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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP)

What I learned this week is a weekly meme where we share what we learned and is hosted by Musings Of A Housewife.
Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP)


Recently my nephew woke up and had lil purple bruises all over him. Being a boy everyone just thought that he had played a bit hard. It was not until these purple (bruise like) spots started to multiply and the school nurse called my sister in law. She at once made him a doctor and learned that the purple bruise like marks were caused by a disorder known as HSP.

HSP causes inflimation in the small blood vessels in the skin. Luckily we have not noticed the worse of problems such as blood in kidneys or bowels. The purplish colored bruise rash is caused when the blood vessels bleed into the skin the rash is known as purpura. HSP often occurs in ages 2 to 11 years of age. HSP may be triggered by a bacterial or viral infection but is not contagious. There is no known cure or how to prevention yet known. This is just something that we will have to keep our eyes on and learn all we can but this what we learned about in my house this week.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the medical lesson. There is still so much out there that I don't know. My kids get bruises all the time but it's good to know that if they multiply what to do. Is this something that he'll continue to have or does it go away when the infection does?

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  2. This is so interesting. I hope that the infection gets resolved.

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  3. I am so sorry for your family! Thank the Lord they found it out early!

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  4. Wow, my oldest son has this! I have never known of anyone else that's been diagnosed with it, apparently it's rare. He was diagnosed at 16. I was out of town taking care of my dying Mom when they noticed the spots on the back of his legs. Hubby called the pediatrician's office and got the after hours nurse. He described what he was seeing and she told him to call the office in the morning. The next day we saw the doctor and he was livid that he hadn't been called immediately. He said that the nurse should have recognized this was something out of the ordinary and called him. By the time he saw the doctor Chris' blood pressure was so high that he was on the verge of having a stroke! Did they mention anything about your nephew's bp? They had to give Chris meds to get his bp down and we had to monitor it several times a day for awhile, he still watches it. They sent us to a kidney specialist at Childrens Hospital and he does have some permanent kidney damage because of this episode. It's a scary thing!

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  5. Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry to hear this for your family, but thank you for the information.

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