Teething Terrors or Gingivostomatitis?

This is a posting by Julie, Dr. Gary's wife, telling her experience caring for children with these nasty mouth sores!

Gary has often told me research shows teething doesn’t cause fevers. He says these fevers in infants and toddlers are most often caused by viruses. Still, most of my friends believe teething and fevers go hand-in-hand, and there are days I wonder if there isn't some shred of truth to the old wives' tale as well... So when our 12 month old Graham developed a fever when we were on our way to a dental study club meeting in Sarasota, I quickly wrote it off as teething. I checked his mouth and didn’t see anything to cause alarm - but I didn’t see any erupting teeth either.

For three days Graham ran a fever with no other symptoms. However, when we returned home from our weekend trip, his gums flared up with blisters. I then had the unfortunate responsibility of contacting the mom of the family we stayed with in Sarasota and informing her of my son’s diagnosis: gingivostomatitis. Sadly, I learned her six month old had come down with a fever too.

Gingivostomatits is highly contagious. That’s why so many infants and toddlers get the virus. There is almost no way to avoid it. So it was a little surprising when my 3-year old Logan ran a fever. We were sure he would have been exposed by now. We were wrong.

What was this virus and why hadn’t I heard more about it? I had only learned of gingivostomatitis the month previous when a friend had called us at home concerned about blisters in her toddler’s mouth. Gary made a house-call visit and told her to prepare for a long 1-2 weeks. She was able to give her child some relief by applying Canker-Rid, a honey bee byproduct remedy available online, to the sores.

I found plenty of information online on gingivostomatitis. Our experience has been almost textbook so far.

My oldest child Logan has developed much more severe symptoms than his brother, including fever, vomiting, inflamed gums, and a swollen tongue. It has been a miserable experience for him and our family. He has literally lived on yogurt, ice cream, and Juice Plus shakes for the past few days. Gary prescribed a “miracle mouthwash” that coats and numbs his tongue and mouth hoping it will provide Logan (and Mommy) some relief and enable him to eat some solid food. I have posted a picture of his swollen gums and fuzzy tongue stained brown by all the chocolate ice cream and dried blood. We’ve been hesitant to brush very aggressively due to the pain he’s been enduring, so he looks like he has a mouthful of decay.


Graham has developed Herpetic Whitlow, blistering on his finger from where the virus spread to a torn cuticle. He had sucked on his fingers to provide comfort from the pain and transmitted the virus to his finger. The vesicles in his mouth were only present for a few days, but I know the virus is still oozing out of his finger.

I am posting our story so other parents can learn about this virus before they experience it. Plus, it may be encouraging to know the doctor’s family endures many of the same oral issues your family does. Gary had seen this before in patient’s mouths, but I doubt he had experienced it quite like what we are experiencing now with our own children. I hope you are one of the fortunate moms who thinks their child is teething and notices only a mild fever. Right now I wish it were only teething...