Hi All,

This is my first post in this forum.

My 6-yr old daughter had just been diagnosed having angioedema.

It all started since about 3 months ago when she had a slight fever and my wife gave her paracetamol to lower her fever. After about an hour, her eyes started swelling. We didn't know then that she had an allergy reaction to paracetamol. I just gave her some anti-histamines and after a day or two the swelling subsided.

However, just the other day she had another fever and we gave her paracetamol again. Her eyes started swelling again and we have to bring her to a clinic because she had some difficulty breathing. It was there that she was diagnosed as having angiodema. The doctor prescribed advil to lower her fever but said only to administer it if her fever really goes up.

Just today her fever went up and we gave her advil and after an hour she developed some sort of mosquito-bite swellings all over her body.

I did some research on the internet and I learned that there is no known cure for angioedema yet except by preventing its re-occurrence.

Now my question is, if everytime my daughter gets sick and she is allergic to paracetamol and ibrufen, is there an alternative medicine that she could take to lower her fever that won't trigger her allergy?

I have asked her doctor and he seems evasive except by saying that there is no cure to angioedema and that we just gave her the anti-histamine he prescribed. He seems not able to give us any alternative medicine to lower the fever of my child.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Best regards,
Jess

If your child cannot tolerate either paracetamol or ibuprofen, then your choice is either to use aspirin (which can trigger Reyes' syndrome in childred, and is therefore not advised by physicians) or to lower her fever using a tepid bath. My son had a very high fever and could not take anything, so my pediatrician advised the tepid bath approach. This brought his fever down very nicely. Another thing you can do is to give your daughter plenty to drink. When a child has a high fever they can become dehydrated, so offering a nice glass of cool beverage can not only cool them down inside, but also helps to prevent dehydration. Of course the beverage might not stay down - but it doesn't hurt to try.