GRRRR!!!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
 

That's my new tension releaser - GRRR!!! Lately, I've been very conscientious about how I model handling frustrations in front of E and whenever I can't dialogue my mental processes, I say GRRRR!!! Whenever I get upset and I am calm enough to discuss it, I say something like, "Aw, man. I forgot my phone. Now I have to turn the car around. That's really frustrating. I don't like when I forget things and sometimes it makes me feel angry. So I'm gonna take a deep breath, count to 3 and feel better." (Thanks, Wonder Pets for providing the deep breath count to three part.) And sometimes I just say GRRRR!!! instead of saying crap-damn-fart or dropping the f-bomb. And E totally gets it.

So my GRRRR!!! right now is regarding our pediatrician. I think he's steered us wrong again and that is really frustrating. So I say GRRRR!!!

This is how it all went down: Our good friend and her kids came over for a playdate last Friday. I knew Mr. N (the almost three year old) had had pink eye, thanks to a full disclosure email from M. He had finished a five day course of antibiotics and was assumed to be gook-free. Saturday night E spent the first three hours of the night ravaged by a night terror and then the rest of the night he spent coming down with what we thought was a cold, with a touch of laryngitis from screaming for three hours straight. Then Sunday he got progressively worse, bad cough and a kind of runny nose, plus a fever. Monday his eyes started seeping greenish mucus and his fever rose to 102+, so I called the doctor's office.

Thank goodness Miss S was able to boss around entertain the boys long enough on Friday afternoon for M (their mom) and I to talk about poor Mr. N's infection and the super strong antibiotics he'd been taking and how they'd given him five day's worth of diarrhea. And thank goodness M mentioned that the antibiotics were called Cefa-something at dinner the other night because when Dr. D tried to prescribe them for E's double ear infection/pink eyes, it rang a bell and I said, "Whoa." I asked about the diarrhea and Dr. D said something along the lines of "this doesn't cause diarrhea, that kid must have just had it." I fished around for a weaker antibiotic, especially since E's never taken antibiotics before and got nothing. I asked if he even needed antibiotics and Dr. D said no, that the ear infections would resolve themselves eventually and that a little breast-milk would clear the pink eye right up. The next logical question, which I asked in not so many words was, "Well then why the hell are we giving him antibiotics that will literally knock the shit right out of him?" He pointed to B and said, "To protect her." Well, crap. The dilemma that parents are constantly faced with - which child suffers and at what cost?

D took E to Safeway to fill the prescription while I ran B home to try and clean up the house a bit so that D could shove it up his ass when he says I don't clean up anymore come home to a clean house. When they got home, I grabbed the antibiotics and the pamphlet that came with it and guess what! "IF MODERATE TO SEVERE DIARRHEA OCCURS during or after treatment with this medicine..." (that is a direct quote, caps and all.) So...yeah. The Safeway pamphlet knows that diarrhea is a possible side-effect, why doesn't Dr. D? And when I called the pharmacist she confirmed that Cefdinir is a considerably strong antibiotic and that there are other antibiotics in the cephalosporin class that are not nearly as strong, do not have the same risks, and are more commonly prescribed to children. D thinks Dr. D is on the Cefdinir payroll.

If this were the first time I questioned Dr. D, then I wouldn't be so fired up about it. But Dr. D and I go back. Way back. Two and half years, to be exact. He doubted that E had a sensitivity to dairy, he's never admitted that E has reflux, he told me to treat his itchy nose with OTC allergy pills, even though it's not due to seasonal allergies, the PA in the office told me to treat my over supply by pumping more (I know!) and 3 out of the 4 nurses are crazy. As in answering-the-voices-in-their-heads crazy. The one asked me if I was sure B's first name was blahblahblah and I said, "Why, yes," and she didn't look convinced.

Anyhoo, yes I put some breast-milk in E's eyes and I gave him some ear drops and tomorrow morning I am calling that man and asking Why The Face?!? (for those of you who don't watch Modern Family, you're missing out.)
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1 comments to GRRRR!!!:

Cloud said...

I'd change pediatricians. Why mess around with a doctor you no longer trust?

Have any of your docs suggested a probiotic for E? My pediatrician is practically a pusher for Culturelle, and I have to give it to her, the stuff seems almost miraculous. It is great for sorting out diarrhea caused by antibiotics (they cause diarrhea because they kill off your good bacteria in the gut, and the probiotic replaces those).

I have no direct experience with yeast overgrowth in the gut, but I can tell you Culturelle treated thrush (which is just yeast overgrowth in a different location...) like a charm.

There are several other probiotics out there now, but our pediatrician said Culturelle is one that has studies proving it actually makes it to the intestine and colonizes- a lot of other ones get killed off in the stomach.

(Full disclosure- I think some more recent clinical studies on probiotics are not 100% convincing, but I figure that as long as I don't go all nutso and refuse other treatments, they're unlikely to do any harm.)

And finally, in defense of your pediatrician- he's probably used to seeing kids who are in day care, and at least in CA, state law requires that a kid with pink eye get antibiotics for 24 hours before she can go back to day care.

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