The Second Opinion

We brought Alex to another rheumatologist yesterday to get a second opinion. I think it just kind of confused us more. The answer was essentially the same but his perspective was more of- well, why is 10 years long enough for the penicillin? What about if he lives in a dorm in college, won't he get strep then? What if he becomes a teacher, won't he be exposed to strep then as well? Kind of made us feel like we better just buy the poor kid a lifetime supply of penicillin. The arthritis has been gone for a while now and has not shown any signs of coming back, which is great. Alex has adjusted to taking his medicine twice a day and we have adjusted as well. We will have some more labs done in a few weeks but they won't really give us any definite answers, probably just more possibilities as there is still a chance that this never was rheumatic fever and we'll be making him take penicillin for nothing. But, we still have to treat it as if it is since it could be- if that makes sense. So, as he told us, the hard decision will come in a year and I think it likely we'll just make him take it as long as he will tolerate it. So far the only side effect is that he gets an upset stomach more often now but other than that seems to be pretty unaffected.