Posted on 08/07/2009 12:02:45 AM PDT by dannyboy72a
MY 7 yr old, autistic son, Matthew came home from his mother's house today with blisters on his arm and leg. I have tried to call her repeatedly to find out the source of the blisters, but no return call. So, I'm hoping some of the parents here will have seen something similar and can tell me whether it's something i need to be concerned about.
There are four burns on him. Two on his inner forearm, a large grouping of blisters on his inner calf, and a small one just above the large one on the leg. I don't know if these are fire burns, chemical burns or burns at all.
With Matthew being autistic, he is unable to tell me how he got them and his mother either is not aware of them (which is not impossible as she tends to pawn the kids off on grandma or others the limited time she has them) or is aware of what happened and does not want to admit to whatever it is. Either way, the sores cannot be more than three days old as she picked them up Monday morning and dropped them off Thursday afternoon.
If anyone can tell me whether this is something to be concerned about, whether it merits a doctor's visit.
At the time, my doctor had said that there is a common misperception that poison ivy only shows up where the plant actually touches the skin.
Simple test.....if it itches, it's poison ivy, if he doesn't touch it and acts painful when touched, it's a burn. My bet is he constantly scratches and spreads the agent.
Look at the pics and they show a large blister in the middle with smaller ones on the fringes. That looks EXACTLY like poison ivy.
If he doesn't respond to verbal comands, it will be almost imposible to stop him from touching them and spreading the agent, even to his eyes( and scrotum). Then you really have a mess.
If it's a burn, well, keep them covered and try not to bust the blisters for as long as posible. Then apply antibiotic cream.
I have had poison ivy and poison oak many time. They often do not appear with the same type of rash depending on where the rash is, how much contact there was and other factors. I also am concerned about the small round areas. They look very much like a classic staph (I just had a case last year after a hospital visit). It could in fact be MRSA and there is no knowing without a culture. If it is ANY kind of staph then jump on it right away. Treatment with an over the counter staph killer that has Tea Tree Oil would be a good start until you can get the youngster to the MD.
Consider that this may be two things not one.
It is poison ivy and it looks like he is already scratching and spreading it. Get a poison ivy scrub to get rid of the irritant and then get a calamine mix that has a topical anesthetic in it to relieve the itching so it can heal.
I understand your suspicions of your ex, the difficulty with a child who cannot express himself but common sense dictates that a very unusual (if you aren’t familiar with poison ivy) thing like these blistered spots you reserve judgment and take the child to a doctor even if it’s expensive and also perhaps heed the remarks of several people on this thread who said poison ivy rather than dismissing them out of hand. You really did make yourself look foolish by jumping to rather drastic assumptions about your ex. Accusations like that are very damaging and should be made not first, but last after other explanations have been exhausted.
There is an absence of reddening (usually a thermal burn will have a corona of less severe burn) which seems to indicate it was not a heat-induced blister. The absence of more sidespread reddening also indicates that it is not likely to be a chemical toxin either, as that, too, has a corona of less affected tissue where the toxin is diluted in the tissue.
As for the sores, do the blisters itch? Is he scratching them? That could account for the scabs. If so, poison ivy seems likely.
If it is poison ivy, and the blisters burst, make sure the area is promptly washed in soap and water or the blisters will likely spread to wherever the juice from inside the blisters made skin contact (just a guess that he is sensitive, from the apparent size of the blisters).
I have had severe poison ivy--and been able to peel sheets of skin from knee to instep from the continuous blister clusters. Thankfully, I seem to have outgrown the sensitivity.
While the blisters look painful, they are not so much painful as aggravating from the persistent and often intense itching. Scratching the blisters and touching another area will spread the problem.
Some precautions for the future, if this is indeed poison ivy as I suspect: have him completely avoid the leaves, sap, roots, and especially smoke from burning leaves, etc. which may contain the oils from the plant. (Learn to spot the plant and teach him to.) I have known kids in my youth who walked through the downwind smoke from burning leaves who came down with incredibly extensive (and on one occasion life-threatening) blistering from poison ivy in the burn pile.
Pets can carry the oils from the plant and transfer them to children who are sensitive as well, giving the kid a nasty case of poison ivy, even though they did not come into direct contact with the plants.
As an adult, I would put the blisters (usually on my hands) under hot water--as hot as I could stand, to get the blisters to open up (which actually felt good--same sensation as scratching/rubbing, without the direct skin damage), then coat them liberally with rubbing alcohol (which hurt like Hell--not for a little boy, and also a fire hazard), but the blisters usually dried up after a couple of treatments.
Some people respond to using calamine lotion, but it never did much for me.
