sprays.  They did absolutely nothing to keep the mosquitos from attacking our poor child so now she's just covered in deet and loving it.  ;)

So, that's the back story, here are the reasons why we spent MANY hours on the internet and at various doctors trying to help our poor baby out.  When Hannah gets a mosquito bite, it doesn't look the same as most of our mosquito bites do.  She has had pretty sensitive skin since she was a baby but it's totally fine as long as we treat her with eczema lotions and sensitive skin bath soaps. 

I have a lot of pictures of this poor girl and her bites.  I may be slow at blogging but one thing I'm never lacking in is information at the dr office.  I never say "I'm not sure" when asked a question.  I have pictures and have written down times and dates of symptoms.  Ha, I'm sure they just looooove me!  Actually, they probably do.  ;)

Hannah was wearing a shirt at school on the playground and got these two bites!  This picture was taken a few hours post bite.  It takes about a month for the bites to fully go away but they leave scars usually.

The next few pictures are of the same bite, just different times.  Notice the large red circle above her eyebrow, this was 3-4 hours post bite.

This was the next morning.

It was completely swollen surrounding the bite.

A few hours later you can see that the swelling has dropped down from the bite and more into her eye.

She took a nap and woke up a few hours later.  I was shocked.

Poor baby could barely open her eye!

The swelling continued to move downward away from the bite but into her eye area.

She may look concerned here but I promise you, she could care less.  She is so tough, she doesn't even itch them!

The next morning she looked like this.  I was so worried that her vision was going to be damaged but her eye ball never looked bothered (this was all over a weekend). 

Now she had more of a black eye look

The swelling was under her eye two days after the bite and the bite looked like it did right after she got it.  So weird.

Then of course a week or two later this happens...  This picture was two hours post bite, her teacher called me and asked me to come see her.  She got the two bites above the same eye as before.  All of these were with bug spray on by the way....

Four hours later she looks like this, the bites were much larger and the swelling had increased.

Much more swelling.  We thought it was bad...

Then when I checked on her two hours later she looked like THIS!  I seriously considered taking her to the ER because I was so worried about the swelling but we figured as long as she had a bump and it wasn't going inward we were ok. 

The swelling had increased (obviously) and was moving into her nose.  That made me nervous because I was afraid it would affect her breathing.  I have no medical experience whats so ever, can you tell??  ;)  But seriously, she had a HUGE goose egg on her forehead after getting two mosquito bites!  That's just crazy. 

The next morning she looked like this.  It was about 18-20 hours post bite.  The swelling was again moving down and you can really see it on the bridge of her nose between her eyes.

Yowza. 

So, I took all of these pictures and timeframe to her pediatrician who said we needed to see an allergist. 

Here she is waiting to get examined.  Poor thing is just COVERED with bites!! 

Look at that swollen little hand!  :(

Bites on the head, hand and legs.

I don't want to wear this paper gown Mommy!

Her ankle was swollen too with a bite one night.

We went to the allergist who ultimately said she's not allergic to mosquitos because her breathing is never impaired after getting bit but she does "have an allergy".  Um...what??  Anyways, she had to go on allergy meds every night for awhile and then any time she gets a bite we have to immediately put Benadryl cream on the bite and then give her Benadryl orally before bedtime to help with the swelling and it does help a lot.  Another factor is that she apparently has chronic hives.  When he told me this I thought that was just a made up name for when you don't know what the problem is but apparently it's real.  Ha.  Here are a few pictures that led him to believe that's an issue with her.

Her little face and body would just break out in these hives all the time! 

It's hard to tell in this picture but there are red dots all over her body.

They'll stay for a few hours and then just go away! 

Big girl hanging out at the allergist office.  She is just amazing.  She has had her blood drawn several times and NEVER cried!  She has been to the doctor MANY times trying to figure out what's going on and she doesn't even act like it bothers her.  She is one tough cookie!

So, long story but that's how the last few months went for Hannah!  Now that we have her taking the allergy medicine and Benadryl once she's bit the bites are much better and she hasn't had hives in a month at least!  We had been using Dreft since she was born for all of her clothes and nothing ever bothered her but now we use a hypo-allergenic sensitive detergent and that seems to help as well.  She's just our little high maintenance and doesn't even know it, go with the flow sweet and tough girl!