The Top 5 Mistakes Parents Make When Their Child Has a Fever with Dr. Elisa Song

There is a reason why when we are sick, we act grumpy or sad. We want to be alone. You know, we want to lay on the couch, we want to sleep all day. We don't really want to eat. There is a process called sickness behavior that we can define from that inflammatory process that's going on in our bodies and that sickness behavior which occurs in every single animal species in the world. That sickness behavior helps us get better.

Welcome to the Drew Perrott Podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness medicine and mindset. This Week's guest is Dr. Elisa Song. And today with Dr. Song, we're talking about the top five mistakes that parents make when their child has a fever. What are well intentioned parents doing wrong? And is there a better way to go about treating a fever? We're going to cover all of that in detail today with Dr. Song. Now a little bit more about Dr. So she's an integrative pediatrician, pediatric functional medicine expert, and of course a loving mother. In her integrative pediatric practice, Whole Family Wellness, she's helped thousands of kids get to the root cause of their health concerns and help their parents understand how to help their child thrive both in body, mind and spirit by integrating conventional pediatrics with functional medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine and essential oils. Dr. Song is also the creator of Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, an online holistic pediatric resource to help practitioners and parents bridge the gap between conventional and integrative pediatrics with an evidence based pediatrician backed approach. Stay tuned for a fantastic podcast on all things about treating fevers in Kids with Dr. Elisa Song.

Dr. Song, welcome back to the podcast. Pleasure to have you here. Today we're talking all things integrative and functional pediatrics. Let's start off with the first question. What are the top mistakes that parents make when their child has a fever? This is a big one.

It is a big one because so many parents and practitioners have so many misconceptions around fever. A lot of fears around fever. And I would say that is mistake number one. The top, top, top mistake is having fever phobia, is being afraid of this thing that is occurring to your child's body. And nobody likes to see their kids miserable and, you know, laying on the couch just moaning and groaning. But we step back and really understand why fever is occurring. So fever is your body's natural response to infection, inflammation. It's recruiting those immune cells to wherever they need to go to help Fight whatever needs to fight. So in the case of a viral infection or bacterial infection, the fever is being mounted so that you can recruit all of those white blood cells to your lungs, your sinuses, you know, the back of your throat, wherever it is, to really manage and control the. The infection, to get rid of the infection. Fever slows down microbes, so that helps our body, our immune system, get to them more effectively. We also need. When we think back to fever as a form of inflammation, we also have to step back and really remind patients, practitioners, that inflammation by itself is not a bad word. And we know this in functional medicine. Right. Inflammation is what your body needs when you get a cut. And I tell kids, think about the last major cut, and that area got red and maybe got a little sore, maybe even a little pus, as you know that that cut was healing. That's your body getting white blood cells there and healing your skin. So the same thing is happening when you have a fever. Now, if you were to stop that inflammatory process from happening too soon, you might not fight whatever you're fighting as effectively. And so, same thing, you know, with the fever response, if we artificially cut off that fever response, we actually may be doing more harm than good, and we can kind of dive into that. But, you know, it's really, when we think about inflammation, acute inflammation, we want that when we're sick, too much inflammation, prolonged and chronic inflammation, that's what we don't want. But fever by itself is not a bad word.

Yeah, it's so important to remind parents of that. I'm not a parent yet, but I see this a lot. I'm very involved in the lives of my nephews and nieces and even just my friends who have kids who are. There's the fear that comes in, and everybody's, like, afraid of seizures, which you can talk about in a second. They're also afraid of just the damage that can come from a fever. So, big picture, you're helping us that one of the biggest mistakes is that parents having this fever phobia, which part of that comes from sort of the medical complex that's out there? So instead, now that you understand that a fever is important, what's the next process or what's one of the mistakes to, you know, avoid going from there.

