allergy

Monday morning the first words I heard were "Houston we have a problem" as my husband handed me my daughter who was covered in a red itchy bumpy rash. My initial hunch was an allergy to the sunscreen we had slathered on her the evening before since the rash was concentrated on the areas where her swimming suit was not. I dug out our antihistamine and called the medical clinic at the embassy to check what dosage they'd recommend I give Addie. She was kind of warm too so I thought I'd give her some infant Tylenol. The ever-indecisive clinic staff actually advised us to head to the emergency room since the rash was all over and she had a slight fever. (the emergency room is used like a urgent care center here for expats. It's cheap so the clinic just directs us there instead of try to solve the problem...rather irritating). Long story short we were seen at the E.R. and they diagnosed Addie with an undetermined viral rash and prescribed us a fever reducer and antihistamine! Hmmm, oddly the same thing I was going to give her hours earlier. Anyhow, by the afternoon she was rash free and no fever. Ok, maybe it was a virus?

So yesterday, I get Addie dressed and ready to go to the park. It's sunny and hot here again so I put some sunscreen on her before she heads to the playground with Cora. By 4 PM she has the rash again where I had put the sunscreen. You can actually see the rash stops where her shirt and pant sleeves were. The worst is on her face because I of course focused the sunscreen on her sensitive little cheeks. After another dosage of antihistamine (no fever this time) and a good night sleep she's fine and I lathered her with an organic Zinc based sunblock for today's outings. The strange thing is that we used the Coppertone Water babies since we arrived in the Philippines, stopped during the holidays when the sun wasn't out as much and then just started it again on Sunday. Very strange that she's developed an allergy just now.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that Mother knows best. I should have thrown out the sunscreen right away and just given her the antihistamine and Tylenol and called it a day.