Torran has a night time post nasal drip. Maybe it's fall allergies (I have seasonal allergies myself), or maybe it's exposure to the cesspool of preschoolers who cough without covering their mouths or sneeze all over the shared toys that don't get wiped up right away.
Along with other countries, Health Canada deters the sale of cough syrup for sale for children under six. Basically, the same products are available for over the counter sale, but no information is provided on the packaging for dosing under six years old. This decision stems from an expert panel in 2008 and is meant to prevent the complications of medicine use, misuse and overdose in young children. In fact, a pharmacist will not assist you with dosing your under 6 year old child, and you'll be hard pressed to find the information directly from the manufactures, who make the suggestion "not reccommended under the age of 6".
Specific medications in the combination OTC drugs are of concern, namely the medications that stop the runny nose, or the cough. The recommended treatment of fever is still OTC Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen (in whatever brand label you wish).
But this safety change in practice is not going to stop children under 6 from getting sick, being sick, or needing treatment for being sick.... or their parents from stressing out about it.
Bruce and I have been aware of this little fact since Torran's first cold in 2008. The nasal drip he has at the moment is really only a problem at night, especially when he sleeps on his back. The fluid drips down to the back of his mouth/throat, collects and causes him to cough and gag, and us to lose sleep. When we sleep at night, our respirations become more slow and shallow and that doesn't help to clear these wee secretions from his airways either. So, like with any cough, the cough is worse in the morning. During the day, he may cough a handle of times. And he hasn't had a fever, so I don't even know if it is a true "cold".
When I got home from work yesterday, Bruce showed me a homeopathic remedy proudly labelling itself for children 0-6 years of age with cough and a cold.
Now, typically, a "modern" cough and cold OTC med would have as many as four ingredients: something for pain and fever, something to decongest, something to encourage coughing (for wet or congested coughs) and something to keep the person from getting drowsy from the decongestant and expectorant. Each of those *could* be sold individually, but then the company would lose it's marketability for having the "cure all" drug. Moreover, people would have to decide for themselves what drug they want and how much of it they need (shocking!!!).
This homepathic pediatric cough medicine has 10 active medicinal ingredients. TEN! I took a list and the bible on the side of the box and immediately questioned one drug in particular - Belladona, also known Deadly Nightshade, Devil's Berries, or Death Cherries.
Atropa belladona grows wild and is farmed, and has long been known as a pharmaceutical agent. It was used by 14th century medieval Italian women to dilate their pupils which would give the impression of heightened sexuality (the name Belladonna meaning beautiful lady), and it was well known as a paralytic agent (refs: Celia Fisher). A hundred years earlier, it was know that Belladonna was toxic, a single drop from a quill mixed in with large amounts of fat could be applied to a wound to help it heal - any more than that and the belladonna would "eat and perforate the flesh" (ref: Hildegard von Bingen, transl. Bruce Hozeski).
And this confuses me. They're not allowed to sell, and as parents we're not "allowed" to give decongestants to our children under 6 because of overdosing risk, but they can sell and we can give them a paralytic poison and there's no concern that a parent could overdose their child on this item?
The box lists the belladonna to treat "cold and fever symptoms". Belladonna is not an antipyretic, so how can it treat the fever? As for cold symptoms, the US MedlinePlus references the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (only partially available without a subscription) to state that there is insufficient evidence to rate the effectiveness of belladonna on whooping cough and bronchial asthma. Note, these are not common "cough and colds"... which may not require anticholinergic antispasmotic paralytic agents to treat them. What these websites do provide, is helpful information about side effects that are often missing from cursory web searching with generalized information about belladonna.
In fact, the product insert inside the box proclaims "no side effects" without any asterix on the claim... which is complete nonsense because EVERYTHING whether natural or chemically created has the potential to have a side effect to someone. You can't have billions of people living in the world and expect them to all react the same way or not have a reaction at all (not even to oxygen... talk to a respirologist about the negative effect of oxygen on someone with COPD).
The information panel on the box soundly lists Health Canada's web site at the bottom of it, but it's not in reference to this product in particular. Rather, it's Health Canada's general information about natural products (which I am finding particularly unhelpful at the moment). In fact, a cursory glance through the web site doesn't even have the product listed... and yes, it is made in Canada.
I don't have a problem with homeopathy if it is responsibly marketed and used. Once, I found pills of Willow's bark in a naturopathy store that failed to warn the buyer of it's anticoagulation effects. Aspirin comes from Willow's bark. If you already take aspirin or other anticoagulants, you're increasing the effect if you add Willow's bark "for aches". That particular bottle (at the time) also failed to warn against allergic reaction to aspirin. Most people who are allergic to aspirin know because they've taken a pill form in the past. Generally, people don't go around chewing on tree bark to find out they are allergic to it. So, see what I mean? Not really responsible.
Am I going to give this product to Torran again? Probably not. It didn't do anything to stop the trickle and cough during the night. He's used a steroid nasal spray before when he had over six weeks of trickle and cough last winter (during which he had two viral colds). We'd only use it sparingly because nasal sprays have side effects, not the least of which is rebound symptoms. I'll give it another week and see how he does. I don't think he's losing sleep over it, although it wakes me up, and he's otherwise his usual go go go self.
I may have given myself another project though, in the investigation of this permitted product. It has other stuff in it like Chamomile, which is sedative but generally harmless. But then it also has caffeine (coffea cruda) which is a bronchodilator and a stimulant. The product isn't labelled non-drowsy; it's a "night-time" formula. So why does the coffee even need to be in there?
And in case I am going to get any flame emails or comments from people who are soundly homeopathic, please let me re-iterate. I am not against the use of less chemically created medicines. "natural" truly isn't natural any more, really... Rosemary is a wonderful astringent but damned hard to get the fine bits of soil off of it... but you won't see soil in the products you purchase. That's the effect of "modern" technology. I also critise "modern" pharmaceuticals and marketing in the same way. Just not in this blog entry.
2 comments:
In searching for things to help ease our baby's teething discomfort, we turned to homeopathic ideas simply because there was absolutely nothing available other than ibuprofen or acetaminophen. I found a teething ointment (that she didn't freak out just at the taste of) but it contained belladonna. We used it a couple of times but it didn't have much, if any affect so we stopped using it. The other thing that was recommended to us was having her wear a necklace of amber chips, close to her body. The thought being that the amber rubbing against the skin would be absorbed and thus help alleviate some discomfort. Again, we really didn't notice any difference in her discomfort. Hopefully she'll get these teeth through soon and we won't have to worry about it anymore. It's so difficult seeing your child in pain.
For most parents, yes, seeing a child sick or in discomfort is more worrying than the cause of the problem itself. Torran's cough became worse during the last couple of days and he developed intermittent fever, but he was still active and otherwise "well" (eating a bit less, which tells us he's under the weather!). I broke the rules and dosed him on my own with dimetapp but then I think we accidentally recycled the box with the chewable tablets in it! For lack of a better option, we tried the homeopathic syrup again, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Belladonna can be effective for calming coughs and drying up secretions, but perhaps in larger doses than is safe enough to give to children... or at least, you'd have to be a pretty ballsy natural pharmaceutical company to do scientific study on it it's effectiveness. I can imagine that pitch to a parent... well maybe your child will have a placebo, but maybe they'll have an increasing dose of belladonna which at some point could be toxic... not a study I personally would sign up for! We've been force feeding him honey (he doesn't like the texture and it makes him gag) twice a day because it is well known for it's healthy properties. But the bottom line will probably come down to waiting to have this virus play out its course, and watching for secondary infection or bronchitis.
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