So my son, 6, was just diagnosed with PFAPA syndrome. Periodic fever, aphthous stomatitis, pharyngitis and adenitis - Wikipedia
The recommendation is to get a tonsillectomy. This reduces the number of episodes significantly or even stops them altogether in most cases.
On the other hand, each episode can be stopped by giving a shot of corticosteroid.
The syndrome goes away on its own after 5-7 years.
I'm not sure what to do. Are there any alternative approaches to this?
If you asked me yesterday, I would say just get a tonsillectomy, but then I found that between 1 in 2500 and 1 in 55000 kids actually die from the surgery. Many more have serious complications.
Steroids every few weeks for the next 5 years doesn't sound like something I would want to do to my son either.
Any advice is welcome. Thanks.
The recommendation is to get a tonsillectomy. This reduces the number of episodes significantly or even stops them altogether in most cases.
On the other hand, each episode can be stopped by giving a shot of corticosteroid.
The syndrome goes away on its own after 5-7 years.
I'm not sure what to do. Are there any alternative approaches to this?
If you asked me yesterday, I would say just get a tonsillectomy, but then I found that between 1 in 2500 and 1 in 55000 kids actually die from the surgery. Many more have serious complications.
Steroids every few weeks for the next 5 years doesn't sound like something I would want to do to my son either.
Any advice is welcome. Thanks.