Coating the skin in the immediate vicinity of the blisters with soft soap helped keep the blisters from spreading when they weeped or popped, and a 4X4 or 2X2 gauze pad, taped lightly over the area (or a gauze wrap around an affected limb) absorbed the juice from the blisters, made it difficult to scratch, and helped cut down on the spread.
If you are sensitive, wear vinyl or latex gloves to treat it, and throw them away every time and wash up with soap and water thoroughly.
Ordinary laundering will take care of clothing, bedding, etc, but if you are sensitive to poison ivy, wear gloves when handling soiled clothing, etc. which may have come into contact with the plants or blisters on someone affected by them, or you might catch it from that.
No speculation here, as far as that goes, my mother was very sensitive to poison ivy as well.
I hope this helps, and pray the young man is better soon.
Scratch the blisters on his leg (resulting in scabs) and touch his forearm with the oils from the blisters still fresh on his hands. It worked for me as a kid!
The plants I came into contact with in my youth must have been greasy with it. My mother could get it from coming into contact with the 'juice' from a broken blister--in the laundry.
Some people just get a rash, but large blisters were common with me. I recall trying to type up a petrology paper in college and not being able to bring my fingers together because of the blisters between them, picked up on a paleontology field trip the weekend before, from the roots of the plant.
First, take him to the doctor.
Second, let the doctor determine what they are.
Third, you probably will need intervention.
Those burns need to be documented and it is important that it’s noted they came from his stay with his mother.
Do it as soon as you can, now would be good.
ping
“This person asks sincerely for help and half the thread is a big Conservaturd in the punch bowl.”
Sorry to rain on your parade, but you have taken a jump off a cliff advising all sorts of reporting of child abuse.
It's poison ivy.
Before you start filing police reports, why not take the rational step and consult a doctor? People that jump on and say “I've had it, and that's not it”, well, the severity of the reaction is proportional to the amount of urushiol the skin is exposed to, the length of exposure, and the degree of sensitivity of the individual to the toxin.
The rash does not spread by exposure from the blisters or from the fluid in the blisters. Common myth. It sometimes appears that way because different areas of the skin react slower than others. Another myth is that you become less sensitive with subsequent exposure, the opposite is true. Many do not react with the first exposure, or react mildly. I've had it severely enough to require steroid injections and now I'm hypersensitive to exposure.
There is a wonderful product “Zanfel” that is a soapy substance that removes the oil from the skin and absolutely stops the itching. It's expensive, but a little goes a long way.
The danger of staph or other skin infections being introduced by scratching is a possibility, so a doctor visit would be wise.
My hubby is extremely allergic to poison ivy. It will blister on his skin.
This is not poison ivy, but the two on the arm do look like bug bites.
I have. It depends on the body's reaction.
You are an ass. People are trying to help you and you are snotty to them. I have had blisters from poison Ivy. And, it doesn't spread until it gets in your bloodstream. It all depends on where the Urushiol oil came in contact with his skin.
Thanks. I guess everyone does have a different reaction. I do alot of bank fishing at night, and have come down with some awful poison ivy, but never had it blister.
I appreciate your input. Respectfully, I’d like you to reread what I wrote. I never said she did something nefarious or even implied it. If anything, I implied a lack of responsibility. My entire post, at 2am, was not to bash her, but to get some opinions in the absence of an explanation from here. Poison Ivy wasn’t dismissed out of hand, but the opinions of Born to Conseve was because he came into this thread - which was simply me asking for opinions on something - and decided to make it a personal attack against me. For no reason. I don’t know if he was in a sour mood given the news he’s read or what, but he pushed my button (which may have been his fun for the evening, I don’t know) and I pushed back.
I appreciate everyone’s sage advice. In the absence of her intentionally allowing my son to be harmed, I would never take a mother away from a son. I have a decent relationship with my ex, with the exception of her putting herself before the kids at various times over the last couple of years. For me, my kids come first - and that means their safety and their need to kick the tires, so to speak, and get into a little trouble. But like many of you have stated, when you have a child that cannot communicate their feelings or simply “have you been scratching?”, then you have to investigate everything and you have to KNOW the cause or you wonder if it was something you did or could do again to him.
Since I am not a doctor and since it was late evening when I noticed it, i went through WebMD and google images, didn’t see a match, so I posted here hoping for some info. I’ve had poison ivy and it’s never looked like that. We’re taking him in this afternoon to be sure. I will let everyone know what they diagnose. Thanks for all the well wishes. Off to work I go. Thanks again.
We haven’t seen him scratch at all. Which is one of the chief reasons why I don’t think it’s poison ivy. However, Matty doesn’t react the same to certain things. His brain may be feeling the itchiness, but not telling him to scratch. In cases where he doesn’t know what it is, he will simply ask for a “sticker” which is a band-aid and leave it along until bath time.
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