Question: Hi. My 3 year old daughter started having watery diarrhea 2 weeks ago with fever of 102F for the first 2-3 days. On the 2nd day she had a streak of red blood in her stool which we attributed to a fissure. On the 6th day she was feeling much better but still had watery diarrhea 2-3 times per day, but this time it had about 2-3 tablespoons of red blood in the stool when I changed her diaper. Went to the hospital. They tested her for Rotavirus, C. Diff. and a stool culture. Everything was negative. Nothing grew in the culture after 72 hours. The following day, day 7, she had red jelly substance in her diaper. Went back to hospital. They did a CAT scan with and without contrast to check for intasusseption. Other than a thickening in her sigmoid colon probably due to inflammation from diarrhea, her abdominal CT was normal. CBC and Chemistries were normal. She was not anemic and is not loosing weight. The following day her stools started to firm up like the consistency of oatmeal. There was no visible blood. The stool has remained that way. Her pediatrician has repeated the culture and it was negative, but positive for white blood cells. As of today her stool is still the consistency of oatmeal going 1-3 times per day. The foul smell, cramping and fever have all gone and not returned. She does have a random streak of blood occasionally. We are seeing a pediatric gastroenterologist on Monday, but I am wondering what you think this could be?

She has not been put on antibiotics. I am hoping that the pediatric gastroenterologist will consider doing that before invasive testing. Would it be normal to still have mucous tinged with red blood almost 2 weeks later? Thank you so much for your response. My greatest fear is that we will go to his office and he will want to do a endoscopy before trying other things.

One more question.....Would you say that antibiotics should be give before a colonoscopy would be indicated? I really dont want her to have to go through a colonoscopy.