Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

My baby is 8 weeks old and weighs 12 1/2 lb. She started showing a
fever 2 nights ago - 99 to 100 degrees in the ear. It hangs around for
a few hours and is gone by morning. I took her to the dr for a reg.
checkup yesterday morning and they tested her for RSV. She was
negative, so they gave her vaccine shots. That was awful. The fever
came back last night.

What can cause this?

TIA,
Misti

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

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wrote:

My baby is 8 weeks old and weighs 12 1/2 lb. She started showing a
fever 2 nights ago - 99 to 100 degrees in the ear. It hangs around for
a few hours and is gone by morning. I took her to the dr for a reg.
checkup yesterday morning and they tested her for RSV. She was
negative, so they gave her vaccine shots. That was awful. The fever
came back last night.

What can cause this?

TIA,
Misti


Why are you taking her temperature?

I mean, how do you know she has a fever BEFORE you take her temp -- what
other symptoms exist?

If there are no other symptoms, this may just be a normal variation for
her. I have one whose temp is routinely in the 99 range, without her
being ill in any way. And the home thermometers are not necessarily
that accurate, nor is the "ear" method.

If she has no other symptoms, I wouldn't worry about it.

--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

I took her temp because she was more irritable than normal and because
she was angrily swatting at her ear. Her tympanic temp has been 98.4
pretty consistently (and I've never heard the tympanic not being
accurate - we compared it to an axillary temp and it was relatively the
same). She seemed hot to me, so I took her temp. The dr didn't see an
infection in her ear, so the ear was probably not the problem.

It shot up again in the late hours of the night/morning. It doesn't go
above 100.5, but then is the 98.4 again mid-morning. I don't know if
the irritability last night had to do with the temp or the vaccination.
Good grief, she screamed like a banchee when her leg was moved. She's
better now, but she was pretty distressed after the vac's.

I just wondered if seasoned parents had any comments. This is my first
experience with an infant fever.

Thanks,
Misti

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

Pulling on the ear, being irritable, and having a slight fever are
always signs that my son is teething.

Jess T

Alan Joseph 11/27/03

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

I wondered about that, Jess. She is also drooling a lot. She's only 8
weeks!! :( I hope teething is not the case, but would be relieved to
know the cause. When your son is teething, does the slight fever come
and go?

Thank you!
Misti

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

It's normal for anyone to have a slightly higher fever in the evening
than in the morning. It might be a minor viral infection with a fever
so mild that it really only shows up at night. In your case, it is
complicated by the fact that she just got vaccinated, which can also
cause a fever, so her current fever may be from the vaccines and not
from whatever was causing the first fever. If it were my baby, I'd
give infant tylenol if she seems uncomfortable with the fever, and call
back the doctor if the fever lasts longer than 5 days or if other
symptoms develop.

Good luck. I hope she feels better soon!

Robyn

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

A rectal temp. norm is 99.6, axillary is 97.6, oral and tympanic 98.6.


Perhaps I am over anxious about this. My armchair doctor book tells me
to be concerned by a temp over 99.2 (for infants under 2 months). That
is why I was concerned, though.

Thanks for the suggestions! I will watch the swaddling to see if that
could be the culprit.

:)

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

Yes, it seems to come and go. I think that all fevers do that anyway -
they tend to go up at night and come down in the daytime. That has
been my experience with my own body as well as my son's. As mentioned
in another post, I give my son some infant tylenol when he's going
through this.

Jess T.

Fever comes and goes - dr little help
 

Hi Misti,

I trust the baby is doing better now. Did you ever discover a "cause"
for the fever, or did it disappear just as mysteriously as it appeared?
(The latter is quite common in young kids!)

Take care,
--Robyn