Health Watch: Cold and Flu season

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) -If you know or have toddlers or infants you know that cold and flu season can be rough. children in that age range and attend daycare can catch 12-15 cold viruses in a calendar year and when most of those are in the 8 months of fall, winter, spring, it gets to be rough having it back to back. Even children outside of daycare tend to get multiple cold viruses. Viruses have no specific treatment to make those symptoms go away, but we can mitigate those symptoms by doing some simple at-home treatments. The most important of those is to make sure your child’s nose is sucked out, they can’t blow their nose the same way we can. So succeeding in their nose is the most important thing we can do. If you put a couple of drops of saline in each nostril and let that soak up for a moment or so and come back with some nasal aspirator device and succession one nostril while plugging the other, you can often get some of that deep congestion to loosen up for them and they will feel much better. Vapo rubs and humidifiers can be helpful as well as elevating the head of your child’s bed so that drainage gets out of the way. Tylenol and Motrin can go a long way as well with reducing any pain as well. Things to watch for would be an increasing or lingering fever, lethargic, shortness of breath, and of course the added complexity of CoronaVirus. Be sure to see your pediatrician if you have any concerns about your child’s health. This is Dr. Cara Hamilon at BH Peds with your Health Watch,

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