A mum, whose daughter was diagnosed with a rare and potentially life-threatening disease at just 21 months old, says more needs to be done to create awareness of the illness.

Lindsay Foulkes, 30, was 36 weeks pregnant with her son Dexter when Kayla took ill with Kawasaki disease, a condition which if untreated can cause serious complications, heart problems and even death.

The Saltney youngster, who was two last week, struggled to sleep, cried a lot and had a temperature which Lindsay believed to be ‘the classic signs of teething’.

Kayla’s temperatures became higher and higher and ibuprofen and Calpol failed to bring them down.

The toddler became very lethargic and she was referred to the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Kayla Foulkes of Saltney was just 21 months old when she was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease

Lindsay, who is also mum to Harley, said: “Kayla deteriorated very quick. She couldn’t move her neck and could hardly move at all.

“She was lying in the cot at the hospital on her back and couldn’t get up and was just crying out saying ‘mummy’.

“It was horrible.”

At first doctors thought Kayla had meningitis but following a video conference with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital her consultant finally diagnosed her with Kawasaki disease.

Lindsay added: “She was already having very strong antibiotics and she needed intravenous globules to help her blood as it can cause cardiac arrest.

“She had to have a radioactive scans and several ultra sounds and lots of blood tests as well as more antibiotics.

“It was horrible as she couldn’t do anything and was so sad and nothing like her happy self.”

Kayla was discharged from hospital after nine days but needed to have further treatment to prevent her blood from thickening again as well as a heart scan and is due another in a few weeks time.

“She had so many tests and treatments that every time a nurse or doctor came near her she would say ‘bye bye’ in a sad voice.

“If the doctors hadn’t had diagnosed her so quickly she could have had long-term damage to her heart and even died from it.”

Despite a quick diagnosis, Lindsay says that the nurses nor her friends or family had ever heard of the disease.

“I think it should be publicised more as even though it is rare, it is a serious disease that can cause a child to die or have heart complications from it and if Kayla had had a different consultant that didn’t know about it, it could have been easily missed which could have meant she didn’t have the treatment in time.”

Kayla has now recovered from her illness and is back to her happy normal self. Her case is now being used by doctors for research and treatment plans.

Cause of Kawasaki disease is not yet fully known

Kawasaki disease is a rare condition that mainly affects children under the age of five.

It is also known as mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome.

It affects approximately eight in every 100,000 children and is more common in boys.

Characteristics of the disease include a temperature which lasts for more than five days, as well as a rash, swollen glands in the neck, dry and cracked lips, red fingers or toes and red eyes.

It cannot be prevented but if it is diagnosed and treated promptly, most children will make a full recovery within six to eight weeks.

It is thought that Kawasaki disease is caused by an infection, although the exact cause is not fully understood.

Aspirin and intravenous immunoglobulin (a solution of antibodies) are the two main medicines used to treat the disease.

Kawasaki disease causes the blood vessels to become inflamed and swollen, which can lead to complications in the coronary arteries (the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart).

The condition has become the leading cause of acquired heart disease (when the heart’s blood supply is blocked or interrupted) in the UK.

It is considered a relatively ‘new disease’ discovered by Tomisaku Kawasaki, a Japanese paediatrician in the mid 20th century.