A mum has urged parents to be vigilant after her son’s “sickness bug” turned out to be a rare and deadly side-effect of Covid-19 in children.
Keen athlete Euan Steel, 10, had no underlying health issues when he tested positive for the virus in October, and his only symptom was a mild headache.
But four weeks later he was left fighting for life in the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital with Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome.
The condition, also known as PIMS or PIMS-TS, is a result of the body’s delayed reaction in fighting the virus, causing his immune system to overreact and his internal organs and blood vessels to swell.
It put so much strain on his heart, just turning in his hospital bed saw his heart rate spike to a dangerous 180bpm, leaving him at risk of cardiac arrest. The average resting heart rate for a boy of 10 is around 80bpm.
His mother Gaynor, 50, from St Fergus, Aberdeenshire, said: “It was the most frightening time of my life.
“I just thank my lucky stars every day that he’s still here and we got help when we did.
“The doctors at the hospital kept repeating that we were lucky we got him there when we did. If we had been any later, I dread to think what would have happened.
“Looking at him in high dependency with all the wires connected to machines, I did think, ‘he could die from this’.”
Mrs Steel initially thought Euan had a sickness bug when he fell ill three weeks after the end of his 10-day isolation period.
But by the next night he was complaining of a sore neck, was “sick 17 times” and over-the-counter medicines were failing to reduce his 40C temperature.
Even out-of-hour doctors put his symptoms down to gastroenteritis and sent him home with anti-sickness medication.
But when he continued to get worse, Mrs Steel called her GP surgery and Euan was seen within 40 minutes.
Just two hours later, doctors in Aberdeen were battling to keep him alive.
Mrs Steel said: “By the Monday morning I didn’t know what to do. He was still being sick, had a high temperature and was barely managing to walk; he was so lethargic and weak.
“So I phoned the GP surgery and they told us to take him straight there.
“I know a lot of people struggle to get appointments but I owe everything to the doctors’ surgery for telling us to come down straight away.
“If I hadn’t got an appointment and continued to treat him at home, it could have been a very different story.”
She had never heard of PIMS before and said: "Even when we parked up at the hospital, I thought he was going to get something to make him stop being sick and then we’d be home. But he just went downhill when we got there.”
Baffled medics initially planned to treat him for scarlet fever as his face had turned red.
He also developed a blotchy rash and Mrs Steel feared her son had meningitis.
It was only when a doctor noticed his eyes were bloodshot that they suspected he had PIMS.
Mrs Steel was told it was triggered by Covid-19 and he spent the next three days in the high dependency unit receiving a cocktail of life-saving intravenous antibiotics, steroids and anti-inflammatory medication.
She said: “They did a blood test for his inflammatory markers and that was high because all his organs were inflamed and his heart was struggling to cope with it all.”
Euan was so sick doctors warned Mrs Steel he may have to be airlifted to Glasgow or Edinburgh for specialist care.
Remarkably he was home a week later and just days before his 10th birthday.
He is now one of the first children in Scotland, aged five to 11, to have been given his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, which is being rolled out across the country this month.
Head teacher Mrs Steel said: “I’m just glad he has some kind of protection against potentially getting Covid again and becoming ill as a result again.
“It is rare but I dread to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to get a doctor’s appointment and continued to treat him at home.
“It’s a personal choice and everyone has got their views on vaccines for children but I think it’s a good thing and I think they should get it. I wouldn’t want another child to get Covid and become poorly as a result.”
Euan has since returned to school and hopes to be back at his local athletics club after the Easter holidays.
Mrs Steel said: “He was good at athletics and a keen runner before this. Now we are building up his strength. He still gets tired easily. I certainly wouldn’t say he is 100 percent but I think at the moment it’s the best we could have hoped for.
“From what we were told it [PIMS] is rare and it’s new. Even doctors are still finding out about it.
“But I would class Euan as one of the lucky ones.”
She is now urging parents to watch out for symptoms in the weeks after a positive Covid-19 test, even if they are asymptomatic.
“I’d say to any parent who suspects something is not right to be vigilant of any changes especially if their child has a temperature that can’t be controlled or if they’re starting to complain of a sore neck,” she said.
“It’s about getting the message out there that this is a serious thing.”
What is Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome?
PIMS is a rare condition that happens weeks after someone has had Covid-19 and mainly affects young people and children.
It causes inflammation throughout the body, which is one way the immune system fights off infection. But with PIMs, the immune system overreacts and attacks other parts of the body.
Research is ongoing to discover why some children get it and others don’t.
The main symptom is a high fever but others include a rash, fatigue, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. It can also cause muscle pain, swollen neck glands, headache, red eyes and peeling skin on hand and feet.
