The current strain of flu that is hitting children hard is causing hallucinations, a Vernon doctor says.
Pediatrician Dr. Kathryn MacKinlay says her own child began hallucinating while battling the influenza bug, and she has seen the same symptoms in other children.
After a feverish night, her young daughter, Marissa, began to hear things, MacKinlay wrote in a post on Interior Health's Facebook page.
“It’s 7 a.m. and, after I spent the night treating her high fevers, Marissa is finally feeling better but is suddenly terrified by what she’s hearing,” MacKinley wrote on Dec. 7.
“Mommy, Mommy, make it stop!”
“Make what stop?”
“It’s loud. They’re yelling!”
“Shhhhh, sweetie, no one is yelling.”
“Stop, stop, aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh,” MacKinley recalled.
“Most parents would be similarly terrified while seeing their child in such distress; flailing, yelling and confused. Not me. As an emergency doctor, I have seen many other kids hallucinating these last few weeks while sick with Influenza A.”
MacKinley says the Vernon Jubilee Hospital emergency department has been visited by children hearing loud sounds, seeing objects as too large or too far away, and feeling scared that someone or something is trying to hurt them.
All of the young patients have been influenza-positive.
MacKinley posted her personal experience because she wanted to warn other parents, but also to provide reassurance that the little one will be OK.
“Thankfully, these episodes of delirium are brief and do not require treatment. As long as Marissa wasn’t confused or scared between these episodes, there was nothing I could do other than offer cuddles,” MacKinley wrote.
She says the best a parent can do during the illness is keep the child well hydrated and provide medications to reduce the fever. Alternating ibuprofen (Advil) and acetaminophen (Tylenol) every three hours works well to bring the fever down.
“I'm glad that I knew enough about this year’s Influenza A delirium to not have to bring Marissa to the emergency department, but I wouldn’t hesitate to bring her in for excellent care if she was exhibiting the symptoms (requiring emergency care),” she said.
Symptoms requiring a trip to the ER include:
- Respiratory distress (working hard to breathe or breathing much faster than normal)
- Unusually pale, whitish or blue lips
- Asthma or wheezing not responding to prescribed medications
- Fever in a child less than three months old
- Fever in a child with immune or complex chronic health problems
- Difficult to wake up
- Fever lasting longer than five days in a child any age
- Fever with a rash that looks like either blisters or bruises that don’t turn white or fade when you push on them
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