Yeah. So, you know, one of the fears and one of the reasons why parents may want to give fever reducers is, as you said, to try to prevent febrile seizures from happening. So seizures, when your body's thermostat, your fever goes Up. Now, fortunately, febrile seizures are not super common, but they aren't uncommon. My twin sister had febrile seizures when she was a baby. When we were babies back then, they actually put babies on seizure medications, which we do not do anymore because we know that febrile seizures, they typically, you know, start maybe around 6 months of age if they're going to happen. And by the time kids or toddlers or older, they, they resolve and they do not lead to. So a simple febrile seizure will not lead to brain damage. It does not correlate with having a seizure disorder later in life. Now so that being said, who wants to see their kid having a seizure? Right? So scary as if. Oh, absolutely. So if a febrile seizure could be prevented by giving a fever reducer like Tylenol or Motrin, sure. I mean that sounds like it could be a good idea. However, when you look at the studies and so for listeners, they may be familiar with the Cochrane database, but the Cochrane database reviews many, many studies and tries to come up with the most evidence based conclusions possible. And so when they looked at the studies, there are a few Cochrane reviews of the studies looking at antipyretics, fever reducers to prevent febrile seizures. None of the studies show that they can prevent febrile seizures, except for one study that showed that if a child already had a febrile seizure in that febrile illness, then giving fever reducers might prevent a second one. But giving fever reducers just because does not do anything. And even, and several authors know, you know, the goal of giving a fever reducer is simply for comfort. It is not to get that number on the thermometer to normal. So that's really important to know, right? If your child, so there is a time and a place for giving fever reducers. And when I consider giving a fever reducer like Tylenol or Motrin, which is acetaminophen or ibuprofen, generically, it really is to help that child who is so uncomfortable that they don't want to drink anything because dehydration makes fever worse. I mean, dehydration makes everything worse, right? And also if they're so uncomfortable that they can't fall asleep because sleep is healing, we need to sleep. And so the on the flip side though, why would you want to hold off? Why would you not want to give a fever reducer to your child or consider holding off? Well, number one, for the fact that fever reducers, fever is your body's natural response, you may be hindering that natural ability to fight infection. But there are also several studies have shown that a fever reducer may actually prolong the duration of your illness. So keep your child sicker for longer. Some studies have shown that fever reducers can increase viral shedding from your nose. So you might keep them sicker for longer and make them more contagious, which is what we don't want to do. Right. And that there's really not a significant impact at all in recovery time. And so it's mostly, why do people want to give fever reducers to their kids? Okay, so there's a seizure part of it, but it's also because they want their kids to act, quote, normal. Right? So that's the other mistake that parents make. I mean, they don't want to see their kids moaning and groaning on the couch, acting like a couch potato, sleeping all day. Well, guess what? That is a behavior called sickness behavior. There is a reason why when we are sick, we act grumpy or sad. We want to be alone. You know, we want to lay on the couch. We want to sleep all day. We don't really want to eat. There is a process called sickness behavior that we can define from that inflammatory process that's going on in our bodies and that sickness behavior which occurs in every single animal species in the world, that sickness behavior helps us get better. So when I have parents say, oh, yeah, when I gave them the Motrin, now they were acting like themselves. They were running out on the trampoline, hanging out with their brother. I'm like, you don't really want that. You want their body to rest. Because the last thing you want when you're sick with a fever is to use your energy to do other things like, you know, running around the block or, you know, jumping on the trampoline. You just want to rest. Let your body do its thing.

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Right.

Many of the parents that are on my team, the moms that are on my team, they were asking about when it comes to fever. Is the traditional advice on temperature something that should be looked at in determining? Because they'll often get advice that hey, at this temperature level there's danger. Which of course is related to this idea that at a particular temperature there could be seizures that are in, you know, that, that come from it, as you've mentioned. But is there any concern about watching temperature or should the primary component of bringing in fever blockers be what you had mentioned, that the child is not drinking and the child cannot sleep, they're having so much discomfort. So does temperature have anything to do with this?

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Quote, normal, right. If they have a neurologic problem or if you are over bundling, there's really no way that fever can get too high. The other thing too is to recognize, understand what is considered a fever. Now, every child has their own temperature. Every adult, I mean, some adults Run a little warmer baseline, maybe they run closer to, you know, 99. Other adults may be closer to, you know, 97.1. So knowing that. But a fever is really not a temperature is not considered a fever until your child hits 100.3 or higher. So I have parents who will call and say, well, they're 99.7, 99.8. Well, maybe that means their body is getting ready to fight something. But I don't worry about that number either. So again, look at your child, not necessarily the number on the thermometer, and trust that your child's body is doing what it's supposed to be doing when they have an infection that's powerful.

