Hello, my child is 4 years old and he had a fever for about,10 days ranging in temperatures from 104 to 100. the last one he had(100.4) and that was two days ago about two days ago he had blood work done and all came back within range or negative including the blood and urine cultures. The only thing that was abnormal was the ESR which was 98. Did drew more blood today to run more test. My question is could the elevated ESR be due to the fever? Should I be concerned with a more troubling illness.
ESR can be elevated in several inflammatory conditions and infections, he may have a viral, or bacterial infection like typhoid which can cause a rise in the ESR. Blood cultures do not come positive for typhoid in the first 10 days that's why he should be empirically started on antibiotics since typhoid cannot be entirely ruled out.