Category: Mothering

Categories
Health Mothering Ryan

Keratosis Pilaris

When Ryan was about four months old, we noticed his skin started having what I referred to as the dreaded “goose bump skin.” I was mortified.  I had these bumps, which were very noticeable on my arms and legs while growing up.  I still have them somewhat on my legs.  I remember my mom taking me to several doctors in my teens, because I was so self-conscious about them.  No doctor ever gave us a diagnosis on what the condition was.  I resigned myself to live with these bumps on my skin. 

I was very happy in my early twenties, when they started to disappear on my arms. They also started to fade on my legs.  

Fast forward ten plus years, gazing at my firstborn’s sweet, perfect, smooth skin, only to realize he is developing the same condition I had.  What are these bumps, and would my son have to go through his life with them too?

I immediately took Ryan to a dermatologist, who told me right off it is a “harmless” skin condition called, Keratosis Pilaris, or KP. Harmless in it often looks worse than it is, but I knew first hand, how self conscious it can make you about parts of the body that KP appears on.  She told me there isn’t anything you can do, but a person usually will outgrow KP as they get older.  She also said it is genetic (my dad and sister had KP too), and about 50% of the population has some form of KP, somewhere on their body.

She gave me a prescription cream for a steroid and told me I could use it in case of flare-ups, or if the KP got really bad.  What really was troubling to me was unlike myself, Ryan had KP on his face, especially on his cheeks.  His cheeks were rough, and people were starting to comment on it. 

I used the steroid cream a few times, when Ryan’s face had really bad flare-ups. Dry weather can aggravate KP.  We live in a very dry climate, and interestingly I remembered as a child, when we visited more humid places, my KP went away entirely.  At 7 and 18 months, we visited my sister who lives in a very humid area, and within 2 days of us being there, Ryan’s KP disappeared.  It reappeared however, after we returned home.

I didn’t like using a steroid cream on my baby, so off to the Internet I went, in hopes of discovering something, anything, that would at least reduce the KP on Ryan’s face.  There is no “miracle” cure- at least not one that I have found.

What I have discovered is there are several things that will help reduce the chances of flare-ups, resulting in less noticeable bumps.  I did learn that KP can be so different for everyone- what works with one person, will only aggravate the flare-ups in others.  Our pediatrician gave us some good tips as well, and here is what I have discovered helps Ryan:

  • Keeping our environment as humid as possible. 

Our pediatrician actually wrote us a prescription for a whole house humidifier.  Since we are planning on moving soon, we opted not to buy one yet.  However, we keep a humidifier in Ryan’s room at night.  This helps a lot, especially in the winter.  We have an evaporator cooler in the summer, which is almost like a humidifier.  Ryan’s skin is almost KP free in the summer. 

  • Adding pure, organic, flax seed oil to his milk every day. 

I add less than a teaspoon, but I have noticed it helps a great deal.  Flax seed oil is rich in the essential fatty acids, especially Omega-6, which is the Gamma Linoleic Acid.   Our doctor told us flax seed oil has the highest concentration of Omega-6’s, more than what you would find in a capsule. 

Some research suggests that a lack GLA contributes to eczema, and when eczema patients increased their GLA intake, their eczema went away.   However, eczema, and KP are not related, but I liked the theory, since GLA is very soothing to the skin, and can promote healing.  Since most people can’t utilize GLA properly (due to environmental factors), adding GLA’s into Ryan’s diet, seemed like a natural thing to do. 

I never told Ryan I was adding flax seed oil to his milk.  I would stir it in, and he would drink it.  As he got older, he started to ask me what “that yellow stuff” was.  I told him it was flax seed oil, and it helps keep us healthy.  Ryan reminds me and asks for his flax seed oil now, and once I asked him why he likes it so much.  He said, “It keeps my skin smooth.”  I was amazed.  I have never told him that, but I think he started to notice a difference in his KP when he takes his flax seed oil.  About a year ago, I saw him running his hands down his arms, and talking to himself.  He was saying that his skin was bumpy and he didn’t like it. That about broke my heart, so I am thrilled that he seems to have noticed a difference in his skin.