So let's talk about some of the ways to help the body restore its own balance. Because as you've mentioned, a fever is not a bad thing. The body's trying to do something, it's trying to burn out. Pathogens slow down, bacteria get a chance to reset a little bit through the power of using, if I understand.

Temporary inflammation, which is this process and mechanism that we have in the body. And there can be things that can be done to support your body to release heat and potentially heal faster. So what have you found out there both through your practice and through the evidence of things that are supportive instead of putting people and kids and babies on fever blockers.

Yeah, so hydration is key. I mean, you absolutely want to keep your kids as hydrated as possible. Again, dehydration, it will make your fever worse. And so, and you know, when you're, when you have a fever, your child may be losing a lot of electrolytes through their sweat, you know, through their breath. And so really hydration with electrolyte containing fluids can be really, really beneficial. You can make your own electrolyte drinks very easily. I have, have a recipe on my blog you can Google. You know, there's lots of homemade electrolyte recipes I don't necessarily recommend. Well, I shouldn't say that there are many, many sports on store bought hydration drinks for kids and for adults. In fact, that's one of the fastest growing market, you know, products on the market nowadays. Right. And the number of kids who, you know, love their prime hydration drinks or Celsius or whatever. The thing is, you know, the latest thing is the problem is a lot of those hydration drinks have ingredients that are not serving your child, whether they are a student athlete or whether they're a toddler with a fever. So things like sucralose and acesulfame potass that are in a lot of these low sugar hydration drinks. I do not want your child having those because they can, I mean, many different reasons, but most importantly for your child, they. They can disrupt your. Their child's gut microbiome. And we know how important that is to your child's immune system and their immune health and to their brain health. So hydration coconut water is amazing. You can make your own electrolyte drinks. There are some ones. There are some organic.

Hydration drinks. There's one called, I think Pedia Vance is the organic form of Pedialyte. Pedialyte. You gotta look at the ingredients. There are some versions of Pedialyte. There are. Okay. Some that I kind of cringe. I'm like, oh, my gosh. You know, we're giving these to kids when they're down and out, and we're not really necessarily helping them that much. And bone broth, I mean, just having your kids sip on bone broth when they're sick is amazing. I mean, so many healing nutrients in bone broth. And so really being creative. You know, my kids, when they're sick, if they don't necessarily want to drink too much. You can make, you know, coconut water with a little bit of smoothie or juice or whatever it is into popsicles. You can, if you're making smoothies, you can actually put some bone broth into your smoothies. It sounds kind of weird, but it's actually, you know, totally. It's great. And it's a great way to get extra nutrition into them. But then I also use a lot of natural remedies. And when you look at natural remedies or natural modalities, you know, different practices, There are some ones that we know can help with fevers. Now, acupressure is one thing that I love teaching parents. And there is one point called large intestine 4. So that's just right on the web. Space between your thumb and your index finger. Just holding this can be really, really helpful. This has been found to help have antipyretic properties. So reduce fevers, can reduce headaches, sinus congestion, cough, runny nose. I mean, all the things that your kids might have nausea. And so, you know, just at one point. There are other points you can use, but if you're going to use one point, you're going to be hugging and holding your child anyway, so use that point. Essential oils like peppermint, which we have cautions, you know, we don't want to use too much peppermint. You know, really peppermint. We don't use when kids are under two years of age. With some caveats, but lavender is an essential oil that can be used safely at virtually any age. So you can dilute a little essential oil, lavender and even hold that onto the point, which can have anti inflammatory properties and calming properties. Because when your kids are sick, your kids are anxious and you're anxious. So it just helps everybody. I also use homeopathic medicines and homeopathic medicines may be something that.

