Weekly Medical Tips

Can your neti pot kill you?

Many may not know what a neti pot is "well it aides in cleaning out your sinuses." It is a small kettle that is filled with water and saline it's placed at your nostrils and poured with the head tilted back into the nose and it flushes out the nose. Many use it for a stuffy nose and sinus headache. Well it seems that two people have died from using their neti pot. The reason for the deaths are from amoeba's parasites that eat the brain. 

The water must be sterilized by boiling or use distilled water when using your neti pot. The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri are found in lakes, ponds and contaminated tap water. When ingested it's fine, but when placed in the nose it can cause symptoms resembling bacterial meningitis:headaches, vomiting and sleepiness. When the amoeba has reached the brain 95% of the time it's fatal. Death usually occurs 1 to 12 days later. The infection is known as amebic meningoencephalitis.

Chat Me More has written about amoeba in the summer, due to three people dying when they swam in a lake. The amoeba went through their nose while swimming. 

If you click on the right to the summer months you will be able to view the article. 

If you must use a neti pot boil the water or use distilled water. If you must swim in lakes or ponds use nose plugs. 

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/16/two-dead-in-louisiana-after-unclean-water-used-in-neti-pots/?hpt=he_c2

Weekly Medical Tips

Infants with Reflux

Chat Me More had a personal reason to inform parents what is reflux and what can help.

Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is the medical term for spitting up. It occurs when the stomach contents reflux back up into the esophagus or mouth and at times both. This is normal for infants and they may exhibit signs as refusing to eat, crying, arching the back and neck, choking and projectile vomit.

Studies have proven that 15 to 40 percent of infants with GER cannot tolerate milk protein. Infants that are experiencing these signs should talk to their pediatrician about formulas that eliminate milk and soy products. Thickening the formula can reduce the GER by adding rice cereal to the formula (1 tablespoon). 

Please speak to your pediatrician before changing formula and adding rice cereal.

http://www.uptodate.com/contents/patient-information-acid-reflux-gastroesophageal-reflux-in-infants

Weekly Medical Tips

Foster care children are being over medicated

Chat Me More found this article and news reports to be quite disturbing. Many parents are forced to put their children in foster care, due to circumstances. Parents are under the impression that their children are safe, but on the contrary children are being over medicated. The drugs that are in question are anti-psychotic medications and these drugs need to be monitored by a professional to limit suicidal thoughts in children. Many of these children are prescribed 5 drugs at a time and the doses are higher than FDA approval. The drugs are: Abilify, Seroquel, Risperdal and Zyprexa.  The most vulnerable are children that are less than a year old and foster children are twice as likely to be prescribed these drugs than non-foster children. A social worker from children services stated that "it is more cost effective to medicate these children than to spend $200 an hour for a therapist."

http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/12022011why-are-foster-children-overmedicated/