HSP:Henoch-Schönlein purpura

snuggles09

My daughter was hospitalised with this last week and is only just home..her symptoms were joint pain, a rash and bad bruising all over her lower extremities..the doctors inititial reaction was that it was leukemia, the only difference being she had no fluctuating temperature or acute abdominal pain

thankfully her white blood cell count came back clear which led to this diagnosis

at present we are monitoring her kidneys daily as she picked up a kidney infection and kidney problems are associated with this disease

until last Friday i had never heard of this condition. Has anyone any experience of it?

Breezer

It's fairly common in children, moreso in boys but I've seen girls get it too. It's not a cancer and has nothing to do with leukaemia. Best thing to do is to discuss it with the doctors looking after her, they'll be able to answer your questions better than people on the internet who haven't met your daughter. Hope she gets well soon

snuggles09

Thanks Breezer. We have a follow up in a few weeks so hoping to get more answers then. Just looking for a sounding board i suppose or someone else who has a child with the condition as it's pretty vague as to what lies ahead and each case is different. Thanks for replying:)

sam34

i'll move this to LTI, more suited there

Breezer

snuggles09 wrote: »

Thanks Breezer. We have a follow up in a few weeks so hoping to get more answers then. Just looking for a sounding board i suppose or someone else who has a child with the condition as it's pretty vague as to what lies ahead and each case is different. Thanks for replying:)

I get where you're coming from, it's only natural for a parent to want to know as much as they can so they can start helping their child. But you've hit the nail on the head: each case is different. Online, you'll get every extreme and everything in between, and none of it will be directly applicable to you and your daughter. Better to talk to those involved in her care. I know that's probably not what you want to hear but you'll be saving yourself a lot of unnecessary heartache and worry.

If you want to inform yourself a bit in the meantime, this article seems fairly accurate (despite the awful website), and is written in simple language. This one is written for doctors, so it's a bit wordier, but it's good too. I just want to stress that the long term kidney problems it talks about are very much the exception, not the rule. Don't use articles as a substitute for your doctor's advice though. Hope it helps a bit

Svalbard

How old is your daughter?

In children HSP is usually a benign, self-limiting illness. Some paediatricians feel they do not necessarily need to see children with HSP unless there are complications (though nearly all are followed up in paediatric clinic anyway).

The main complications are Kidney problems and Abdominal problems.

Some abnormal urine tests are common, as is abdominal pain. Usually these do not develop into any thing.
A few children with abnormal urine tests may develop problems with their kidney function, but of these only a very few have long term problems (HSP does not cause kidney infections, btw, but can cause abnormal urine tests).

Tummy pain is common with HSP too, but normally is not anything serious. A few children may have problems with bleeding from the gut or a twisted gut - again, this is not very common.

So HSP usually causes no long term problems in most children, though they may be off-form/have tummy and joint pain for about a month and often longer.
The natural history of HSP is fairly well understood by doctors and monitoring for complications can be done using fairly simple tests (in the main)

Note to moderator: HSP is not usually a Long Term Illness!!!