Only 1000 cases in Germany
The PFAPA syndrome: Bushido’s son suffers from this rare disease
Anna-Maria Ferchichi gave birth to triplets in November 2021.
© imago images/Mauersberger
Anna-Maria Ferchichi is Bushido’s wife and the mother of his children. On Instagram she now told about the rare disease that her nine-year-old son Djibrail has.
Anna-Maria Ferchichi’s son Djibrail has always suffered from the same symptoms since he was three years old: abdominal pain, bone pain, severe nausea and high fever, sometimes over 40 degrees. The strange thing is that the symptoms of the disease recurred every four weeks and lasted for three days. Bushido’s wife and mother of his seven children reported this in an Instagram story.
PFAPA: This is Bushido’s son’s rare disease
Ferchichi reports: She ran from doctor to doctor with her little one. At first it was thought it was a passing infection. But after the symptoms recurred regularly, other causes were investigated. She eventually kept a log, which she presented to the pediatrician. He referred Djibrail to the Charité, his mother was relieved. She said: “We had an animal odyssey until we finally got the diagnosis at the Charité, in immunology. Since then it’s been okay because you know how to deal with it.”
The 40-year-old has learned that the disease is not life-threatening. The symptoms also become weaker as the child gets older. The specialist portal “Knight Medicine” writes that the fever episodes occur every two to eight weeks and then last three to seven days. The first symptoms usually appear in infancy or early childhood, and the diagnosis is usually made between the ages of three and ten years. The term PFAPA syndrome stands for the individual symptoms: periodic fever, aphthous stomatitis (mouth sores), pharyngitis (inflammation of the throat), cervical adenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes). However, headaches, chest pains and abdominal pain can also be part of the symptoms of the disease, which is why other diseases must be ruled out first. This in turn delays the diagnosis.
Anna-Maria Ferchichi wants to encourage other parents with her story. “As a mother, you have to listen to your feelings when you realize something is wrong with your child.” She is also certain that more children would suffer from the disease. However, since it occurs so rarely, many pediatricians would not even know the symptoms because they are so unspecific. A Scandinavian study found an incidence of 2.3 cases per 10,000 children under the age of five. According to Federal Statistical Office around 4.76 million children under the age of five lived in Germany in 2020. This would mean that there would only be 1095 diagnosed cases of PFAPA syndrome.
Sources: “Knight Medicine”, “Federal Office of Statistics”