Aug 18 2008
How Not to Treat Congestion
A few weeks ago my son had a slight cold. It didn’t develop into anything major (thank goodness) but the congestion that was left over from it was hanging on for a couple of weeks afterward. In an effort to clear the last of it up I decided to get a little drastic. He’s not quite two yet so I was advised against using any cold remedy designed for kids. I did a ton of reading and found frustratingly conflicting advice about dealing with it. Half of what I read said to decrease milk intake - the old theory that milk and dairy contribute to mucus. There’s a new thought though that milk consumption has nothing to do with mucus so it’s pointless to cut it from the diet. Whatever. I needed to take action.
I decided to reduce the milk and see what happened. The first couple of days I just replaced one meal serving of milk with juice or water. No change. I then spent an entire day in at my office and then went to dinner with my son in the evening. Here’s how it played out - for lunch we met a friend at a restaurant and I ordered him orange juice instead of milk. He drank the whole cup and seemed okay with it. At dinner he was slightly cranky and demanding milk. It was a Japanese food restaurant and they didn’t have any. I tried him with water but he wasn’t having it. In a panic I asked them for juice. The first response was they didn’t have that either. Then they dug up a personal size can of pineapple juice and brought it out. All seemed well - until the next day.
I had over-juiced. Poop time was a mess. It only got worse from there. The congestion did clear up quickly but the diarrhea situation was even less pleasant to deal with. I checked my pediatrician’s website and it informed me that milk can make diarrhea worse so we should cut down on milk . . . and juice. That meant he would be mostly on Pedialyte and water for a few days. Sigh.
It actually took almost a week to completely clear up. It would get better then come back. Once, about four days in when I thought he was better, we happened to meet someone at a Mexican restaurant where he insisted on beans and rice (his favorite). That was a major setback - and really dumb on my part.
Lesson learned. In fact, I learned two lessons 1) Don’t over-juice under any circumstances, and 2) Japanese and Thai food restaurants often don’t have milk or juice - this doesn’t mean we can’t go there but I need to make sure my son is in a good enough mood to not throw a fit about having water with his veggie tempura. Fascinating.
