I could still hear him cough late at night. It was already 4 weeks since he came down with the cough since we got back from our vacation in end August. We visited the pediatrician twice in that 4 weeks and the p.d. told me that if K’s cough did not recover, he will be placed on a course of antibiotics. I was not keen at all to even let K start on antibiotics.

Towards the beginning of October, K seemed to have recovered from his cough and phelgm. But somehow, he still coughed intermittently in his sleep. I was getting quite perplexed with his cough that did not seem to go away. We avoided cold drinks and his favorite dessert, ice cream…the last time Kyle had ice cream was in August. I even tried chinese herbs; nán xīn, běi xīn and chuān bèi boiled with corn/apple soup. However K’s taste buds are too discerning.

Until that fateful evening and following morning, K had his first taste of M & M’s chocolate and went to the Barrage for some waterplay. He ended up with a running nose and dry cough thereafter.

I decided to call it quits with prescribed medicine and use western herbal remedies which has worked very well for me. Previously at the advice of one of dh’s business associates, vitamin C, garlic pills, Echinacea pills worked wonders for his health. He was apparently down with pneunomia very often in his childhood years and he started being in perfect health ever since he started with this ‘concoction’ of natural remedies in his adult years. He is now in his early 60s and he told us he has never been sick with flu or viral infections for the past 30 years.

After hearing all of that, I went ahead to stock up on Echinacea, garlic pills and Vitamin C. And started taking a dosage of these pills and drinks lots of water whenever I feel under the weather. Within 2 days or so, I will be perfectly well and will show no signs of the flu.

There was this other remedy which I spend quite a while to researching; Nat Mur. Nat Mur is a natural tissue salt that is very effective in treatment of Coughs, colds and Influenza: Thin watery runny nose and dry hacking cough. Which were the exact symptoms that K had 2 days ago.

Previously I got this, consisting Nat Mur + other natural ingredients and tried this together with only vitamin c. Within 2 days, I did not show any more symptoms of flu. And it also work wonders for my helper, who has this tendency to get the flu quite often.

So I thought it will be safe to try it with K (since it is all natural ingredients) and went to get these products formulated for kids. Kiddieboost with echinacea to boost his immune system, Comficoff for his cough, Sniffly Sprinkles (which he loves the texture and taste of it) containing Nat Mur and a chest rub for easy breathing during sleep. All these can be used together with Vitamin C, added ginger in our soups, as well as lots of drinking water. And the wonderful thing is that since this morning, K has no more running nose and cough!

Lately, I been rather influenced by this book written by Roberts Mendelsohn , a late renowned US pediatrician. This book is a loan from Lay Keng (Seth’s mom, she has raise 3 other kids apart from Seth) and it has a rather unconventional view of ‘avoid your doctor whenever you can’. Excerpt from the book about coughs and running noses:

‘If the nasal secretions are clear, gray or white, your child is probably the victim of a viral infection such as the common cold or influenza…Common colds and influenza do not require medical treatment and the medications often used to trat them, will merely relieve symptoms. The effects of doing this may be counterproductive, because they interfere with the body’s efforts to cure itself.

Short of obviously severe respiratory difficulties, parents should avoid taking their child to the doctor or giving him over the counter medictaions for the treatment of symptpms. The drugs commonly used…include decongestons, expectorants, antihistamines, cough supressants, pain relievers and antibiotics. They have several things in common: they are unnecessary; they sometimes have undesirable or dangerous side effects; they may interfere with the body’s own efforts to defeat the disease and they are a waste of money.’

Indeed…we should stop drugging our children and instead should look at the alternatives from nature that we can used to hasten their recovery. The same also applies for us adults.

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