re: Who else’s wife jumps the gun on taking kids to the doc?

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She also had a straddle injury on her new bike. She was about 8. Naturally, we took her to the DR. Also put a pool noodle on the center bar on her bike.

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Was she bleeding? What the heck is a Dr. going to do when a female hits a bike bar? I am truly curious. That's a "walk it off" injury, like a broken toe. What can a Dr. possibly do, unless there was a laceration?

Aside from the regular pediatrician visit we’ve never brought either of our kids to the doctor with the one exception being a broken collarbone.

I’m not opposed to bringing to the doctor but just haven’t needed to.

Wasn’t the ER baw. Primary Care had a spot for us

Appreciate the downvotes more evidence of the Pussification of the US

Our insurance isn’t good enough for that, but she definitely jumps the gun on giving medicine for every little cough, etc.

Despite the fear porn on Strep, your immune system will fight it just fine if given a chance.

My son had strep, got antibiotics, got strep again. After this cycle repeated 4 times, asked myself “Can I seriously give this kid antibiotics this often, at what point do I challenge get the system?”

Did my research and understood the alleged risks, next time he got strep, we let it ride. Healed in 8 days, has never had strep again in 8yrs.

IMO, a lot of this depends upon the symptoms and the kid. Some kids go from allergies to cough to pneumonia in the course of two days. You have to know your kid and recognize the symptoms. Some are prone to sinus infections and doing better getting meds quick. I think being a hypochondriac or playing tough guy “you’re just weak” isn’t the right approach.

For the “doctors are for pussies” crowd, I hope your kid never has an appendicitis issue.

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Am I being a hard arse or how does everyone else handle this stuff. Genuinely curious.

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I was talking to my wife about this the other day. Seems like every little sickness spell that pops up, moms these days are whisking the kid off to the doctor (or worse, the ER).

I work as an RN and my wife is a dental hygienist, so we collectively have more medical knowledge than the general public. With that being said, my wife is quicker than I to bring any one of our 4 kids to the pediatrician.

She’s on the same page as me with fevers (2 of our kids will get or has gotten 104-105 F fevers, and we will just give the usual Tylenol/ibuprofen combo and cool baths until it breaks). But if it’s ear or sinus related, she will get an appointment with the pediatrician if it hasn’t cleared up by day 3. 2 of our kids who have ear tubes have been on too many antibiotics already in their young lives. I’m in the camp that the body’s immune system will take care of it better than antibiotics. And to piggyback on strep, antibiotics only shorten the duration of symptoms by 24-36hrs at most. Antibiotic resistance is a real thing, and I believe in the near future, omnicef, amoxicillin, bactrim, etc will not even put a dent in these bacterial infections. Pumping these young children with antibiotics is gonna cause more problems than it is worth. Lots of research suggesting that it screws up the gut-neuro development and gut micro biome and has been linked to ADHD, IBS, and other problems.

Now, if one of our kids is wheezing with blue lips/fingers and breathing 40-50/times a minute, we will give a breathing treatment and steroids. If it persists longer than 12 hours with no signs of getting better, off to the pediatrician we go. Our 5-year-old was hospitalized Nov 2019 with pneumonia and RSV. After a day of trying to treat symptoms on our own, we brought him to the pediatrician and he was admitted to the hospital straight from there. Respiratory distress is something you don’t want to brush aside to see if it will clear up on its own (we probably should’ve brought him in sooner, but it was my own stubbornness that got in the way).