amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

MotherMoon · 05-24-2004, 05:11 PM

Beth had pertussis last summer. She had been vaxed for it. Well, it is just hanging on. She is fine unless she gets a cold or has some dairy. Then she gets this terrible congested cough over and over til nearly vomitting. How can I help her get over this? Obviously, avoid dairy. But any congestion brings it back on - allergies (seasonal), smoke, cold, etc. Thanks.

Akayasmama · 05-28-2004, 10:42 PM

There is a lot of info in the Mothering forums - in the vax threads. I think high doses of Vitamin C is recommended .

Rach · 05-28-2004, 10:50 PM

This is only to help with the allergy response. But, DS has asthma that is triggered by allergies, and during his allergy time, we give him Ec;ectic stinging nettle. We have been amazed. Good luck! We are not vaxed, so there but for the grace of God go I.

05-31-2004, 06:08 AM

HI Michelle,

I saw your post a few days ago and hadn't had time to write. Glad to see you are getting a few replies. It is painful to watch your child cough their lungs out and strain and turn blue. I hear ya, babe!

I just wanted to say that I have had a daughter who had Pertussis when she was 18 mos old and it was a really hard deal. She is now 10 yrs old and I believe she has always been more prone to respiratory -- more frail, more prone to illness, coughs, croup, esp, since then. In the course of raising my children, I have to say that I believe your best hope is to consider constitutional treatment through homeopathy. It is great for treating 'NBW' conditions: Never Been Well since... as homeopathy goes to the deeper levels, and can be helpful in dealing with this at the root.

My daughter also has been a high need, intense type person, and I felt like -or I used to intensely believe it-- that this had an onset of after the Pertussis,as this was where life became difficult for her on a physical level...same time she also developed eczema. and I treated this with homeopathy, and was successful. I saw top level homeopath who could not bring cure, but perservered and was rewarded. The homeopathic community is close knit, and if you need further help, you can work your way in to see top-level homeopaths, as we were then graced with a very well known homeopath, Henny Heudens-Mast, in a teaching situation, and she indeed helped Rachael in a lot of ways.

I am rambling now ~ needless to say ~ do look at diet, it can cure so very much!! Have you tried non-invasive vega testing? This can be helpful. Make a family change ~ do it while they are little, it is so much easier, really!

I don't vax my kids except for tetanus, and strangely last fall, we had a big pertussis scare, and in our exposure, we were coming down w/ colds/ coughs, could have been it, and I made a major compromise by putting our whole family on antibiotics preventatively. Once I had lived through it and experienced the long term consequences ~ I was more than willing to do antibiotics, which really stunk ~ most of has hadn't ever even had them before, and me it had been 7 yrs!

My kids are now 12, 10, 7, and 4 and I wish I had insisted on cleaner food choices years ago, as it is easier when they are little! It is somewhat of a battle now. Like their penchant for fried food ; ) Not like we eat at McDonalds or anything, but if it were my choice, (no kid pressure), we would eat no sugar, be eating raw diet, etc. Hard to do that without family support.

Feel free to write with questions.

Bright blessings!
Meag

www.fairycove.com

MotherMoon · 05-31-2004, 10:26 AM

Since I originally posted, she has been off dairy except one glass of milk at my aunts. Boy, you could tell it was the milk. She is doing much better off of it. No coughing spells in the night, much less congestion in the day, etc.

Dairy was already severely limited in our house as I do not feel it is needed unless it is human milk. I am allergic, my 3 y/o is intolerant. But, I had not been able to get Beth to eat cereal with anything else. Now she has decided she does not like the Silk either but with summer here, breakfast is nto so rushed. We eat about 90 to 95% organic and the girls eat a lot of raw foods. I am the one that can't. We are also gluten free. So their diet is fairly good compared to most folks. I would still like it to be better. At home, sugar is fairly low but out of the house it is harder. Relatives try, thankfully, but are just hard to keep informed about the meaning of terms the food industry uses.

I am starting her on some of the tinctures my youngest is on. She is not happy. Some are strong.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

06-06-2004, 02:20 PM

HI Michelle...

Sounds like you are really on top of this whole thing. I am so used to people denying the relation of diet to health in their efforts to rationalize their bad habits! I commend you, Mama!

It seems like you are exploring a lot of herbal routes, which is a great way to go.

The only thing I can add to what you are already doing is that you do consider a classically trained homeopath who might help with the constitutional situation, which has been affected as a result of the Pertussis. You have a 'never been well since' situation and they can help. As you know, life makes changes, and we can only roll with it! I found it worthwhile to explore this area with my own 'nbws' chlild. I can look one up for you, I have a National Center for Homeopathy directory, or I am sure they can now be found online.

Also, regarding food. Couple of ways to diagnose food stuff.. besides obvious causal relationships. 1) vega testing is non-invasive allergy testing. uses a probe that simply touches their body on acupuncture meridians. 2) even more ethereal is contact reflex analysis (C.R.A) where you muscle test with her sitting on your lap and bringing foods into her field and testing the muscle response of your thumb and middle finger. If you need info on that, I can have a phone chat and tell you how. Let me know.

Namaste,
Meag

PS I noticed you are into fairies... take a moment and check out my website sometime. WE adore them! www.fairycove.com

anni · 06-08-2004, 12:24 AM

just want to add to what has been said........I knew a child who had pertusis (sp) and that child coughed for over a year.
Funny it just occured to me that child had terrible exzema also hmmmmm
will also add I had my oldest tested with I beleive the CRA aand it showed tons of food sensitivities..not allergies, sensitivities.

good luck
anni

06-08-2004, 12:47 AM

HI Anni,

I would add that in Chinese medicine, they consider the skin the '3rd lung' and that which is pushed inward -- eczema treated with cortisones, etc, often evolves into asthma.

Perhaps this isn't new information, but I find it really goes along with the medical model put forth by George Vithoulkas ( a famous greek homeopath) who writes so eloquently in his book, "medicine of a new man"??? this book is a very easy read and intro to homeopathy from the classical perspective.

Meag