  • Keeping his skin moisturized

This has been such a journey for me.  I have tried probably every cream, lotion, and balm on the market in hopes of one of them reducing Ryan’s KP.  I have tried everything from the lotions promising to cure KP, to basic Vaseline, to herbs.  I have tried everything from the steroid cream to the purest and most organic moisturizers I could find.  Nothing has been that miracle, but I have noticed that the more natural lotions, seem to lock in the moisture after Ryan’s bath better.  Right now,  Shikai Borage Dry Skin Therapy Lotion is doing a very nice job. It keeps Ryan’s skin moisturized for a full 24 hours, and I haven’t found anything that has worked as well up to this point.

  • Using Natural Skin Products

This has been a real change for me, which I will write more about in the next post.  So many ingredients in products that I had previously been using are so drying to the skin, and weren’t helping Ryan at all.

With these changes we have made, I am very hopeful that Ryan’s KP will continue to lessen as he gets older.  It has gotten better even from when he was two years old. 

I think education is so important on KP as well.  So many people don’t really know what it is, and out of concern they ask you what those bumps are on your child, or if he has a rash.  I have even had people tell me after I have explained what it is, say that they used to have bumps on their skin when they were young, and they are happy to have finally found out what those bumps were too. 

Maybe one day science will finally have a cure for all the sufferers of KP.  Until then, I plan to keep trying to eliminate the flare-ups, and at least “cure” it the best I can for Ryan.

Categories
Current Events Health Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs Mothering Pregnancy & Birth

Global Giving

BlogHers Act: Donate Now to Save Women's Lives

BlogHer has announced that it has teamed up Global Giving in an effort to save as many women’s lives as possible between now and Mother’s Day. 

We are so very fortunate to live in an area in the world, where we as women, have access to world class health care.  Unfortunately for many women across the globe, just basic health care, let alone specialized maternity care is not available.  Consider some of the statistics hundreds of thousands of women (and their babies) have to face (as posted on BlogHer):   

* Every year, 529,000 women die from pregnancy-related causes.
* Children who have lost their mothers are up to 10 more times more likely to die prematurely than those who haven’t.
* Most maternal deaths (61 per cent) take place during labour, delivery or in the immediate post-partum period. Some 3.4 million newborns die within the first week of life.
UNFPA

From the Mother and Child Clinic in Nepal, to helping mothers safely birth healthy babies in Afghanistan, (where a woman dies of pregnancy-related causes every 27 minutes), the Global Giving projects can help save women’s lives in these desperate areas. 

BlogHer has joined forces with Global Giving to make a difference in maternal health, and help save lives. BlogHer wants to find out how many women’s lives can be saved from donations between now and Mother’s Day.  

I am joining Amy from Crunchy Domestic Goddess, and will donate 50% of the sales from my on-line store, Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs,  for the rest of April until Mother’s Day to the BlogHers Act/Global Giving project. 

If you have browsed my store before, and have had your eye on something, now is a perfect time to go for it.  Obviously you will have a cute shirt, but more importantly you will be helping to make a difference in maternal health for women who greatly need it. 

If you have never browsed the store before, click here (or at the above link,) or on the store button in the right hand sidebar.  This isn’t a post to promote my store, only a way to help raise money for this great cause, so I am only providing the link to the store, and not showing any pictures or links to any of the items. 

You can also make a donation directly to the Global Giving project, by clicking here (or on the button at the top of the post).  Please consider helping out in anyway you can.  After reading what some of these women have to endure, it puts it all in perspective how very lucky we really are.

 

Categories
Family & Friends Health Mothering Parenting Ryan

Party Dilemma

I am very happy to report that Ryan is doing MUCH better regarding his ear infection and ruptured eardrum.  After taking two doses of the stronger antibiotic, I had my happy, carefree, Ryan back.  He is still having a little trouble hearing, but the doctor assured me that will subside as the infection dwindles away.

I had a bit of a dilemma this week.  On Sunday night, the mother of a little boy who has been in music class with us, and also is in the same class at Ryan’s school, called and said her son specifically requested that Ryan come to his birthday party this coming Sunday.  I know Ryan and this little boy play a lot together at school, and he is a very nice little friend for Ryan.

Of course I wanted Ryan to go, but I also started wondering what if he got sick again- right as he is recovering from his double ear infections?  Obviously the more kids your child is around, the greater the chance of him catching something-again.  His immune system isn’t fully recovered from all these illnesses either.   On the other hand, I don’t want to be that mom either.  The mom who won’t let her child go anywhere, or be around other kids, for fear he will get sick.  I purposely didn’t call the mom back right away, because I just didn’t know what to do. 

