Waging war in the urban jungle

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The revised battle plan

I took Paulo to my naturapath for her opinion on the management of his allergies. She looked at his report from his skin test and her eyebrows shot up, yes, my son is allergic to 3 out of 4 seasons, plus indoor allergies as well. Lovely I know. We're managing the allergies well right now with daily Claritin and daily Nasonex but frankly I'd rather not be responsible for keeping both of those companies in the black. Plus I'm not crazy about dosing my kid 75% of his life. So, that's why we went to Kelly, to see what else we can do to support his little body.

Here's my new plan for my son:
  1. Increase Vitamin C to 1000 mg twice a day (unless his tum tumbly objects)
  2. Increase his Omega 3 to 1000 mg, he had been taking about 700
  3. Adding in a homeopathic grass and weed mix, 10 drops under his tongue up to 3 times a day, or more if his symptoms are bad-like after his infamous tuck and roll afternoon. This basically introduces some of the things that his immune system over reacts to on a daily basis to calm down those reactions.
  4. Adding quercetin, 1/4 tsp twice daily, mixed in juice or applesauce. This stuff is bright yellow! It does not mix well into juice, but mixed ok into the applesauce this morning, Paulo's not crazy about it. Says it tastes funny.
  5. I will also be adding a general immune system booster, Kelly is getting back to me with the name of her preferred brand-they were in the process of reformulating the taste.

Some other non ingested things we're doing is to continue, and increase, the use of the neti pot. He really hates the neti pot but it does help. His right side nostril is completely plugged up. Kelly looked at his ears yesterday and they are red and look like they're pulled back due to the sinus pressure, basically if he catches a cold right now he will get another ear infection. So, we are going to neti pot the snot out. She gave me a good tip, use it in the shower. That worked pretty well last night. We'll do it again tonight...and tomorrow...and the next night. We are also going to keep using the warming sock treatment. After his shower and jammies when he's all toasty and warm I put cold, wet, socks on his feet then cover them with warm, dry, wool socks and put him to bed. The idea being that the body works hard to warm up the feet and so it pulls the blood flow down and relieves some of the nasal congestion. It's actually very pleasant, Paulo was already a fan of that treatment, he was happy to do it last night. Makes up for the neti pot torture....a little.

We will also continue with our ban on dairy products because he already makes too much mucus, we don't need to add more in the form of milk. And I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or not but when I eliminated milk he started sleeping through the night consistently.

It's seriously a battle plan! It's me against the allergens! Doing battle to keep my baby healthy! If we can manage his allergies then I know we can reduce his colds and infections. And if he stays healthy then I stay happy, we all stay happy.

2 comments:

  1. I am in the same boat as you guys. I am looking into seeing a naturopath practice here. Did Paulo go in for an initial appt? I don't want Dylan on Zyrtec forever either.

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  2. Jen, I took Paulo with me to see Kelly. She needed to do her own physical exam as well as look over his test results. We go back at the end of May. I am hopeful though that it will help. He did catch a mild cold but so far...knocking on wood....it's staying out of his ears. Little dude is a pro at the Neti Pot now. Still hates it but he handles it like a champ.

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