More people are less familiar with, you know, as practitioners or as patients, but they are, if you go to Whole Foods, you know, you'll find these little blue tubes, you know, with the, with the quote, sugar pellets that kids love and are really easy to take. But there are, there are some that can be very helpful for fevers. And so, you know, in, in my fever ebook, there are the top ones because with homeopathic medicines, just like most natural medicines, it's really a more individualized, personalized approach as opposed to with conventional pediatrics, if your kid has a fever, it's kind of, there's Tylenol or Motrin, that's kind of it for the fever. And so with the homeopathic medicines, for instance, if your child has a kind of a low grade, it's just coming on slowly, the fever symptoms are kind of creeping up. That homeopathic medicine that would be the most beneficial is called ferrum phosphoricum. If your child has a sudden fever, their face is red, they're sweating, they're agitated, they're anxious and they're up to maybe 103. There's a homeopathic medicine called belladonna that can be really helpful. So there are different ones if you know the different ways, the symptoms that your child uniquely has when they have a fever or they're sick and you can match that with the specific homeopathic medicine. It's amazing how quickly they can work. You know, I had a kiddo in the office, this is not to do with the fever per se, but came in screaming into, you know, into my office. And I don't, as a solo practitioner, I don't do drop in visits. I mean, I require appointments. But this moment, this kiddo had started screaming, holding his ear in pain and she didn't know what to do. So she came rushing to the office. And so fortunately I was almost done with the patient and it was heading towards the lunch hour, so I ran out and this kid's crying, screaming, his face is bright red and.

His ears hurting. So I said, hold on one second and I ran into my room, gave him some homeopathic belladonna. And I said, I'll be right with you. I'm almost done wrapping up this patient. Within a few minutes the screaming had stopped and I was able to wrap up my patient in the office. And I came out and I said, okay, come on in, let's see what's going on. And so he actually did have a fever. I mean he was maybe 102.5 beat red. And when I looked in his eardrum, beet red eardrum, right. Which also fits with homeopathic belladonna. And I said, are you feeling better now? He's like, yeah, it still hurts, but it's not as bad. And he wasn't screaming and crying in pain. So it can work that quickly. So there are, you know, there's homeopathy, there's acupressure, there's essential oils. There's also some herbal medicines. You know, as we head into the cold and flu winter season, I mean whatever the season brings. Last winter was kind of a doozy for a lot of parents and kids. The number one herbal formula that I want every parent to have, I mean we don't travel anywhere without it. We bring boxes of it when we travel on vacation. It's called, it's an herb called, called Pelargonium sidoides. Okay. You don't remember that. Just know it's in a, it's in a tincture called vclear. That's the one that's sold to practitioners and the one that we sell in the office. But you can easily find it at CVS Whole Foods as Umka U M C K A Umka Cold Care Syrup. So I use that now. Why? Because the in vitro studies are, are fascinating. I mean amazing activity against many, many of the common human coronaviruses that cause a common cold. Even in vitro found some activity against SARS, CoV1, influenza, RSV, strep, I mean herpes one. So lots of activity against many of the common viruses and even some bacteria that your kids are going to be exposed to. And, and frankly as you as a parent, you're going to be exposed to through your kids. And so the pelargonium pseudoides in V Clear or UMCA is one that I just would have around.

That's powerful question for you as a follow up for the homeopathic medicine. Any thoughts on this as to the evidence base around it? Are there studies, is it primarily from the clinical experience? What are your thoughts on that? Because there are a Lot of parents who swear by it. And then there's other parents who might be following more evidence based pediatricians on TikTok or Instagram who say, you know, things that are kind of bold statements like if your pediatrician or somebody recommends homeopathic medicine, run in the other direction. It's like people feel very confused. So of your 20 plus years of experience and your background and your training in integrative medicine, functional medicine, what have you seen when it comes to homeopathic medicine, especially when it comes to kids?

So the first thing I do, and I actually have a whole section on this in my book because really like I said, the homeopathic medicines, I live in Silicon Valley. I mean we have, you know, very, very bright parents here, you know, my practice and also online people are getting very savvy about the science and the research. Now when what I remind parents and practitioners of is when, you know, this is back in the 80s when I was, or actually maybe it was early 90s, I mean.

