Fever medicines given too readily to children

[flyingcloud]

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Another thing for me to panic over? DD is currently sick with her second chest infection in three months. Should I just let her ride it out without help from medication?

"this may be because"

ramblingroses, I really don't think MmeLindt was being patronising. It is a worry, and I hate it. I have 3 dcs, dd1 has asthma and had recurrent chest infections (and a lot of Calpol) when little, dd2 has asthma, but was hardly ill when little. Ds was born with lung problems, and seems to have been ill pretty much since he was born (he is 8 months) he has had to have several course of antibiotics and more Calpol and Ibuprofen than the other two combined. The chances that he is going to have asthma are pretty high, but probably more due to the fact that he is in an atopic family than from an overuse of meds.

Like you I always write down when I have given him meds, as I am so sleep deprived I would proably get mixed up if I didn't.

When he was in hospital recently with bronchiolitis (no fever, but obviously in pain) they said the best way to give pain releif was to give the maximum dosage over 24 hours, every 6 hours. And when he had a fever recently, the gp said to give alternate Calpol/ibuprofen, with no more than 3 doses of ibuprofen in 24 hours.

Glad this has elicited some debate.

I was worrying a little bit as when DD has bronchitis over christmas I did the whole alternating paracetomol/ibuprofen thing for 24 hours on Doc's instructions.

This time she doesn't have quite such a high fever but is sleeping poorly and (differenct) Doc has suggested just giving paracetomol in the evenings before going to sleep.

I do react with worry and guilt to most articles regarding children's health and parenting. I'm a sucker for the guilt.

not read the whole thread, but I am wondering if they think that mothers parents take their toddlers temperature regularly, to check in case they should give paracetamol?

FFS, you take the temperature because the child is in obvious discomfort and give the anti-pyretic to relieve that as well as bring down the fever.

Utter nonsense that as many as a half of parents medicate wrongly, there is no way they could have collected that info, the statistic just reflects the prejudices and assumptions of some expert.

Yes, I am emotional. Sorry if my post is strongly worded, but I do find some of the wording of articles so...well, usually, patronising.

Why is my child constantly sick, constantly on pain relief, constantly crying and barely eating? Teething just seems to cause him so much pain - the last round (of 4 molars) started in the middle of December and it is still going. He just wails and wails. Sometimes I give him Calpol at 4 simply so he will eat his supper and get some food inside him, and not wake in the night wailing because he is hungry. And he bounces from one illness one week to another the next, hence why pain relief at times becomes almost continuous.

Also, pain relief has allowed him to sleep, and therefore me to get some sleep too, which is desperately needed at times.

I keep hoping that once all his teeth are through that this nightmare will end.

But after reading this article, I have decided to stop completely with the pain relief. He will have to suffer and I will have to stay up every night. I have been feeling that it is getting out of hand. As it is I just had 3 hours sleep last night and only 1 last thursday.

Seperately, I don't think anyone I know would medicate wrongly. Everyone I know is very cautious about dosage and most use the syringes which are very accurate. No one I know uses a spoon.

Ramblingroses
I think you need to go and see your GP, or perhaps your dentist. Don't make your DS suffer, because of something that might or might not be true.

How old is your DS?

Mmm...I do take on board the point that this has almost accidentally become my default solution, albeit after endless soothing attempts.

However, I will take a fresh view on this and then visit the doctor next week.

Nice to have a bit of exorcism online though.

Hopefully all the paracetamol and ibuprofen hasn't done him any harm.

We have lived with the spectre of febrile convulsions for the last six years, and quite honestly the fall-out from 'letting nature take its course' (ie fits) is awful for all concerned, not least my son (and his school friends).

It also means a visit to A&E, delays and tests, when simply by using calpol/nurofen to reduce the temperature gradually we can usually manage it at home together with a trip to the GP to determine the cause of the infection.

We always give anti-pyretics at the first sign of true fever, although thankfully now this is usually confined just to the onset of tonsilitis rather than when he was little and any slight illness could trigger a fever.

Yes, it is true that the fever is the immune system's way of dealing with the infection, but in some children the immune response is simply too dramatic for their system to cope with while they are young.

I would have loved to have been able to take a relaxed, naturopathic view of fever, but experience has shown that this isn't always possible.

Febrile convulsions may be benign, but they are also frightening and unpleasant. Why would you put your child through that if there is a safe alternative.

Rambling
Have you thought about using homeopathic medicines? I know that for some children, just receiving the magic pink medicine can be enough to calm them down and make them feel better. Perhaps you could reduce calpol/nurofen by using a homeopathic or herbal remedy.

Even if you don't believe in homeopathy, perhaps the placebo effect would help your son.

For teething, I successfully used camomile with my daughter but it has no effect at all on my son. Nor does teething gel. Nor does he care for chilled items - with the exception of frozen peas and corn and ice lollies (frozen smoothie)for supper.

All ideas welcome.

Rambling
We were very lucky that our two got their teeth without much problems. I do recall using Bonjela a couple of times but nothing too much.

Perhaps you should start a thread in Children's Health for ideas?

