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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – This past Memorial Day I was personally sick with the swine flu. To top it all off, my 8-year old daughter had gotten it simultaneously with me. Both of us had a severe form of the disease. In the process, I have learned a great deal about the H1N1 virus, and will gladly share some of my bitterly learned wisdom here.
It is virtually impossible to escape getting entangled in an epidemic if your child is attending a school where a large number of kids are missing due to a sickness. As the mainstream healthcare policy has been not to swab the febrile kids for the swine flu, most of the cases went undocumented, and as such, most of the schools remained opened due to the lack of the paperwork/beaurocratic evidence required to shut down a school. Parents have to exercise their own smarts and use the public information on-line about the number of kids missing due to an illness at any given school on any given day.
And naturally, if a child has a fever and or cough they should not be attending school until they have been fever-free for 24 hrs.
If you are a health-care worker, you should take your working clothes off upon entering your home, and take a head to toes shower. We carry a lot of germs which our kids don’t need to be exposed to!
Have your children’s hands and nails well scrubbed with water and soap after they return home from school.
Do a “wet” cleanup of your apartment daily: use a wet bounty to dust all the surfaces. Additional sterilizers may be used as well.
In case you and your child get sick together, and someone has to come in to take care of you – have the masks available for the caretakers. Severe swine flu is characterized by a severe respiratory distress. Wearing a mask if you have one is a torture, especially for a child. Have the caretakers wear non-surgical masks (the surgical ones do not protect the wearer of the mask). I am proud to say that all of my family who took care of me and my daughter wore masks and not even one of them became ill.
Make sure your child gets a good sleep. Too many cartoons is overly stimulating to the nervous system – it needs to heal. Chicken soup and gentle, non-fried diet (that means no chips or fries!) will be beneficial for the child with impaired immune system. Keep foods boiled and baked – the liver is already under assault from the virus. It does not need an extra burden of fatty foods.
Avoid using Tamiflu and Relenza. In my medical opinion and based on my personal experience and on the experience of all of my patients with influenza, it has never delivered any results. It opens the door for viral resistance development and in many scientists’ opinion should not be used as a monotherapy at all. In human language this means: I do not recommend taking these drugs, neither for treatment nor for prophylaxis.
I would encourage parents to take a holistic approach to their child’s viral illness.
Here are some personal tips:
1)Hydrate your child’s body – keep giving them water, milk or tea.
2) A glass of regular tea with one full teaspoon of raspberry preserves mixed into it will help bring down the fever if Tylenol or Motrin don’t work.
3)To lessen coughing discomfort, add 1/3 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/3/ teaspoon of honey to a glass of freshly boiled milk. Drink very slowly, sip by sip.
4)To help clear respiratory pathways, prepare herbal inhalation baths with sage, thyme, and eucalyptus.
For one glass teapot add a tablespoonful of each herb, and bring the mixture to a boil. Inhale the vapors via mouth slowly and carefully, not to burn the airways. This is better for kids over 6 years of age.
5) Try this excellent cough remedy for your kids: add one raw organic egg yolk to a glass of warm milk, add two teaspoons of sugar and 1/3 teaspoon of molten butter. Mix well. Have the child eat this with a teaspoon, very slowly.
Dr. Svetlana Kogan, MD. board certified in Internal Medicine, is a Cornell University graduate. She is affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital and a member of both the American Medical Association and the American Anti-Aging Academy. Dr. Kogan founded Doctors at Trump Place (http://www.dtpdoctors.com/drkogan.html) in New York City. Doctors at Trump Place was originally founded on the premise that allopathic (traditional) medicine can and should thrive in harmony with alternative medicine, a blend of Western and Eastern medicine to provide 360 optimal care to patients.
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