Category: Articles

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Extreme Allergy Control – Taking it Beyond the Limit

Talk about extreme allergy control! I was shocked to read today about a lady in Toronto that has asked her community to cut down the oak trees next to the school because her two children have nut allergies.
That’s right, nut allergies.  You can read the entire article here Mother Wants Trees Cut Down.
At first I thought there must be a mistake.  Why would you cut down oak trees because of nut allergies?  Unless your children think they are squirrels, they aren’t going to be eating the acorns.  Did she mistakenly believe that the acorns could be inhaled and make her children sick?  What kind of uninformed extreme allergy control measure could this be?
No, turns out not only does she know better, she is the head of the school’s Allergy Committee.  She is afraid that the acorns could be used to “bully and torment children”.  Bully and torment with acorns?  If this is her greatest fear, then she needs a serious reality check.
I’m a Mom.  I understand protecting your children.  Honestly, I tried to protect my kids even if I did let them drink out of the water hose and make mud pies.  I tried to protect them from real and present dangers.  Look both ways before you cross the street.  Swim in pairs.  Wear your helmet when you ride your bike.  Don’t take candy from strangers.  Don’t take candy from people you know unless it is chocolate and you are going to share with Mom.
My kids had allergies and I tried to control their exposure as much as possible.  Some people might think I used extreme allergy control measures because I had no carpeting in my home and ran air cleaners in each bedroom. But that doesn’t mean that I asked people to remove the carpeting from their house lest someone bully my child by rubbing their face in the carpet.
Let’s just be reasonable, shall we?
Til Next Time!
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Discover How to Explain Asthma to Your Child

You suspected something was wrong.  You looked at the 10 Signs you May Have Asthma and made an appointment with the doctor for your child.  Now, you just left the doctor’s office knowing for sure why your young son has been coughing and wheezing all this time.  It is not an infection.  It is asthma.  Now you must explain asthma to your child.

learn how to explain asthma to your childBefore you can explain asthma to your child, you must do your homework. First, you must learn everything you can about asthma;

  • what it is,
  • what causes it,
  • what are your child’s triggers,
  • what to avoid
  • and how to treat it.

Your world just got a bit more complicated.

What do you need to cover when you explain asthma to your child? Explain asthma to your 8-year-old son in terms he can understand.  Explain that he now has to take medicine, and use inhalers and peak flow meters. Let him know these are helpers to keep him healthy. Assure him that he will get comfortable with a mask put over his mouth for breathing treatments.  Hard stuff for an adult to deal with much less an 8-year-old.

This is how some of our customers have handled explaining asthma to a child.

Be honest. Let them know that asthma is serious but with some work, they will be able to still have lots of fun. There will just be some new rules to follow. When they ask what asthma is keep it simple. “Asthma makes it hard for you to breath sometimes”  The best example if you have to explain asthma to a child is an experience from their own life.  Remind them of a time they had difficulty breathing. Get into more detail when they can understand it.

Teach them their triggers and asthma symptoms.  Let them know they will need to be more careful and pay attention to their surroundings. Your child needs to understand the signs of an asthma attack and what to do if they have a hard time breathing. “Find mom or dad, your teacher or another adult if you don’t feel good”.

Keep them involved. Make a game out of filling out the peak flow meter charts. If one of their triggers is pollen, teach them what pollen is and where it comes from. If weather changes trigger your child’s asthma, watch the Weather Channel and learn about cold fronts. Great time to teach them about keeping a daily journal.

Asthma is a lifelong condition but it does not necessarily mean they can’t do the things they like to. They and you just need to be careful.

Wishing you the best of health

Mike Krause

The Allergy Store

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Back to School Part 2 – When Good Kids Get A Bad Cold

If you think it is hard to drive away and leave your son or daughter at college for the first time, just wait until you get home.  You will walk inside your house and no matter how many people live there it will feel empty. 

It is especially empty if it is your last child to leave home.  Suddenly the house feels enormous and you feel small.  You feel miserable and want to cry. 

If you think you feel bad then, just wait until they call you sick with their first away-from-home really bad cold.  Now you really feel bad.

When your kids were small and had a cold, you babied them.  Ran vaporizers to help them breathe, sponged them off the reduce their fever, read them stories, and feed them chicken soup. 

That very first cold after moving away from college will be as miserable for you as it is for your child.  Since you can’t be there to take care of them, plan in advance so that have everything on hand to take care of themselves.  Caring for your own cold is a part of growing up when you think about it.

Bad Cold Emergency Kit
 

So, pack up an emergency kit.  Now the cold emergency kit is a little different than your standard emergency kit. It doesn’t have bandages or antibiotic creams. Those are important items and should be in the standard emergency kit, but what I am talking about is the Cold Emergency Kit. 

So, pack them in a small box that they can store out of the way of heat and sunlight.  In it put what they will need to tend to their own cold.  Start with a small box of tissue.  If you have a preferred brand or type of cold medicine, make sure it is in the kit along with your own handwritten note on how to use it. 

For example, my daughter has always been small for her age, so I never gave her the adult dose of any over-the-counter medication the first time around.  Now, if she bought a box of cold medicine on her own and didn’t know this, she might take the recommended 2 pills instead of 1.  That is why it is important that you communicate this type of information in writing in the emergency kit so if they are self-medicating for the first time they know these things. 

Also, depending on the state where they are going to school, many of the “D” formulas require a signature and an in-state driver’s license for the purchase of formulas that contain pseudoephedrine.  Keep this in mind if your child is attending college in another state! 

I also think it is a good idea to include cough drops or throat lozenges for that sore throat (bonus points if you get the ones with Vitamin C) and a microwaveable “cup o soup” in the flavor your kid prefers and a thermometer. 

The thermometer is important because they need to know when they have a fever that is high enough to warrant the attention of the school’s Health Office. Also, if your kid has allergies, they need to know the difference between cold symptoms and allergy symptoms.

That thermometer comes in handy when determining the two because allergies don’t cause any elevation in body temperature. Tuck in a little love note at the bottom that assures them that a cold runs for 7 to 10 days and you can’t cure it, but they can focus their efforts on relieving symptoms.

You can’t be there with them while they are going through that first cold and as hard as it is on you, it’s an important step in their growth as truly independent adults.

Til Next Time!