I do recall that my SIL (who is a bit woo) gave us a amber necklace that was supposed to help when the DC are teething.

Rambling,

No ideas for teething here, but lots of sympathy. My younger DD got two back molars through very quickly (good) but it was so quick that one bruised the gum (bad) and the other bled coming through (worse).

So I gave her painkillers. It sounds like your DS does have very painful teething and I commend you for looking at alternatives, but if your DS needs the meds, he needs them.

Have you tried Anbesol (the liquid rather than gel)? It works much better than Bonjela.

I put some on ds's gums, followed by some teething powders, then his dummy.

But if this doesn't work then I give him Ibuprofen (which dr said works better and quicker for teething).

argh, why did this come out today?! DD 10mth has just developed a temp - 38.7 right now. Bit snotty and probably teething (only 1 tooth thru so far). Do I give her something or not?

if she is miserable yes, if the temperature doesn*t affect her too much, no. try dressing her down to reduce the fever first.

recently my dd has had 2 utis. the first one had huge temp. spike before correct diagnosis, even after we had been advised to double dose calpol+ibuprofen from a doctor who thought it was a respiratory infection. the current one though there was no obvious fever (I usually go on how they feel - most home thermometers are not totally accurate anyway) and I had not given either calpol or ibuprofen. this time the doctor (again before uti diagnosis) said to medicate what was a mild fever as fevers in themselves make the little ones miserable. which I had not really thought of - I do try to minimise meds. saying that she was clearly miserable and being sick so I guess symptons were not limited to fever. meds did perk her up enough to at least start to eat etc.
we all sound very sensible and should not give ourselves hard time. it is confusing however when every medical professional you speak to seems to say something different!

I should add the first time she had temp for a week before diagnosis, and it seemed doctors saw no issue with keeping meds up / increasing them for up to 2 weeks! which I was not happy with - hence i kept on that more was wrong, and finally got sample kit and uti diagnosed.

My four yr old has had calpol once and my two year old has never had it-When they've had fevers ( DD1 4 times:2medium temps & 2 40+temps DD2 2times: 39/40) I've held them until they were asleep and as long as I kept them close, they were comfortable and quiet.
If it is a straight forward fever : i;e the body fighting a virus or a bug then the fever will terminate itself when the body has killed the bug/virus .
If the fever is a result of a bacterial infection or heatstroke then you have to bring the temperature down - or rather get medical help!
If you keep stopping your child's immune system from doing what it should be doing by dosing them with calpol then you're likely to compromise their ability to deal with illness in the future.
Immune systems need to develop!

Rambling Roses
Articles like this one make me angry, as they make fab parents like you, completely lose their confidence in doing a great job.
It's worth bearing in mind a few points:

• newspaper articles like this are written by scientists eager to get their name published.
• they're reported by journalists desparate to fill newspapers with articles that attract readers, and the proven way to do this is to print unsettling, shocking news.
• Neither of the above feel the need to put things into context: we all grew up on Paracetamol & Ibuprofen, and they're fine. Legal and safe.

If anybody is honest, they'll admit that it's a bugger of a job to remember when you last gave medicine when it's 3:18am & you've had broken sleep night after night. The best thing we can all do is make sure our children are comfortable: not in pain & able to sleep. That helps us sleep, and everyone is happier. Good night.

SolidOakTrees:

I agree with your sentiment, but could I point out that newspaper articles are not written by scientists.

What appears in the media is squarely the responsibility of the newspaper reporters and editors.

This piece, for example, was based on a US announcement of recommended practice from the American Association of Paediatrics. The original research behind it doesn't seem to be quoted anywhere, but it is a reputable body promulgating it. And I think we'd be rather more concerned if paediatric experts were not periodically issuing reminders of good practice (especially important, I'd say in paediatrics over other specialties, so you catch new parents).

The problem here is fully with the newspaper. To me, this article wasn't "news", let alone worthy of the front page.

Well there has been a real turn of events here and not sure what to make of it. It may just be good luck.

As some of you may remember, historically, when DS was sick (most of the time) he was inconsolable and would wail and wail, but he was always calmed by TV and calmed by Calpol so I had turned it on more/given him more than I was really comfortable.

As what I was doing wasn't really making a significant difference and spurred on by the article in the paper, I decided to go cold turkey with the Calpol and Ibuprofen (for pain relief), to leave the TV turned off and to give him more exercise. I would just give him two Teetha sachets at 11pm at night for a little bit of pain relief at night.

For the first two days he cried solidly 50minutes in every hour, and it was torture. But on the second night he slept really well (I wonder if he was exhausted after all that crying) and by day 3 he appeared much calmer and happier. Now, on Day 5 and he is only grizzling normally because of the pain of his teeth but it's not hysterical. I am trying to really wear him out. My DH has been home so that may have contributed and he's always happier when we are all around.

And he didn't pick up anything from nursery this week, so that is a first.

I think I am going to only give Calpol and Nurofen for temperatures from now on. Even if he is crying hysterically, I really don't see that it helped/made any difference.

It is hard to see the wood for the trees when they are so sick, so often.