Our one year old boy has roseola. He has a flat red rash that covers his neck, half of his arms, back, chest, stomach, diaper area, and partially on his legs. Where did this come from? I’ll go back to last week.

Last week on Monday we took both of our kids to get their flu shots. Later that week on Thursday, Darren has his one year check up with his Doctor. He was supposed to get quite a few shots at this check up but was only able to get one shot and one finger poke because of having the flu shot so recently. We had to schedule the rest of his one year shots for January.

Later that day the whole family went out of town. Dave had a job at the mall in Niles and I spent time with the kids seeing Santa and looking at toys. We got home at about 8pm and Dave said he thought Darren had a fever. I guess he had thought he felt warm a little earlier when he was putting him in the van. He definitely had a fever. It only went as high as 100.5 (under the arm) but he had this fever until Monday. I’m not sure when the fever went away, I just noticed he wasn’t hot anymore. As the days went on with his fever he had a lot of trouble getting sleep, day or night, and got to be extra grumpy. Of course that’s expected when a baby is sick. There were also 2-3 times that he threw up and he wasn’t eating well.

The vaccine he got was the Pnemococcal Conjugate Vaccine. That vaccine is pretty important since it covers meningitis, pneumonia, ear infections, blood infections and more. We read over the paper we got at the Dr.’s office many times throughout the weekend. Fevers were pretty normal, nothing was listed about throwing up. I researched a lot on the internet and the vaccine actually seems to be a pretty simple and safe vaccine overall. That made me very happy since I have heard quite a few stories about kids getting their lives turned upside down from vaccines.

So, back to yesterday, Monday. Sometime in the evening when I was changing his diaper I noticed he had a rash all over his stomach. I got a new diaper on him and called for Dave to come downstairs. I checked Darren’s body and he was covered in this rash. The first thing we thought through was if there was anything new he had eaten or if his clothes could have been washed in the wrong detergent. No, and no. The rash was worse right at the top back of his diaper. For a minute I thought I had somehow wound up putting one of Target’s Up & Up diapers on him and frantically pulled it off him. (He had a terrible break out happen from their diapers recently.)

The rash was red and flat. I thought it was strange that it wasn’t all bumpy like rashes he’d had before. I searched and searched online trying to find out what the rash could be, if it was related to the vaccine, just anything at all to help my nerves at all. I couldn’t find much at all. Mild rashes were listed as a minor reaction to the vaccine on one website, hives listed as major reaction that required attention right away. Pictures of rashes didn’t come close to what he had.

We decided to wait it out a bit. By mid afternoon today, Tuesday, he was worse. The color had faded but he had a lot more spots on him. I called and talked to a nurse and after everything I told them – rash with no explanation, extra cranky, recent fever – they said he needed to be seen. We either had to wait another day to see his doctor or take him to an urgent care.

Luckily Akron Children’s Hospital has a smaller Emergency Department in Fairlawn, Ohio. We took him there and we were in and out in about 15-20 minutes. We were signed in and he was checked on immediately. Thankfully, the ER doctor said he has Roseola. If it bothers him he can have a small amount of Benadryl. There is nothing else we can do to help it go away any faster. It’s just part of a virus that affects children 6 months through about 3 years of age. It begins with a fever and once that goes away, the rash appears. We were told it could last a couple of days or up to a week.

I’m so thankful that there was nothing serious wrong and it’s just a thing that has to clear up on it’s own. I sure hope he gets back to sleeping good again but at least I know he’s fine and the rash, that’s not even bothering him, will go away soon enough. I still don’t know what caused him to get this – if it’s something he picked up at the doctor’s office last week or if it could be related to the vaccine. I still have more questions to ask and more internet research to figure out more about all of this.