The son of a friend of my husbands has these symptoms: If anyone has any ideas...

Eighteen year old boy in a special advanced school, intense...always in number two place in scholastics, driven, doesn't pay attention to slow down when he gets sick...just keeps going and going.

It started three weeks ago with a sore throat which turned into a very stiff neck where he could hardly turn his head. Then got what looked like hives(welts) on his chest and legs..red...then the ones on his chest became open sores. The redness turned to purple. His temp. was at 102 recently and the sores on his chest got bigger.

His ankles are swollen and now all his joints are affected...his knees and his elbows..aching.

He was taken to doctor and he passed out when they took blood...very dehydrated.

His mother says he is not competitive as in sports..he does solitary sports but is high achiever and always has been. She thinks he wants to be in control of everything and being sick is being out of control so he ignores it and keeps saying he is okay. Tries to avoid his mother because he knows she will send him to doctor which she did. They did some blood tests and asked him if he had been in a foreign country and sent him home. They are waiting for blood tests to return. They mentioned something about rheumatoid arthritus.

Isn't there some remedy that refuses to admit there is anything wrong with them?

Any ideas?