Seriously? Ringworm?

So JJ has ringworm…on his scalp. He and Jerret went for haircuts a couple of weeks ago and when they came home I noticed a small (very tiny) bald spot on his head. Naturally, I assumed the chick at First Choice nicked his poor little head and wondered which girl had done it since we are there every 3 weeks and seem to get a different person each time.

Over the course of a week, I noticed the spot get bigger and bigger and bigger, until it was the size of a nickel. Finally, I realized that it was more than a nick and thought I might want to call the doctor. I took him to school the next day and as soon as I removed his hat the teacher looked at me and gasped loudly, slapping her hand over her mouth and whispered “Ringworm!” I was very surprised and looked up at her and said “how do you know?” and she said “Oh, its been going around the school.” This, of course, upset me as this is now the second time a communicable disease has gone around that school and I heard NOTHING.

Anyway – I made an appointment that day with Dr. John who told us that ringworm of the scalp is VERY different than getting it on your skin. He said that it is very hard to get rid of and that JJ would need to be on meds for 2 months! And it could take a year for the hair to grow back in that spot (which is now that size of a quarter!)

I sent Jerret to the pharmacy that night to pick up the script and received a call from him to ask how much these meds should cost. I had no idea, but he told me that the pharm tech was telling him that a month’s worth of the antibiotics cost $200! Again, I assumed she must be incorrect and surely they had not run our insurance card so I told Jerret to double check and give them our insurance information. We discovered that yes, they had run our insurance and that this WAS the generic form of the meds. They just really, actually cost $200 for a month’s worth! I have never heard of such a thing, but we needed to fix the poor little guys head so we surrendered our cash and paid up.