Medical school ish was when the term evidence based medicine was really being talked about. What is evidence based medicine? How do we define it? And so that was back in the 80s and Dr. Sackett really created one of the first definitions. And the definition of evidence based medicine has three foundations, right? It's like a three legged stool. And so three foundations. Of course, there is the most current up to date literature that we have. So we look at the research papers knowing that, you know, a lot of research on natural remedies aren't being done, right? I mean, there's not a lot of profit in it. So but you look at the current research out there, you also must take into account clinical, clinical experience of the practitioner, right? And then we also take into account your patient's cultural background, their beliefs and what they bring with them. And so it's this three legged stool of what is going to be this evidence base that I bring to this patient in front of me, this child in front of me to provide the best care now. So yes, in my clinical practice I've seen time and time again when we use the natural remedies, including homeopathic medicines, that kids get better faster and we can avoid many, many of the unnecessary antibiotic prescript that are probably one of the biggest factors in tipping kids over into chronic disease in childhood or adulthood. But there are also, when you look many studies looking at, for instance, oscillococcinum is a homeopathic flu remedy, and there have been Cochrane reviews looking at oscillococcinum to shorten the duration of influenza, you know, reduce the severity of symptoms. And the studies are really compelling. In fact, the Cochrane review says, well, you know, there needs to be more studies. But it's very interesting that this could work. There are some studies on homeopathic medicines with benefits for ear infections, for kids, for childhood, you know, acute gastroenteritis, for diarrhea, for wound healing. Which is why now more and more plastic surgeons that I know are actually recommending homeopathic arnica as part of their healing protocol after surgery. And so the studies are there. We also have to recognize when we look at randomized clinical trials, placebo blinded controlled trials, we are looking at a one size fits all, you get the placebo or you get the treatment and that's it. Well, that leaves zero room for a nuanced personalized approach. So we need to think about how we are going to create new studies that can identify, can really systematically control certain variables, but personalize to a person's, you know, genetic background, person's genetic SNPs that they carry with them the individual way that they are experiencing their condition, whatever it is. And that's what homeopathy is. It is truly personalized. So we have to also take some of the studies, you know, case reports, case series actually may be one of the ways to really look at homeopathic medicines and studies.

Powerful. I want to talk about diet in the context of fever and kids getting sick. What are some of the diet mistakes that you see parents making when kids are sick and often parents trying to comfort them? There's a lot of presenting of comfort type foods. Is that helping or is that hurting when kids are sick?

Well, you know, yes there are. And comfort foods. What does comfort foods mean for a lot of kids? It's donuts and cookies and pancakes with maple syrup. And recognizing that, and I've stated this before in different posts and articles that there is one study now this one study is from, I think it's like 1975 and I have it in a PDF and I can send it to you. But it was an in vitro study that looked at macrophages. And macrophages are kind of white blood cells. One of our first lines of, of defense that sort of eat up, literally eat up viruses and bacteria and other toxins in our bloodstream. And so a load of sugar was enough to reduce your macrophages ability to eat up those invading pathogens by up to 50%. And that effect was seen, I think within 20 minutes of consumption and lasted for hours, like two to five hours. And so it's not serving your child's immune system to really, you know, have a lot of those foods that, you know, that you think are, oh, they're sick. I just want to help them feel a little better. You know, if they're sick and you want them to feel better, then focus on nourishing, you know, warm cooked foods, broth, simple to digest. We don't want their, their gut to really be preoccupied with digesting a large, a lot of hard to digest foods. The other thing too is when we think about glycemic control.

You know, even through the COVID pandemic, poor glycemic control is correlated with worse outcomes. And so having that tight blood sugar regulation. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean no sugar, but it means if you're having some sugar, you have to pair it with, you know, healthy fats with proteins. It's gotta have some more balance to it. And so even with children, as I step back and think, you know, I, I have this opportunity in my practice because I really want to practice more true prevention, you know, to help kids understand their bodies and how their bodies are working, their immune systems are working. When I have the opportunity, I do check for children a fasting insulin, a fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C. And you think, well, okay, so wouldn't you just do that for kids who are, you know, suffering from obesity or, you know, kids that you typically think of as having blood sugar dysregulation. But it is astounding how many fit, you know, slim children, you know, teen athletes, their insulin levels are, quote, normal, but they're 16, 17, fasting. Their fasting blood sugar is slightly elevated. Their hemoglobin A1C is not optimal. So they are not. Their blood sugar regulation is not optimal. And that is one thing that really can impact their susceptibility to infections, their susceptibility ability to not just getting infected, but being sicker for longer, you know, having worse outcomes. And so we really want to think about, you know, how are we nourishing our children's immune systems? How are we nourishing their guts? How are we nourishing their brains? Sugar is a big one. But then also as it all comes down to the gut in terms of focusing on supporting your child's immune system. You know, anything with those artificial additives we've mentioned, the sucralose and the artificial sugars, but all of those emulsifiers, I mean, that is something that I really feel so strongly Is, you know, I had this comment from a parent, well, you know, we were eating a lot of this junk when we were kids and you know, we're, we're okay.

