First real illness-nervous mommy

[Angelorum]

my 17 mo ds is sick for the first time.  He had a super mild fever once for a few hours, but that's been it until now.  It started as a cold, he was mildy feverish all day on Christmas, but was still up and playing, just a little crankier.  After that, he's just been draining a  ton of mucous, and coughing a little with all the drainage.  I thought we were at the tail end of it yesterday as his mucous seems to be drying up a lot.  Then this morning he was inconsolable for hours.  He was refusing all food and water, even nursing.  Just crying and crying.  He finally nursed and took a couple of good naps in arms.  He seemed much better after the naps, he ate a good dinner and was hamming it up for everyone afterward.  He did start to feel a little warm though after dinner.  Now it's 3 in the morning, he woke up about an hour ago and is back to inconsolable.  We are visiting the inlaws for the holidays and I don't know where any thermometers are.  He does feel pretty warm to me though.  I don't have any baby tylenol or anything, inlaws live in the tiniest town in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea how far we'd have to go to get anything at this hour on a holiday.  MIL gave me some oregano oil (her panacea, don't know how much I believe in it) to rub on his feet.  He's been barely drinking any water through this whole cold, and is refusing to at the moment.  I'm worried about an ear infection or a sinus infection.  MIL looked in his ears with her otoscope, and couldn't see anything amiss, but his ears are pretty waxy, so it's hard to say.  He's not giving any indication of where he's uncomfortable, other than batting at his nose, but he's been doing that ever since the congestion started.  He caught the cold from his cousin, but she seems to have weathered it fine, and didn't relapse like ds has seemed to.  He is not vaxed, and we don't have a pediatrician back home I can call.  Any ideas or reassurance welcome!

[graciesmom08]

Wow, poor guy has a lot going on, esp when you are not home!  A couple drops of Hydrogen Peroxide in his ears will remove wax, our ped told us to do that for our dd.  Maybe then she can see something in there.  I would def work on finding his thermometer and taking his temp as well.  If it does continue I would work on having him seen by someone.  Our ped also recommended giving our daughter elderberry to prevent, treat colds/illnesses.  It doesnt work for all infections, but has worked for a lot, we use it as well!  Good Luck!!

[Angelorum]

That's a good tip about the hydrogen peroxide, thanks.  Unfortunately ds is  

Still pretty miserable.   His temp was 100.4 under his arm last night.  His mucous has thickened up and is still flowing pretty copiously.  HIs nose is all raw now from all the wiping.  He's still not letting me know whether there's any particular painful spot.  We start driving home tonight.  I'm crossing my fingers that it's not too hellish of a trip.  We'll be traveling at night, so hopefully he'll just sleep.    My questions at this point are, what temp do you start medicating a fever with tylenol or something?  I know fevers have a job to do, but I seem to remember reading in my copy of Dr. Sears that fevers aren't any more effective when they burn hotter, and so you might as well give them a little fever reducer to make them more comfortable.   Also wondering how a doctor would know to prescribe antibiotics if this were to continue and I have to take him in.  I'm afraid that's all a doctor would or would be able to do, and I want to avoid unneccessary antibiotics.   What are the signs of a sinus infection?  

[HappyMommy2]

I would personally, give him baby tylenol (or baby motrin) to help give him comfort and reduce the fever slightly.  I would also get the pediatric saline nose spray from the drug store, to help with his congestion and nose.  (He will hate it but it will help).  Also - really really really encourage nursing.

Good luck mama.  It is scary when babies are sick!

[tanyalynn]

I don't medicate fevers.  I do other things to support the kids through illness so it's quicker and milder but I'm not comfortable using fever reducers, especially Tylenol (I keep ibuprofen on hand for injuries that I'm not knowledgeable enough to deal with in other ways--someday I'll get there, I hope, but haven't yet).

For us, nutritional support has done really nice things to reduce the intensity and duration of illnesses.  Lots of vitamin C, the dosing guidelines that I start at are 250 mg/ kg body weight (it's 1100 mg per 10 pounds of body weight), spread throughout the day--the sodium ascorbate form is much gentler on the stomach than other forms--you may be able to find it at a HFS, it's been about 50% that I've had luck.  My kids needed more, there is individual variation, but that helped with a lot of my son's illnesses.  And for next time, check out the Cell Salts thread in this forum, one of the cell salts, ferr phos, is really useful at shortening illnesses--I haven't seen cell salts in real stores, only online, but I've heard they're available some places.  Another, I think kali mur? (check the thread) is helpful when illnesses are farther along like you are.. ferr phos is for the very beginning, but for us, just using that, has stopped a couple illnesses before they got off the ground.

If you're concerned about ear congestion and whether his ears are draining properly, you can massage around them to physically help them drain.  Long strokes starting behind the ear at the top, down behind the ear, through the dip behind the ear lobe, down to the collarbone.  Use 2 fingers, firm but not painful.  Similar stroking in front, start next to the nose, horizontally out, then turn down when you get to the ears, all the way to the collarbone. 

And for us, easily digested foods, lots of soup, you may want to try Aviva Romm's garlic lemonade (google for the recipe), it's nice for sore throats and runny or congested noses.