Kawasaki Disease

**Tasha405** · 08-13-2002, 12:40 PM

Does anyone here have or know someone who has this? My son was diagnosed with this when he was 6 months old and he is now 10 (will be 11 next month). I was just wondering if after the first outbreak of it did they have any more trouble? What were they told caused it? Was you limited to the things you could do? Did you have to have any special meds? In general I am just being nosy, its just that it is rare and I only know 1 other person that had a baby that was diagosed with it.

Here is some onfo on it:

What is Kawasaki disease?
Kawasaki (KAH'wah-SAH'ke) disease is a children's illness. It's also known as Kawasaki syndrome or mucocutaneous (mu"ko-ku-TA'ne-us) lymph node syndrome. It and acute rheumatic (roo-MAT'ik) fever are the two leading causes of acquired heart disease in children in the United States.

Who gets Kawasaki disease?
About 80 percent of the people with Kawasaki disease are under age five. Children over age eight are rarely affected. The disease occurs more often among boys (about 1.5 times as often as in girls) and among those of Asian ancestry. But it can occur in every racial and ethnic group. More than 1,800 cases of Kawasaki disease are being diagnosed annually in the United States. Less than 1 percent die.

What happens to those with Kawasaki disease?
The symptoms of Kawasaki disease include...

fever
rash
swollen hands and feet
irritation and redness of the whites of the eyes
swollen lymph glands in the neck
irritation and inflammation of the mouth, lips and throat
Doctors don't know what causes Kawasaki disease, but it doesn't appear to be hereditary or contagious. Scientists who've studied the disease think the evidence strongly suggests it's caused by an infectious agent such as a virus. It's very rare for more than one child in a family to develop Kawasaki disease. Less than 2 percent of children have another attack of Kawasaki disease.

In as many as 20 percent of the children with Kawasaki disease, the heart is affected. The coronary arteries or the heart muscle itself can be damaged.

How does Kawasaki disease affect the heart?
The coronary arteries are most often affected. Part of a coronary wall can be weakened and balloon (bulge out) in an aneurysm (AN'u-rizm). A blood clot can form in this weakened area and block the artery, sometimes leading to a heart attack. The aneurysm can also burst, but this rarely happens.

Other changes include inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) (mi"o-kar-DI'tis) or the sac surrounding the heart (pericarditis) (pair"e-kar-DI'tis). Arrhythmias (ah-RITH'me-ahz) (abnormal heart rhythms) or abnormal functioning of some heart valves also can occur.

Usually all the heart problems go away in five or six weeks, and there's no lasting damage. Sometimes coronary artery damage persists, however.

An arrhythmia or damaged heart muscle can be detected using an electrocardiogram (e-lek"tro-KAR'de-o-gram) (EKG). An echocardiogram (ek"o-KAR'de-o-gram) (or "echo") is used to look for possible damage to the heart or coronary arteries.

How is Kawasaki disease treated?
Even though the cause of Kawasaki disease is unknown, certain medicines are known to help. Aspirin is often used to reduce fever, rash, joint inflammation and pain, and to help prevent blood clots from forming. Another medicine, intravenous gamma globulin (in"tra-VE'nus GAM'ah GLOB'u-lin), can decrease the risk of developing coronary artery abnormalities when given early in the illness.

For information about parent support groups for Kawasaki disease, contact the Kawasaki Disease Foundation.

My son was 1st diagnosed with a yeast infection in the blood.

He was discharged from the hospital and was sent to a dermatologist to see if this was going to scar his skin. When we arrived there they sent us straight to a Womens & Childrens hospital. They knew exactly what it was when we walked in the door. They had just started studying it a month or so before then. So they took tons of pics of him to use for more studies on it. But so far he has had no more trouble with it, he was on asprin for a few years and has now quit taking those. All of his heart tests have came back good too.

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**trufflez** · 08-13-2002, 01:07 PM

I know little about it, but when my daughter was very young around 2 she developed a horrible bullseye rash. She was covered with them, high fever 104. She was swollen and we couldn't touch her without her being in horrible pain. At first they mentioned allergic reaction to either pennicilln or baby aspirin. Then they wanted to know if we had recently cleaned our carpet, which we had. They felt it was Kawasaki Syndrome, but never gave us a definite diagnosis. She was in intensive care until the fever went down and she was able to eat by mouth. She had bullseyes there also. She is 21 now and after that it was never mentioned again. Whether that was what it was, we will never know.

**Jaidness** · 08-13-2002, 01:16 PM

Then they wanted to know if we had recently cleaned our carpet, which we had

yep thats what the doctor said when they were considering the diagnosis of Kawasaki syndrome for my nephew...mold from carpets that got cleaned but not all the moisture sucked back up...we never got a straight confirmation on what it was either because so little is known about it, and this was back in the early 90's.And it went away on its own, I don't remember the symptoms exactly but it looked like a flu or a viral something.

**Tasha405** · 08-13-2002, 01:21 PM

I know they kept asking me if we had cleaned our carpets, but we hadn't, we had just got new ones put in that month. So they thought maybe it was from the new carpet. Its from the mites or whatever that get in the carpet. I know after that if we had to clean the carpets I would go stay with my mom until I knew they were dried.

Thanks for the replies.

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