But you know, I want to think about what is okay for our kids nowadays. You know, what is considered normal and is, is this an acceptable normal for our children? And when we think about it, you know, I grew up in the 1970s, I was born in 1970. And you know, we didn't have a lot of packaged, processed foods. And it wasn't just because, you know, my, my parents were immigrants, my grandmother lived with us. And yes, we were fortunate enough to have a lot of home cooked meals, but there were, I mean, certainly there were Skittles and M&Ms. And Bomb Pops and all of that stuff. But the, but the food, food, like your meals, there weren't, I mean, you go now, I mean, I mean there are so many different frozen food options, ready made meals, the amount of chips and things that are out there available, the drinks, we spoke about, the hydration drinks. And along with that comes an even bigger influx of FDA approved food additives that are really harmful for our gut microbiome. And it starts in infancy. You know, when we think about emulsifiers, these food emulsifiers that keep our, you know, liquid, liquid drinks from becoming a goopy mess or ice cream from becoming this, you know, gross thing or your, your bars. If you look at them. Emulsifiers in other countries have been directly, not directly have been correlated with, you know, the, the, the increase in emulsifier use in food correlate with an increased risk of autoimmune in that population. And why is that? You know, these emulsifiers directly can injure the tight junctions in your small intestine, cause leaky gut, can directly promote the growth of abnormal bacteria. So cause gut dysbiosis, which we know, leaky gut, gut dysbiosis are some of the foundations of chronic health concerns in kids and adults. And you're going to find it in infant formula. I mean, these emulsifiers you're not going to see. When you pick up. I'm trying to see if I have anything in my office. Nope, nothing with a food label on it. But, but if you pick up a bottle of, or let's say a tub of ice cream, it's not going to say emulsifier on it. It's going to say carrageenan, xanthan gum.

Mono and diglycerides. Well, guess what? Some of the ready to feed infant formulas they have all Three of those in there, right? And so we need better for our kids. We need this information to really get out. Because, because I have parents saying, you know, we're really clean. We don't, you know, we rarely eat packaged foods. We, you know, X, Y and Z. But it's just ubiquitous. I mean, it's, it's everywhere. And so, you know, for kids, even for my kids, as they're going out now to the store on their own, eating lunch downtown with their friends, we talk a lot about, you know, just pick up that label and just look at it and they, they know kind of what to look for, what not, you know, what to avoid. But if every kid and parent can do that and we could be better, better healthier consumers of packaged foods, we would all be so much healthier. Because I'm not saying that packaged foods are out. I mean, I love Trader Joe's, right? We have, you know, we, we buy packaged stuff from Costco, but it's always now with an eye towards, let's look at the label, let's look at the ingredients, let's make sure this has ingredients that I would be happy to put into my body and know, you know, are going to serve me, my immune system, my gut, my brain, and not har. Harm them.

And I think the other component with that is that there's a difference between having something truly every so often, which might mean, you know, once every couple of weeks, versus basing your child or even your own diet around some of these packaged foods that have these heavy emulsifiers that you're looking at and you're like, wow, we might be eating this thing every single day, twice a day even. And when you add up multiple packaged foods, it could be at every single meal you're having some sort of packaged food that has these components. So that's where I think it's really taking that lens that you mentioned and taking a step back and saying, is this going to be a healthy thing? Especially if, you know, you or your child are regularly getting sick. One follow up question on the food side, going back to something you said earlier, is you had mentioned that every kid might be a little bit different and the most important thing for a fever is hydration, right? That's like one of the most important things that's there. If a child does not have a natural appetite tight, but is still hydrating. What are your thoughts on that? Because I've seen different approaches of parents. Sometimes even when I was young and I had a fever, people would say, you have to eat And I said I just don't want to eat, I don't feel like eating. And I'm, you know, working through this fever at a young age. I remember it was quite annoying for me when people would try to make me eat. So what is your thoughts on the topic of eating during a fever?

