A mum in the UK has been praised for speaking out about wrong medical advice she was given to treat her son Lewis who came down with chickenpox.

Hayley Lyon and Lewis via Hayley Lyons Facebook page

The mum took her son to a doctor and was prescribed children’s ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory medication to treat her son’s chickenpox. Hayley gave her son the prescribed medication, only to learn later that Lewis shouldn’t have taken the ibuprofen – it even stated on the packaging not to be taken when the patient has chickenpox.

Image via Hayley Lyons Facebook Page

Lewis became very sick quite quickly. His temperature continued to rise and the chickenpox became severely blistered and painful. Even though doctors had told Hayley her son had a normal case of chickenpox, she knew something wasn’t quite right. She trusted her intuition and took Lewis to hospital where it was found he had contracted septicaemia.

Image via Hayley Lyons Facebook page

Lewis was able to recover from his ordeal but his mum has now made it her mission to let other parents know the danger of Ibuprofen and Nurofen being prescribed to children with chickenpox.

Her Facebook post was shared more than 430,000 times around the world, which included shocking images of Lewis in hospital and his blistered chickenpox. Here is part of the post reposted:

“Chickenpox is going round again can I please remind people NOT to give your children nurofen/ibuprofen,” Hayley wrote on her Facebook page.
“4 different doctors from our local (out of hours) prescribed it for Lewis as we couldn’t get his temp down.”

Image via Hayley Lyons

“This type of medicine is an anti-inflammatory, it reacts with chicken pox making them go deeper into the skin tissue.”

“It was only when we took Lewis to Alder Hey because the doctors from our hospital kept sending him home saying it was ‘just chicken pox’ we found this out. He ended up with septicaemia and was admitted straight to Alder Hey as soon as we arrived there.”

Image via Hayley Lyons

As a result of Hayley’s case and Facebook post, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said greater awareness needs to be made to ensure both parents and doctors understand the dangers of ibuprofen use in chickenpox cases. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended that ibuprofen is no longer used for chickenpox.

Hayley has thanked parents for sharing her post to make other parents aware of what happened to her so the same mistake isn’t made on other children suffering from chickenpox.

“I’m so thankful to everyone for sharing the post so that something will now be done about it,” she wrote on Facebook. “These medical professionals are now going to ensure that all doctors know the risks and hopefully they’ll no longer prescribe it. I will not stop raising awareness until these types of medicines are labelled with the risks of this being prescribed to someone with Chickenpox.”

As always, this post has been written sharing the details available from the Facebook post and the entities that have made comments or recommendations in regards to this case. We are not medical professionals, but feel this post is one that needs to be shared.

Always read the labels of any prescribed medications and don’t be afraid to ask questions to your doctor and pharmacist to ensure what you give you child is going to help them get better.