"I'm not cold!!"

HUMIDIFIER
---------------
borrow a humidity meter from your heating (gas/oil) service people .
your humidity should probably read around 40 (whatever the scale is) . the service people can tell you . you can buy your own , but don't know the price . particularly an older house will have lower humidity because it's not as airtight as newer ones .
of course , you don't want mold growing in the house , but in your/our climate with the furnace running there is probably not much chance of that in the winter .
(in the summer/fall we have to run a dehumidifier because of high humidity along the great lakes - the air-conditioner alone has a tough time removing enough humidity , also would make it rather cold if done through cooling only) .
we had a service chap come in to measure hmidity and give us some advice .

my gut seems to be doing fine again . i had just become a little lazy and didn't eat my oatmeal in the morning and neglected to take some metamucil . it always seems to do the trick ; it's just that it's a bit of bother to remember every morning - there is hope for this old dog , might remember the old tricks :wink: .
take care !
hbg

hi , soz !
when i entered my response last night , my mind was already in the bed :wink: .
i couldn't come up with the word HYGROMETER ; i figured humidity-meter would be close enough !
i've found a concise website by CMHC(canada mortgage and housing corporation) that will explain it all much better than i can .
there basic recommendations are to have an inexpensive hygrometer and take measurements over a period of time .
your NORMAL humidity reading should be between 30 and 50 . the colder it gets , the lower the reading will usually be .
our reading is usually about 35 - 40 . when it gets really cold in the winter and particularly if someone has a cold , we put a cold-mist humidifier into the room adjacent to the bedroom .
we used to have one of those steam-type humidifiers but they can be pretty dangerous if someone ever tips it over . the disadvantage of the cold-mist type is that it needs to be cleaned at least once a week - but no danger of getting scalded .
hope you are all well !
hbg(used to setting up a humidifier when a certain someone would come down with a cold :wink: )

link :
MAINTAINING PROPER HUMIDITY

soz, what type of heating system do you have?


(I probably knew once upon a time)

I forget the name... forced air, maybe?

Furnace in the basement, floor vents throughout, air is heated in the basement and then sent throughout the house from there.

The humidity-meter thingie sounds promising, hamburger, thanks! Plus the website, off to investigate that now...

(btw Miss Sickie is doing much, much better. Finally got a full night's sleep last night, no wee hour awakenings. She's still coughing occasionally but that's about it. No fever.)

yea , forced air - same as our house .
ebeth has a "fancy" hot-water heating system with those big radiators in all rooms . of course , she lives in a MANSION :wink: that was built around 1900 !
the forced air heating systems are a lot cheaper and heat up a house quickly but also dry out the air much more than the hot water system .
it's been staying cold throughout the day - minus 10 c , but lots of sunshine and blue sky - should make lake ontario freeze over early this year , if predictions for colder than normal winter hold true .
hbg

btw after we added insulation in the attic and insulated the basement walls - we did that ourselves about 30 years ago - we have used much less furnace oil and temperature/humidity are more constant .

OK, so E.G. agreed to get the humidifier! I tend to get these asthma-y coughing jags in the winter after I get a cold that drives him crazy. I left an article from the NYT out for him to see, with these passages highlighted:



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/health/nutrition/17BEST.html

He capitula... agreed.

Now, though, I'm having a hard time deciding what to get. I actually have right here a Holmes Cold Mist humidifier, bought because of the anti-bacterial properties it claims and because the Mayo Clinic webpage said that you should use cold mist rather than warm mist if kids are in the vicinity. I'm reading reviews of it and they're not that great, though.

Any specific models anyone has been using that they're happy with?
Thanks?

That is, Thanks! :-D

We bought this model
https://humidifierstore.essickair.com/c-13-multi-room-units.aspx
for asthmatic son #1 on the recommendation of a friend.

Soz--

Congratulations!

So...

It's been a good year. She's had a few minor illnesses -- a cold, a temporary (like, one night) tummy problem, nothing too bad. No trips to the emergency room! Very little school missed.

We were in Florida for about a week, and returned about a week ago. On the way there, she had severe pain in one ear on the airplane. I had Motrin with me and gave her some immediately, and also moved her -- she had been in the window seat and I remembered that I've had worse ear pain (pressure) in the window seat, especially on small planes (like the one we were on). It resolved pretty quickly, and gradually rather than all at once like with a perforation. I also checked carefully and there was no discharge/ drainage.

In Florida, she spent a lot of time with two very germy little boys, 16 months and 3.5 years. The little guy pretty much perpetually had green snot coming out of his nose. Sozlet was very snotty herself by the end of the trip -- I'd brought the bulb syringe and made sure my cousin had kosher salt and purified water, and made saline and cleared her out before we flew home. Also gave her Motrin before the plane trip.

The plane trip home was fine. Whew. No ear pain at all, and she was paying close attention.

She was somewhat stuffy after that -- I continued to do saline, and she was much better within a few days.

I wasn't concerned -- I figured that she was unexpectedly stuffy for the plane trip there (she wasn't obviously stuffy and I hadn't been doing saline in the stretch before the trip), and that some combination of pool frolicking (weather was too cold for ocean-swimming) and saline there had cleared up the problem enough that it wasn't an issue on the way home.

Saturday afternoon she mentioned her ear hurt (the left ear, the same one that had hurt on the plane). Hmm. Gave her some Motrin. Fine.

Sunday morning she woke up earlier than usual, saying her ear hurt again. It felt better once she sat up, and the pain wasn't much -- she described it as a pinprick of red in a circle about 4 inches in diameter. Gave her some Motrin.

She had a much-wanted playdate on Sunday, and really seemed completely fine -- no fever. Sent her on her way.

