Eat Dirt and Keep the Snake-Oil Salesman Away
From the moment children are old enough to understand the word "no!" they begin to believe in the idea that parents are mean and controlling. My children are no different. They rarely refrain from letting someone know just how mean I am.
One of the areas in which I am particularly mean is in the illness and injury department. My children know I am not a nurse with a pleasing bed side manner and an outpouring of empathy. I am more likely to look suspiciously at a child whose hand clutches their stomach while moaning "I don't feel good" and ask "now what?" than to coo lovingly over them. I need more physical proof of illness. Show me the soiled clothing and the high temperature on the thermometer, than we'll talk. My 14 year old loves to tell people that if he were to suffer an injury like a broken leg, my response to him would be "shake it off and move on"; not that he's ever broken a bone to find out if this is indeed fact.
What my children don't understand is that my seeming lack of compassion has made them less sickly in the long run. All three have suffered the usual childhood issues. We've done battle against colds, flus, ear infections, sore throats, chicken pox, croup, and even head lice. There have been injuries needing stitches, some in places where stitches weren't possible (ie: fat lips), although we have been lucky enough to avoid any broken bones. Through it all, I have administered only the treatments needed and told them to carry on. They have given me the funny looks when I tell them to take a hot shower rather than reach for orange-flavored syrup with "decongestant" written across the label. Vapor rubs and humidifiers where my answer to a congested cough and stuffed up sinuses. Twists or sprains were treated with elevation, ice packs and once in a while an ace bandage. It will take a lot more than that to get me to purchase a pair of crutches. My daughter sticks out her lower lip and rolls her eyes when I tell her that a little more sleep and eating well are the best cures for her vague aches, pains and fatigues.
Recently, my middle child contracted a little cold he obviously got from me. He had the same sore throat, headache and fatigue I had suffered just the week prior. In relating these symptoms to another adult, that adult informed me that perhaps I should have him checked out because these were also symptoms of Mono. My son informed this adult that it would be a cold day in hell before I'd take him to the doctor; I am, after all, mean that way. The fact is that I did take this information home and did a little research. I found that one of the key ingredients was missing in the diagnosis of Mono; high fever. My son had no fever whatsoever. After a day of rest and saline nose spray my son was back to his old self with his symptoms much less bothersome.
Likewise, one evening my daughter came to me in tears. Her ear hurt. In fact, it hurt so bad, the whole side of her face hurt. Clue number one though, there was no fever. Again, I did a little research. Her symptoms pointed to stuffed sinuses. Since it was nighttime, I told her to lie on her side, take some Tylenol and let me know how she felt in the morning (sound familiar?). The next morning she claimed a miraculous cure.
A couple of weeks ago a coworker sent around an email about a recall on over-the-counter (OTC) medications containing Phenylpropanolamine. The email included a long list of medicines, some of which I've used in the past. Having not heard anything about it in the news, I did my research and found out it's a seven year old recall and most of the makers of these medications have since revamped their concoctions to eliminate this ingredient. It doesn't really make me feel a whole lot better. How long were we giving these drugs to our children or taking them ourselves before someone figured out it caused hemorrhagic strokes?
OTC manufacturers have many of us bamboozled anyway. When one of my children gets the sniffles and other cold symptoms, I rarely give them any medications. There is no cure for the common cold and there isn't anything available that will shorten its duration. In fact, it's been my belief that these OTC medications only succeed in prolonging the colds. You take the stuff, think you feel better, and over exert yourself. Your body needs rest to go to battle. If it's not getting the rest it needs to focus its energy on the invading virus, it becomes a much more protracted war.
The FDA is now advising against giving youngsters these OTC concoctions. They advise using the same "remedies" that have been used for generations (rest and fluids), and to call the doctor before giving a child anything claiming cold and flu relief. There is also evidence that just as we build immunity to certain "bugs" by exposure, so too are we capable of building immunity to certain remedies, like antibiotics. Could the same be true of some of these OTC drugs? Is it possible that used often enough, Nyquil will lose its effectiveness? Not to mention, I'd hate to find out the hard way that there is some ingredient in it that they will one day link to cancer, alzheimer's or seizures. It really isn't such a far-fetched notion. Nor is it something I would like to volunteer to test the likelihood. I keep thinking about the old folk saying "we all eat a pound of dirt before we die"; maybe that's why some people are so hearty. Eating dirt built up their immunity to germs. It's not any more far-fetched than some weird chemical, whose name can't be pronounced by common folk, causing seizures.
So I will continue to practice being a mean-spirited nurse maid with my children, and hopefully one day they will thank me for it. And my daughter can feel good that her two face plants off the swings as a youngster might mean she's eaten her pound of dirt already.
