Healthy Lifestyle Radio Storytime

Your child comes home from school with a sore throat, cough and high fever. Can be the flu that’s been going around? Or is it just a common cold?

Before you can determine how to help your child feel better, you need to know what ails the sick. Usually, the flu (also known as influenza) has symptoms that make a child feel worse than a common cold, but not always that easy to distinguish one disease from another.

It is important to remember that flu symptoms can vary from child to child (and may change as the disease progresses). Therefore, if you suspect that this is the flu, call your doctor.

Treatment for flu
When the flu within the first 48 hours of symptom onset, the disease may respond to an antiviral medication which allows shortened by one or two days duration of infection suffered by his son. Meanwhile, take care of your child by offering plenty of fluids and extra comfort.

What if your child’s doctor tells him not the flu? Ask if you should give your child a flu shot.

What is the treatment for colds?
“Time heals everything.” This may not always be true, but in the case of a common cold seems to be. The drugs do not cure the common cold, but can relieve some symptoms such as muscle aches, headache and fever. You can give your child acetaminophen (like Tylenol) or ibuprofen (like Advil or Motrin), respecting the package recommendations for age or weight.

However, you should never give aspirin to a child under 12 years and all children and adolescents under age 19 should avoid aspirin during viral illnesses. Use of aspirin in children or teens with colds or other viral illness may increase the risk of developing Reye syndrome, a rare but serious, sometimes fatal.

You may be tempted to give your child decongestants or counter antihistamines to relieve your symptoms, but evidence of its effectiveness are virtually nil. In fact, decongestants have the potential to cause hallucinations, irritability, and irregular heartbeats in infants and should not be used in children under age 2 without consulting a doctor.

Some ways to help relieve the discomfort of your child include:
* put drops of saline solution or saline in the nostrils to relieve nasal congestion (you can buy at any pharmacy);
* use a cool-mist humidifier to increase air moisture
* petroleum jelly on the skin that lies beneath the nose to soothe rawness
* hard candy or cough drops to relieve sore throat (for children over 3 years);
* a warm bath or heating pad to soothe aches and pains;
* give a steam bath to help him breathe more easily.

What about chicken soup? There is no real evidence that eating this soothing, warm chicken broth soup can cure a cold, but sick people have been told that this is true for over 800 years. Why? The soup with chicken stock thickener containing an amino acid called “cysteine” and some research shows that chicken soup helps control congestion-causing white cells, called “neutrophils”.

However, it is best not to worry about whether your child as much or little. Just make sure your child eats when hungry and drinks plenty of fluids like water or juice to help replace the fluids lost during fever or mucus production. Avoid giving your child caffeinated beverages, which tend to urinate more frequently and, therefore, increase the risk of dehydration.

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