What Medicines to stock?

[BadgeBunny]

yup! I'm another one for letting the fever go if no other symptoms are present. 103 is my arbitrary cut off since he's just a little over a year. Thankfully, we've only had that once.

Ditto!!

 

[securitysix]

^^^^^THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!

I spend a lot of time educating people that FEVER IS A GOOD THING!!!!

Fever means your body is working the way it should to fight infection.
A lot of pediatricians these days are saying don't even treat a fever until it becomes dangerous, which is like 106F.
We don't treat fever because temp itself is dangerous (in most instances), we treat it because it makes us feel yucky. We're treating symptoms.
Febrile seizures aren't usually even dangerous... unless they're repetitive and the kid isn't waking up in-between.
Fever helps fight illness by making an inhospitable environment for bacteria and viruses, which slows their reproduction and spread.
Fever helps our white blood cells fight infection by speeding up chemical reactions used to attack bacteria.
When we use Tylenol or ibuprofen to bring down a fever, we're actually working AGAINST our body's immune system!

So many people rush right to the ER for every little thing, and subprep's right... 90% of it is not even a problem, much less an emergency.

Once, when I was a little kid, my mom woke up in the middle of the night to find me standing on a chair at the kitchen sink, running water, and drinking out of a large cup. I was evidently on my 8th large cup of water. She took my temperature and it was 105. I got stuck in a bathtub full of cold water.

The rest of the time, my fevers got to run their course. Most got to 102 or 103, a couple made it to 104. I run on the warm side anyway (about 99.6), so unless I hit 101, it's not really even a fever.

The migraines, on the other hand, I'll take something for those. Because when your head hurts so bad you can't do anything but lay in a cold, dark room and even on a handful of aspirin or Tylenol or advil you can barely walk to the bathroom, it's OK to take something.

 

[tRidiot]

Once, when I was a little kid, my mom woke up in the middle of the night to find me standing on a chair at the kitchen sink, running water, and drinking out of a large cup. I was evidently on my 8th large cup of water. She took my temperature and it was 105. I got stuck in a bathtub full of cold water.

The rest of the time, my fevers got to run their course. Most got to 102 or 103, a couple made it to 104. I run on the warm side anyway (about 99.6), so unless I hit 101, it's not really even a fever.

The migraines, on the other hand, I'll take something for those. Because when your head hurts so bad you can't do anything but lay in a cold, dark room and even on a handful of aspirin or Tylenol or advil you can barely walk to the bathroom, it's OK to take something.

I'll throw in the fact that cold water isn't the best idea in bringing down a fever. Use Tylenol and ibuprofen, yes, then a TEPID SPONGE BATH. Meaning put the kid (or person) in a tub, put in enough water to get about halfway up their outstretched legs (just a few inches, in other words), then sponge them repeatedly with the tepid water, letting it dry off their skin. The evaporation is what brings the temp down. Don't use cold water, it's actually too easy to drop the temperature too much. Seizures from fever are actually more prevalent with rapid temperature spikes, and perhaps even dips, moreso than the degree of a fever. So you can go from 98 to 105 in a couple hours and have no seizure, but go from 98 to 101 in 20 minutes and seize your brains out. Plus, seizures from temp usually only happen in a small portion of people, and mostly kids.

The goal is to bring them down a few degrees, not get them back to "normal" temp or below. Cold water can do that and is way overkill. Evaporation of tepid water is best.



The only exception to this I've seen was one kid with a fever of 114F (yup... no kidding) we were dumping ice onto. Luckily he lived, and had no ill effects from the temp. It was a very rapid spike and we caught it quick.

 

[ratski]

The migraines, on the other hand, I'll take something for those. Because when your head hurts so bad you can't do anything but lay in a cold, dark room and even on a handful of aspirin or Tylenol or advil you can barely walk to the bathroom, it's OK to take something.

Or get an NTI.

Dave