What items do you keep on hand for when your kids get sick?
What are your best tips for preventing illness?
Robin in Chicago
Tissues (boxed and travel packs), A plastic ice cream bucket is our puke bucket lol, thermometer covers and replacement batteries and I think that's about it.
To prevent illness I use Wet ones wipes for grocery cart handles and frequent hand washing.
I stock up on nothing. We always buy tissues in bulk so we always have plenty of those. No meds - I prefer to buy what we need when we need it, IF we need it.
Prevention: probiotics, a good multi-vitamin multi-mineral (we normally take half the daily recommendation, if something's going around we'll go to the full amount), hand washing, not going out more than we have to (instead of taking kids along to the grocery store I leave them home with DH - 2 of mine have picked up nasty things just from a single trip to the store).
We keep tissues and meds (tylenol, benadryl, the only things she can take) all the time. Never know when she'll get sick and I'd rather have them here than have to go get them in the middle of the night.
Frequent hand washing and vitamins are a daily, year round thing, not just something we do during the sick seasons.
Tylenol is always on hand (I think he's actually taken it 3 times) Chewable Vit. C, ecchinacia (I'm sure I spelled it wrong), zinc pils, and probiotics. I also keep Nyquil and pepto on hand for DH. I find that I use the same things to treat run-of-the-mill sickness the same way I try to prevent it, just increase the vit. C and zinc. We just try to give our natural immune systems the best possible chance. We also cut out white sugar and milk in the event of sickness. The last sickness we had was a random sore throat that hit everyone about 3 days apart and was accompanied by body aches and fevers. Strange little virus that one was.
ETA: We also keep liquid chlorophyl on hand all the time.
We take a refrigerated probiotic daily. I had been resisting supplementing with probiotics until I read this:
According to the results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled study reported in the August 2009 issue of PEDIATRICS, probiotics may be useful to prevent cold and influenza-like symptoms in children.
Of 326 healthy children three to five years old, 104 were randomly assigned to receive placebo, 110 received _Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM_ and 112 received a combination of _L acidophilus NCFM_ and _Bifidobacterium animalis subsp lactis Bi-07_. The children were treated twice daily for 6 months...
Read the rest of the article here: http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/707328
I keep a bottle of elderberry syrup on hand to fight viruses. The FDA criticized the manufacturer of Tamiflu for "overstatement" of claims of efficacy, since blind studies comparing it to a placebo only resulted in a 1.3 day difference. A study on Sambucol (Elderberry) found a 3-4 day difference in duration of symptoms.
You catch a virus by coming in contact with it This is why handwashing is so important. Did you know that viruses can live on paper money for 9 days?
You can also adjust your lifestyle a bit to build up your immune system. Not getting enough sleep can lower your resistance to disease. So can being dehydrated, so be sure to drink at least 8 8oz glasses of water a day. Alcohol, meat, dairy, highly processed foods like white sugar and white flour all weaken the immune system. Foods that build up the immune system include: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.
Robin in Chicago
my stock is Tylenol, Motrin, and clairitin.... and making sure the cool mist humidifier is clean and ready to go I also buy about 6 gallons of distilled water for the cool mist
my prevention tips.. well I started them off good I breast fed so right there I reduced my kids risks a lot my dd was bf until 6 months. due to my failure.. then ds came alone when she was 26 months old and she started nursing again until she was 3 and ds nursed (no formula ever) until 16 month --
hand washing with soap and running water
daily bath before bed
pillow case change daily (bed linen change weekly)
we buy local organic foods and try to eat them with minimal altering
we DO NOT use hand sanitizer we'll use baby wipes if in a crunch and we do not use vitamines
Ind. health department confirms 13 measles cases- yikes!
- rkoloms
on Aug. 28, 2010 at 8:30 AM