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My daughter has been throwing up and complaining of belly ache today with headache and chills. Slight fever of 99.8. Her doctor said her blood count is 21000, very very high. What kinds of infections could cause it to be so high? She has to go back tomorrow to see if it has went down any.

2007-05-02 10:27:13 · 4 answers · asked by Heather M 1 in Health Other - Health

She is 5 years old. She has no diarahea only vomiting. She was prescribed an antibiotic.

2007-05-02 15:38:52 · update #1

4 answers

Any and all infections along with stress and worry will cause the WBC to increase.

2007-05-02 10:51:36 · answer #1 · answered by gillianprowe 7 · 0 0

Your body's normal reaction to ANY infection is to raise the body temperature higher than what bacteria like to live in (fever) and to increase the number of White Blood Cells (WBCs) which are responsible for identifying and killing the invading organism. Elevated WBCs combined with fever, headache and chills could be any number of infections. The higher the WBC count, the more the body is trying to fight the infection. Having an infection with a LOW (or normal) WBC would be much worse because the body can't respond to the infection.

However, adding the stomach ache & vomiting may narrow it somewhat. Does she have diarrhea? (food poisoning). Is the pain localized in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen? (ruptured appendix). There are many other possibilities.

I'm sure your doctor has considered all of these things and probably put her on a broadspectrum antibiotic that will kill a large variety of bacteria. Be sure she gets fluids so that she doesn't get dehydrated. If her fever continues to go up or if she shows ANY evidence of restlessness, confusion or generally getting worse, call the doctor again or take her to the hospital. Without knowing how old she is, it's difficult to be more specific.

Take care

2007-05-02 10:55:31 · answer #2 · answered by NLH 2 · 0 0

Without a white cell differential, I can't tell you much. A high white count just indicates that there is an infection. It could be a cold, it could be a bacterial infection. It's not specific. If you knew her neutrophil and lymphocyte counts, that would tell you whether it's viral or bacterial. My best guess is since he didn't prescribe an antibiotic, it's viral.

Viral infections are usually short lived. Make sure she's drinking plenty of water, and if your doctor cleared it, give her some tylenol for the fever.

2007-05-02 10:51:28 · answer #3 · answered by Emmy 6 · 0 0

I have just gone thru the same thing and I'm scared to death because my daughter doesn't have appendicitis or other signs of infection other than a stomach flu. Her WBC was also at 21,000 and has me scared to death. She didn't have a fever when we went up to the ER but later popped on of 102 deg. Almost a week later she seems to be fine now. Still scared about what the blood cell count means and hoping its down when they retest her on Monday.

2015-09-17 13:56:47 · answer #4 · answered by Jamie 1 · 0 0

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