Fortunately the answer became clear today, as I saw how well Ryan was doing.  He hasn’t complained about his ears hurting since Monday, and his ear stopped draining on Tuesday.  When I asked Ryan if he wanted to go this little boy’s party, his face just lit up and he said, “Yea Mom- I really like (little boy).”  So that was that.  I called the mom this afternoon and explained why I hadn’t called her back right away, and accepted the invitation. 

I thought this mothering stuff would get easier as the boys got older.  How do you know you are doing the right thing?   I realized today that I can’t keep Ryan (or Cole) in a bubble, because there will always be something.  I want my kids to grow up with friends, and having fun- not worrying if they are going to come down with something or get sick.  I can’t expect my children to have that attitude if I don’t have it myself.  If Ryan still wasn’t feeling better, of course I would have declined the party invitation.  But for now, we are both excited he is feeling so much better, and gets to go to his friend’s party.   

Categories
Health Mothering Ryan

Ruptured Eardrum

We have always been pretty healthy.  Until my C-section, I had never been admitted in a hospital.  I thank the powers-that-be-every day that my children are healthy and have no serious medical conditions.

With that being said, ever since September, it seems like we have been sick, especially the children, with one thing after another.  I have blogged about it, and everytime I think we have seen the worst (flu, colds, coughing, stomach viruses, etc.) either Ryan or Cole-or both of them- come down with something new.

The latest- Ryan has a ruptured eardrum and what the doctor calls a “raging” ear infection in his other ear.  This makes two double ear infections less than a month apart.  Until this happened, Ryan has never had an ear infection before.  He is almost four and a half.  What is happening where he is getting double ear infections?  The doctor had just cleared his ears, saying they were both healed, and then a few days later, he said his ear was hurting again.

We went to the doctor a week ago Monday, and he said he had one ear infection, and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic.  Ryan also had a fever lingering around 102.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday went by with no real change.  If I didn’t give Ryan Children’s Motrin every four hours for the pain and his fever, he was absolutely miserable, crying in pain.  He would have an hour here, an hour there, where he would seem OK, but the fever never broke and he started saying his other ear hurt too.  To top that off, he had no energy, was very lethargic, and didn’t want to eat.  He has lost about 4 pounds last week. 

On Friday, what looked like light yellow snot (sorry if this is too graphic) started draining out of his known ear infection ear.  Then his ear started crusting over. I remembered one of my friends said her son had a ruptured eardrum and she knew this when fluid started coming out of his ear.  I had my suspicions on Friday, but since it was a really thick fluid, I wasn’t sure.

On Saturday morning I called our doctor’s office and got a doctor (if you want to call him that) on call.  Not our regular doctor. When I told him Ryan still had a fever, still had ear pain, new ear pain in his other ear, and fluid draining out of his ear, and told him I suspected he had a ruptured eardrum he said, “Hmmm that is puzzling to me.  I think you just need to wait a few more days and see if the antibiotics start working.” 

At this point I told Dr. On-Call that it had been 6 days already since Ryan had started on antibiotics, and clearly it was not working.  I told him we only had one dose left.  If it wasn’t working by now, I doubt one more dose was going to do the trick.  Dr. On-Call didn’t budge and told me since Ryan was allergic to penicillin he was on the strongest antibiotic they had, and the dosage was correct.  I knew what he was telling me just couldn’t correct.  I hung up on Dr. On-Call, very frustrated. 

Today, after posting the situation on my mom’s board, where one of the members is a pediatric physicians assistant, she told me it sounded like Ryan did have a ruptured eardrum, and if a fever or the other symptoms don’t clear up within three days of starting antibiotics, a stronger antibiotic is needed.  Can she call Dr. On-Call and tell him that?  How could an actual medical doctor NOT know that?

I had an appointment with our regular D.O. doctor, for Monday afternoon.  He confirmed that Ryan did have a ruptured eardrum and the other infection in his ear.  He thought for a moment and then came up within 2 seconds, another, stronger, antibiotic he would prescribe for Ryan.  Could he call Dr. On-Call and tell him there are stronger antibiotics than what he told me Ryan was on?

