We’re now well into the series about Child Diseases Parents Should Know, part four in fact.
What we’re really doing is taking a nostalgic look at the old “second brain” binder which I (along with every other pediatric resident in the world) kept during my four years of medical school and years of pediatric training.
We carried them incessantly, used them constantly and experienced separation anxiety whenever we were parted.
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Conjunctivitis, or “Pink Eye” as it is commonly called, is a highly contagious infection but a bit difficult to diagnose separate from “allergic eyes” caused by pollens and other irritants. Additionally, if it is an infection, it may be caused either by a virus (more common, must run its course) or a bacteria (less common and needs antibiotic drops to heal). This link is to a video of a physician discussing Pink Eye.
Once the two “pre-clinical” years of medical school were completed, all us “padawans” donned our new white clinical coats and headed for the various hospitals in town where we would begin two years of “clerkship rotations” in varied medical specialties to learn about adult and child diseases.
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This is part 2 in the series about Child Diseases parents should all know about which came from an idea suggested by viewing another site that had a good idea but which plastered so many scam advertisements on the pages that I wouldn’t dream of recommending it.
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A few days ago I ran across a medical blog site which had the temerity to post with the title “Illnesses Parents Should All Know About” – talking about children’s illnesses of course.
I attempted to post a link to the page for you but found: First – the site tried to scam identifiable personal information before entering; and Second – it was so full of crap advertisements that I wouldn’t have endorsed the page anyway.
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This series of posts were some of the very first postings of my website. And, they came about because of how upset I was about finding a web-scammer who used the exact same title but demanded private information from parents before they could even see their full post!
In addition, once I filled in their form with fictitious information, their whole site was nothing but lies, half-lies and advertisements! I resolved then and there to make my own page to fight their self-serving rhetoric and misinformation, and mine would be free!
This is the effort. I covered pretty much all of the most common, most dangerous and most misled diseases I routinely saw; but, couldn’t do them justice in only one post so it became a series: Child Diseases.
11 Posts in "Childhood Diseases" Series
- Childhood Diseases Parents Should Know: Intro/Index – 15 Jul 2014
A series of the most common childhood diseases that are either so common or so deadly that all parents should know about them
- Part 1 - Croup, Bronchiolitis – 17 Jul 2014
Creating our own list of "diseases all parents should know about" so you don't have to go to the scam site on the internet by the same name, we begin with parhaps one of the most common but frightful diseases for new parents to deal with: Croup and Bronchiolitis.
- Part 2 - Otitis, Glue ear – 21 Jul 2014
If you're considering the diseases that all parents should know about, ear infections are hands-down the most common. Why should you know about them? Because they can lead to what some people call "glue ear" and that can mean surgery. Here's all about it.
- Part 3 - Hand, Foot, Mouth and Fifth disease – 29 Jul 2014
Hand-Foot-Mouth (yes it's really called that, even by doctors), Pink Eye (conjunctivitis) and Fifth Disease (yes this too) are a cluster of annoying maladies that I'd bet you don't get out of parenthood without knowing about. Real common, not usually so significant that they're talked about.
- Part 4 - Rotavirus - Kawasaki's – 10 Aug 2014
The next two diseases all parents should know about are Rotavirus and Kawasaki's viruses, producing diarrhea and… well, Kawasaki disease; also called mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome, an import from Japan via Mexico.
- Part 5 - Varicella - Rubella – 18 Aug 2014
One of the legacies my generation was most proud of leaving you, our grandchildren, was the eradication of Varicella, Measles, Mumps and Rubella; BUT, we were waylaid by your parents! They ALL are coming back now because of the needless hysteria over vaccinations. So, there on the list of things you SHOULD know as parents.
- Part 6 - Diptheria - Tetanus – 3 Sep 2014
After last week's post I remembered another "broken" legacy due to vaccination hysteria: Diptheria, Pertussis (Whooping Cough) and Tetanus—real killers from my parents' day that we licked and now are coming back to haunt are great-grandkids. All easily prevented by the DPT shot.
- Part 7 - Meningitis - Scarlet Fever – 11 Sep 2014
Deadly and debilitating, both are dangerous maladies plaguing every family with an involved child before the advent of Penicillin, pretty much the first antibiotic. Meningitis was almost uniformly fatal and "strep" throat debilitatingly producing scarlet fever and heart disease. These too, all parents should know about if only to provided historical context and understanding about why we think and do like we do.
- Part 8 - Polio - MRSA – 23 Sep 2014
A "first" memory of my childhood was going door-to-door collecting for "penny's by the inch" fund for Polio, a untreatable virus which either killed a person or sent them into an "iron lung" until the virus ran its course. MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus) is a bug-a-boo that this generation needs to fight because we're running out of antibiotics that work (for reasons covered elsewhere).
- Part 9 - Impetigo - Influenza – 1 Oct 2014
Impetigo and Ringworm are common skin infections with "hidden" sequelae that come in the back door if they're not treated. Influenza still kills babies and grandparents while making the rest bed-riddenly ill. Fortunately, there are vaccines now readily available for all ages although annoyingly need to be repeated each year.
- Part 10 - Lyme - Allergies – 9 Oct 2014
Ticks cause Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, so let's talk about them; and, I almost forgot about allergies, we absolutely cannot forget them. Every parent should know about allergies.
I mentioned about the legacy my generation wanted to leave our great grandkids but was needlessly undone by our grandkids, If you’d like to know more about that, I’ve written more in Pediatric Immunization: A Complicated Issue.
If you take any physician… well, any one older than about 50, and ask them: “give me the top three reasons you went into practicing medicine” an answer of “I like to teach” will be somewhere on the list.
[And, NO, “so we can stick people with sharp things” isn’t on the list. Contrary to what you may think, that’s rarely all that much fun.]
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This post will finish our nostalgic wanderings through the “Numbered Diseases of childhood,” which we’ve been undertaking for several weeks. We are finally at SIXTH disease.
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Remember a couple-three weeks ago, when we started this little vintage trek through “the Numbered Diseases of childhood”, I sort of poked fun at the new-fangled-kid doc who sat in the back row and thought that a “pox” was a “rash”?
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We’ll continue our chats about “the Numbered Diseases of childhood” by discussing today FOURTH Disease and the unique circumstances about this number.
You remember from our previous discussions that the physicians in 1905 tried to streamline all the names of the rash-causing diseases by giving them numbers, one through six – oh, for the days!
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This is the fourth of our chats about “the Numbered Diseases of childhood” proposed in 1905 to list all the (then known) diseases which caused rashes and were killing off a sizeable portion of the population each year. Today we’re on ‘ol “Number Three” – Rubella!
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Frankly, the “Numbered Diseases” were just a touch before my time; but, that only means that none of the actual textbooks I used still called them by that name NOT that I haven’t cared for patients with that disease – because I have… lots of ’em!
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