Gingivostomatitis

What's that you ask? Also known as oral herpes, gingivostomatitis is basically the long name for a condition that results in a very sore mouth. And yup, you've guessed it...Lydia has that too. Trung and I started noticing little canker sores in her mouth over the weekend, one just behind her lower lip and two sores on her tongue. Since I used to get sores a lot when I was younger, we didn't think too much about it. Well, last night, what I thought were her new teeth coming in were actually a bunch of little white sores. After taking another good look, we noticed her entire mouth was filled with these little sores.

My nephew had similar symptoms last month when he got the hand, food, and mouth disease, so that's what we initially thought she had. After yet another doctor's visit (twice in a week! argh!), we were told that she had oral herpes and since it is a viral infection, there was really nothing we could do except give Lydia soft foods, especially yogurt, and continue with her antibiotics from the eye infection and add Motrin. Great. :( Well, that explains why she's been so whiney lately, poor kid's got a mouth full of sores!

So, yeah, Lydia has had a tough week, but she seems to be doing okay. She doesn't eat as much, but she's still drinking plenty of liquids and is still relatively happy. The nurse says that these kinds of things come in waves, so let's hope Lydia's wave subsides. She's a tough cookie though, so hopefully she's be 100% by the time we go on vacation. BTW, we think she got the infection from sharing drinks and food with me since I probably have the virus strand, which people carry all their lives; so the outcome was pretty much inevitable. Now I understand why when growing up, parents were so paranoid about their kids sharing drinks with other kids.

Lydia's eye has gotten much better, and oh, the fact that she was taking her antibiotics might have prevented secondary infection from the herpes. Whew! Her bruise on her forehead cleared up pretty much immediately, though she got another one today when she tripped again. There seems to be a corrolation between doctor's visits and tripping since she was wearing her usual shoes. *sigh* Pobrecita!