By the time we picked her up, she was hurting again. More Motrin did the trick, but I was concerned. I steamed her (bowl of steaming hot water, she leans over it with a towel over her head), and did saline, and gave her lots of fruit, and did everything else I could think of.

Sunday night, she started barfing. No real fever though. (I was second-guessing my hand-on-forehead method since she sure seemed like she should be feverish from circumstances and took her temp with a thermometer -- 99.4). That went on for a while. At about 3 AM I noticed some discharge in the left ear, and asked her if it hurt. No.

Perforated eardrum. Damn.

After that, more barfing and not much sleep in general.

She woke up early Monday morning (much earlier than I'd hoped) saying her right ear hurt.

Got her established downstairs and set out to a) get her re-hydrated and b) get her to the doctor. Managed to wrangle an appt. with the ENT we like so much (complicated and time-consuming). Appt. was at 2:00.

At about 9:00 AM, the left ear started leaking copiously. Before that there hadn't been much.

At about noon, she reported hearing "gurgling" in her right ear. Checked. Perforation. (She was on Motrin at the time. No pain reported at all.)

Good news was that she stopped the barfing once she was up for the day, and was eating/ drinking reasonably well. The trip to the doc seemed possible.

Went, and waited forEVER (consequence of fitting us in to a very busy day).

He cleaned her out (suction) and prescribed two kinds of antibiotics (oral and drops). No real analysis, just addressing the current situation, then follow-up in a month.

Not sure why now. My best guess is that she was stuffy and therefore a "tinderbox" -- this is what I remember from preschool. It's not that you can catch an ear infection per se, but that if you are already congested, the problematic bacteria can make their way to problematic places more readily. And she was exposed to a lot of stuff in Florida I think. More than she's used to in her only-child, first-grader life, I think. (Little guy ADORED sozlet and was draping himself over her at all times -- loved grabbing her nose. Etc.)

Maybe pure coincidence.

Upsetting, but:

- She didn't experience much pain with this one for some reason (or else she's more stoic than I realized)

- Even with two perforations her hearing isn't that bad -- don't get that (maybe very small perforations?) I thought she might be lipreading but she understands me even with a large book in front of my face.

She's relatively perky now, good appetite, eating well, etc. Never did have a significant fever. Main remaining issue is drainage, and whoa, what a lot. Still going in the left. ENT said not to worry yet, and it does seem to be slowing.

So. More discussion at the follow-up appt. Maybe tubes after all -- if I've just delayed it by a couple of years, that's OK with me. She knows how to swim. She's either at or just about at the point of growing out of it, Eustachian-tube-wise, so I'm less concerned about starting the intervention cascade (tubes, then adenoids, then...) We'll see.

Soz--

At least spring is in sight.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks, Noddy.

I second-guessed this:



and went back on this thread and was reminded of the hives/ pneumonia episode in November. Oy. That's why I have this thread, though, for some reason I have the hardest time remembering this stuff.

At least that one didn't end up in a trip to the ER.

Last ear infection before this was October 2005, so almost two and a half years. Sigh.

She's back at school today, fingers crossed. Leakage had pretty much stopped last night -- seemed to start again this morning but hard to tell. (Had to put drops in her ears and not clear if it was about the drops or more than that.) ENT emphasized that it was fine for her to go back to school even if there was still drainage, just put some cotton balls in her ears. I wrote a note to the teacher with all that info.

<fret>

She was out for a full two weeks, with spring break and extra days missed for our trip, so she got a BIG welcome when she showed up.

By the way, tubes are supposed to stay in for up to a year -- so if she'd gotten them in Jan 2005 when they were first supposed to happen, they would have been out again by the time this happened. I.e. tubes, if inserted back when they were being urged, probably wouldn't have prevented this.

(Yes, I'm seeking to reassure myself... really thought we were over the ear infections, that she'd grown out of susceptibility.)

One thing I don't think I've said specifically is that her hearing has been very good this year. Last year, in kindergarten, she had some fluid and some hearing loss (but no infections). This year her hearing has been great.

Sozobe--

No one every said that Real Mothers have to Know Everything and be able to predict the future in minute detail.

Don't be flaky.

I'll try.

I'm most worried about permanent hearing loss.

Her hearing is again iffy, but follow-up appt. with ENT soon. I expect it's fluid.

Would like to redouble investigation into WHY she's so stuffy so much. Maybe another allergy beyond the ~60 she was already tested for? Or a problems with adenoids/ tonsils?

I'm wondering if it's adenoids because it seems to get better every year. The doc thought not because of the seasonal aspect, but she's in the pool every day the weather permits in the summer, and being in the pool seems to help, I noticed that this winter too.

Anyway, came here to note briefly that she had strep last week (actually pretty minor illness for her as these things go -- main challenge was getting enough food and drink into her due to the sore throat, but no barfing. Sore throat is an unusual symptom for her so I took her to the doc on Friday even though she hadn't been sick for 48 hours yet, which was the recommendation on Mayo etc., since I didn't want to have to do something on the weekend. Doc did the throat-swab test, it was strep, gave prescription for antibiotics, picked them up on the way home, and she was pretty much normal by Saturday AM.)

BUT... #1 side effect of antibiotics is nausea, and I didn't give her enough food with her evening dose last night. So we got some barfiness out of this illness after all. (Mercifully brief, and then she slept fine after that and woke up so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that I took her to school after lunch.)

Such a versatile child!

It will get better, sozobe. It seems, from preschool on until second/third
grade, the kids are constantly sick - mainly due to sick class mates passing on their bacilli and germs. I had noticed a sharp decline in 4th and 5th
grade with Jane, and this school year she had the sniffles once, and only
because she was up in the snowy mountains for a week - something
she's not used to.

Hey, that's encouraging! Thanks.