Saturday, March 3, 2012

Colds, Coughs, Conjunctivitis, OH MY!

Rosalie has had a rough month! It started only 2 days after her birthday in February as just a mild cold. After a few days, her symptoms began to go away and all seemed to be well. A couple days after that all of her cold symptoms returned, but it was a bit worse. She was much more congested it and it seemed to be more like sinusitis than a cold. It just kept holding on ... I kept giving her immune boosting supplements, kept her home, and tried to have her rest as much as possible. When it finally seemed as though she was getting a little better ... her eyes started running and were terribly goopy. It was a very mucusy discharge coming from her eyes. Her eyelids and skin underneath her eyes was dark red and swollen. She was miserable. I spent most of the week sitting on the couch holding her. (that topic is a whole other blog post! Let's just say, I am not very good at sitting still!) We put a few drops of colloidal silver in her eyes and put warm compresses on her eyes several times a day. It just seemed to get worse each day instead of better. This is where I must make a confession. You may think that I am very confident in my homeopathic remedies. The truth is I am a basket case when my children get sick. I am not confident and I panic ... a lot. I don't panic with colds, sore throats, and fevers. I do panic when it comes to the unfamiliar. I have never dealt with conjunctivitis before, so I had a very nervous week. In fact, on day 4 of this ordeal, I was at a loss and ready to take her to the pediatrician. Rich helped ground me, though. I am not anti-doctors ... I am thankful for modern medicine and all that it provides! I am generally more comfortable with doing all that I can to treat things at home first. One of the things that bothers me about taking a sick child to the doctor ... is all the things to which I am exposing my already immune compromised child at the doctor's office!
You can see in the pictures how swollen and red her eyes were!  Her conjunctivitis was clearly following the pattern for viral conjunctivitis. So, what could a pediatrician do, anyway? If I had taken her to the doctor, he may or may not have prescribed antibiotic ointment ... but he would have had to admit that he didn't really know if it was viral or bacterial. The only way to know that is to culture the eye discharge. I wouldn't have considered treating the conjunctivitis with antibiotics unless it could be determined 100% that it was bacterial ... and even then, I'd probably try to treat it naturally.
So, what did we do?
I mentioned that we used colloidal silver drops in her eyes...and warm compresses. I didn't see much improvement with that, though. We made a solution of warm filtered water and sea salt and began putting drops in her eyes 3 times a day. We almost immediately saw results! Her eyes began to clear up within 12 hours of starting the drops!
Now, I will most certainly panic over other health issues that we face in the future, but at least now I can face conjunctivitis without fear!

9 comments:

  1. Glad that she's doing better!

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  2. Somehow she manages to smile through it all! Glad she is on the mend!

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  3. How awful! I'm glad she is better. I've heard it's very contaigious, were you able to prevent the boys from getting it?

    We've never had to deal with that and I don't look forward to the day when one of them gets it. At least I know that you have been through it, so I will be seeking you out for advise!

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    1. Jonathan has it as of yesterday. We started the drops right away and it doesn't seem nearly as bad as Rosalie's. It's not fun at all, but I am much more at ease with Jonathan than I was last week with Rosalie.

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  4. Larissa,
    I am also a wreck when my kids are sick and also hold out on the doctor's for the same reasons you stated. Awesome job! And I will definitely log away the helpful info.
    Heather

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    1. Thanks, Heather! I appreciate your encouragement!

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  5. I'm sorry to hear Jonathan has it now. Praying it goes away soon and no others get it!

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  6. I also try to treat at home, but when it comes to pink eye in my kids I head right to the drops. It is so contagious that I like to nip that one in the bud. Fortunately, not something I have had to deal with frequently.

    For me, however, I have found that war compresses using black tea bags is very helpful.

    Glad Rosalie is feeling better.

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  7. It is so contagious, Kathy! Oh how I know!
    Everyone in the family ended up having it, except for me. I am not sure how in the world I escaped it. I am happy to say that everyone made it through just fine without medical intervention. We went through lots of tea bags, colloidal silver, and sea salt drops ... that and their immune systems knocked it out with no problems.
    The worst part about our whole ordeal was the upper respiratory infections they had along with it. They were the worst any of them have had in a long time.

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