After having one dose of the stronger one this afternoon, he got some color back in his face, and ate the biggest meal for dinner, that he has eaten in over a week.  I really hope this round of antibiotics cures these ear infections once and for all.

On Sunday night I was reading up on ruptured eardrums, and they sound worse than they are.  Evidently when the fluid pressure gets to great in the middle ear, the eardrum ruptures to release the pressure.  Our doctor said back in the old days, before they had strong antibiotics to treat severe ear infections, they would actually rupture the eardrum on purpose to relieve the pressure.  He said it was the body’s way of taking care of the problem.  He said in his 25 years of practice, he had never seen a child’s ruptured eardrum not heal itself.

Doctor said it can take a month or two, and we need to be careful to make sure no water, ear drops, etc. gets into Ryan’s ear until it is healed.  He said if liquid gets into the rupture, it could damage Ryan’s hearing.  He suggested for baths to put a little piece of a cotton ball, coated with a little vaseline in Ryan’s ear, to seal out any water.  So I hope his ear heals with no incidents. 

The one thing that threw me off a bit in determining if Ryan really had the ruptured eardrum was the discharge.  I thought it had to be a liquid like water.  Dr. On-Call told me ruptured eardrums always produce blood and pus.  Evidently they can, but that isn’t always a symptom.  The drainage can be clear also.  If the child’s pillow has a dried residue on it, this is usually a sign of a rupture ear drum.  I found a good site last night that was very helpful with more information on ruptured eardrums from Medline Plus Encyclopedia. 

I think I’ll have to keep Ryan home from school in the morning- it is supposed to be cold and the class goes outside.  I don’t want cold air blowing in his ears, and his ear is still draining. 

Oh, I mentioned to our Dr. what Dr. On-Call said, and didn’t do.  He told me it can sometimes be hard for a doctor to diagnosis over the phone, without seeing the child.  I know that can be true, but jeez… this seemed pretty obvious to me, with no medical training, and my friend the P.A. nailed it, on-line, without ever seeing Ryan either.  I did let my doctor know that I wasn’t happy at all, with Dr. On-Call. 

It is so hard to see your child in pain, and you are absolutely helpless to make them feel better.  I learned that I have to be more insistent when dealing with the Dr. On-Call’s.  I hope there isn’t a next time, but if there is, I am not going to take “no” for an answer.  I will insist that Dr. On-Call at least look at Ryan, even if it means it disrupts the doctor’s Saturday. 

Categories
Activities Cole Family & Friends Health Mothering Parenting Ryan

Update & Party!

My blogging was pretty sparse this week- here are some of the reasons why-

  • Joe was out of town for work all week
  • Ryan was very sick yet again, with an ear infection, bronchitis, high fever, and the beginning of pneumonia
  • Didn’t sleep well at all- Ryan was up every 15 minutes at night, because of his fever
  • Had some stressful personal situations arise
  • Went to work- important project I had to work on
  • Trying to clean up the house for my sister’s visit on Friday

Fortunately, most of the issues have resolved- Joe will be back on Friday afternoon, Ryan started feeling better on Thursday night, I finished up my project at work (it went well, despite me trying to work on it with only two hours of sleep the night before), the personal situation is looking a lot better, and I wrapped up the cleaning tonight, so the house is half way presentable for company.

I am not sure what we are going to do on Friday with my sister- a lot of it depends on how Ryan is feeling.  I  hope he is over the worst of it by Saturday so he can go to my baby niece’s FIRST birthday party.  I’m excited for it, and I can’t believe that little baby girl is now a year old.  My sister is having a party for a few hours in a park near her home “in the big city.”  It should be lots of fun, and the weather is supposed to be nice too.

After the party my dad is having a get-together at his house , but I don’t think Ryan will be up to a full afternoon of playing in the park at the party, and then a late night.  But we’ll see how it goes.

On a happy note, Cole was just an absolute doll and angel this week.  It is like he just blossomed overnight.  He was so independent, entertaining himself, and playing by himself while I attended to Ryan all week.  He is getting to be such a big boy.  I am amazed that my niece is turning one, but Cole’s birthday is right around the corner, and I am just as amazed that he is going to be two.  I think my baby boy is disappearing more and more every day, and becoming this happy, independent, energetic little boy. 

Hopefully I’ll get some pictures of the boys at the party, and maybe a nice shot of the birthday girl herself.