What do you do when your child has a fever?

When your child has a fever, what do you do? Give him/her Tylenol or something similar to bring it down? Do you use essential oils? Does the child typically have a fever for several days? Or does it go away fast? I know there can be a variety of answers, so here I will go and tell you about what I do when my kid has a fever. Of course, it happened recently and while it’s never easy, it’s always a learning experience.

On Mother’s Day, I was able to get some time to myself (by doing a nice 8-mile run at the Chattahoochee River with a friend) and then met up with my family. My son had a flag football game that we were going to, yet he was acting a bit tired. It was 90-degrees and being outside at a football game was not going to be a good idea. However hanging out together on the couch was a much better way to spend Mother’s Day. J So we headed home and started to watch some movies. After a few hours, his core body temp was getting warmer (I believe that just touching the back & belly gives a better idea of body temperature than feeling a forehead). Finally we pulled out the thermometer and sure enough, the fever was up to over 100. He was getting more & more uncomfortable, so I checked & adjusted him, gave him some water, and we stayed on the couch. We spent the afternoon there, snuggling a bit watching movies & basketball games.

Sure I could have gotten some Tylenol, but that would have brought the fever down. Wait…isn’t that what I want? Well yes, but I don’t want it to happen artificially. As uncomfortable as they can be, fevers are actually one of the body’s most powerful defense mechanisms. They’re a good indication that the body is fighting back against infection or disease by raising the body’s temperature in order to fight off the toxins and “bugs”.

So when you bring down the fever with medication, then the body can’t do what it is designed to do. The fever will come down, the problem will remain, and when the medication wears off, the fever comes back. And that is why kids tend to get fevers that come & go for days, because the medication doesn’t allow the body to heal.

So we monitored our son, and by the time he went to bed the fever was 102.9. I diffused some essential oils (I didn’t want to put them on his body since I still wanted his body to fight the fever), I said some prayers and kissed him good night. It was not easy because as a mom, you hate to see your kid uncomfortable. You want to help in every way, and I knew that the best way to help him was to let his body do what it needed to do. I checked on him often as he slept all night long. The fever broke overnight and in the morning, his fever was down to 99 and by the end of the day it was back to normal. So for us, the best thing was to let his body do what it needed to do.

This is not the first time he’s had a fever. Each time we’ve done what we did here, which is probably why he got through this fine. His immune system is pretty strong, he’s fought off fevers before, which is always building strength to fight it again. As parents, we get to choose what to do when our kids get sick and how we “treat” them. I trust that the body has an inborn intelligence that knows exactly what to do, if we give it time, feed it proper nutrition, stay free of nerve interference (get adjusted), and rest. Sometimes outside medications are necessary, yet in this instance, adjustments, fluids, rest & time was just what he needed to heal. And now, he is that much stronger the next time a fever strikes.

Be well ~

Dr. Pam