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Home > Portable Practical Pediatrics > Interesting Conversations with Parents March 2016 (Pedcast)
Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Interesting Conversations with Parents March 2016 (Pedcast)
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2016-03-28 07:22:35
Description: Topic Introduction Welcome to another edition of Portable Practical Pediatrics, home of pedcasts. From the womb to the W-2, if the subject involves children, we take it on here. A few months ago i started a new series of pedcasts I call"Interesting Conversations with Parents" and I must say, these posts have been particularly popular with my listeners. The parents of the children I take care are so interesting, curious, and informed and they bring up the most interesting things in our time at the office--they never cease to amaze me and i must share some of these conversatins.  In today's pedcast, I going to bring a few more of the recent "Interesting conversations" I have had with parents in the past month. So, sit back and enjoy the conversation. Musical Introduction Conversation 1:  A few days ago I was doing a checkup of a young school age child. His mom was with him and the conversation turned to his peanut allergy. Unfortunately, this is a conversation I have all too often these days. I know that this is an emotionally charged topic anytime the subject of food allergy comes up. In fact, peanut allergy reactions are the most common trigger for severe life threatening food reactions in America today, and parents know that. No wonder parents get so freaky about the subject. I would too, especially considering that their children often are eating away from home where their  parents can't supervise their food. It' s very frightening. During our conversation, this mom turned to me and asked "Have you heard of a "menu card"?  Well, actually, I had not. She explained to me that this is a card that the family or child takes to a restaurant to inform the chef that one of their diners has a life threatening food allergy. I subsequently learned that they are also  more called "Chef cards". Well, this was the first that I had heard of these cards but I am glad she told me about them. They sound like a great idea and they are becoming more and more commonly used. From there, our conversation turned to food testing and specifically, food challenges to diagnose food allergy or determine whether these allergies had disappeared.  A food challenge is the ultimate way allergists determine that someone is not allergic.  I was telling this mom of a growing trend that i have read and heard about from parents, that of testing children with suspected food allergy, not in an allergist's office or health facility but rather, in the family car, outside a health facility in case a child does have a serious reaction. This practice is even mentioned in this NY times article on childhood food allergy I have a link to in the Smo notes of this pedcast. I guess this practice makes some sense but I am not endorsing it. And while we are talking about foods as allergens, just for fun, try this food allergy quiz I came across during my research for this pedcast. See how you do. I learned a few new things taking it and I bet you will too. Make sure you look up the foods you are unsure of.                       Conversation 2: It is winter in Charlotte right now which means it is cold and flu season.   Last week I was talking to the family of a sick child whose family was from India. The child had a lower respiratory illness with a bad cough. After I did my assessment, I came to the conclusion that he had an uncomplicated viral illness, requiring nothing more than time, symptomatic treatment, and some tender loving care. I went through the usual symptomatic measures that I usually recommend, honey, Vicks rub,  a humidifier for the cough, saline for the nose, and chicken soup as a natural form of aspirin.  As I uttered the chicken soup words I realized that this family might be vegetarian and sure enough they were, but this mom quickly replied, "No worries, we have our Indian vegetarian version of chicken soup for sickness."  She said it is a soup made with,  "Lentil broth, curry, tumeric, and garlic.
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