Yeah, that's a great question. Question. I mean that is such a great question because especially for kiddos who maybe are, you know, not the most robust eaters to start with and maybe parents are already concerned about their child's weight. It can be really stressful when your kid is sick and not eating. But really we want to step back. I mean you were exhibiting Drew, the perfect sickness behavior. Right. Your body was saying I don't need the food, let me rest and you know, and just stay hydrated. Now if your kid does not eat for a couple of days, that is okay. It's okay. Now the thing is they probably, they do, you do need a little bit of energy. So if you can get you know, a smoothie with a little bit of protein, a little bit of, of you know, natural fruit sugars in there to sustain them or even, or even bone.

Broth as you mentioned. People don't realize a 16 ounce cup of bone broth, which would be a lot for a child, but that is like 20 grams of protein, protein inside of it.

Oh, bone broth is amazing, right? I mean bone broth is so good. I mean so, so really and true. Do not worry if they're not eating. I mean they're whatever that that saying is, you know, feed a fever, starve a cold or the other way around. You can hear, doesn't matter. It's just you want to stay hydrated and if they lose a little bit of weight, they will pick it back up. But the hydration is the biggest piece. So you do not have to worry if your kids really don't want to eat a th thing that is their body saying look, I, I, I don't want to occupy myself with eating. I really need to just lay low, sleep and heal.

Yeah, powerful. Any other things around parents encouraging the kids bodies to like there's this whole idea of like, you know, keeping them warm with like dressing in baths or you know, cooking them off anything. Any thoughts around that sort of of encouraging temperature to go one way or another?

You know, I, I don't think I would encourage one or the other too much. I mean if your kids are really hot and they're uncomfortable, you can put them into a tepid bath. You don't want ice water.

You're not trying to give your kid a cold plunge.

No, no cold plunging for your kid when they're sick with a fever. The reason why you don't want it too cold is because if it's too cold, you, what do you do? You start to shiver, right? And that, that increases your internal temperature and so you don't want to inadvertently do that. So to make sure if it, if you want to help your body, your child's body just get a little bit cooler, you can give them a tepid bath. You can even put a cool cloth on their forehead or their belly is actually even better just because that will cool them down a little bit more. But I wouldn't over bundle them to try to help them break that fever just because that again, you can get too hot in that case. But I also wouldn't, you know, run a fan on them and try to cool them down that way. Just let their body do its own thing, right? Their body is going to take care of itself when their body is done with the fever and if you've given them some natural remedies to help speed along the process, it's going to resolve. Now there are times, I mean, when we think about, well, what, what if my kid in this case isn't drinking or is uncomfortable and I give them some ibuprofen or Tylenol, I get questions on, well, which one is better? Okay, which one should I give? And I used to say that ibuprofen is my preferred. It's interesting. I mean, you know, you, you have to evolve, you have to always learn. You always have to think, okay, am I still, am I still recommending the right thing? Am I still doing the right thing? And it's kind of a toss up now for me. Okay, the reason why I used to say, you know, go to ibuprofen, which, you know, we don't use ibuprofen in children under 6 months of age. But if your baby's under 6 months of age and has a fever anyway, you go to your doctor. But Tylenol acetaminophen depletes glutathione, okay? Glutathione is our master antioxidant. And levels of glutathione, I mean, optimizing your glutathione levels are really important, especially when you're sick, because that will help to reduce some of that oxidative stress that is occurring. And when we're sick with an infection or, you know, let's say a cold virus, it's actually not, not the virus that is making us feel sick. Okay, I want to make that really, really clear because we've all had experiences where, you know, the cold virus is going around the family and, you know, three year old Johnny is running around almost like nothing's going on, except he's got snot running down his nose. Right. You know, seven year old, you know, Stephanie is just on the couch, fever, miserable, you know, with, has a headache, you have a super sore throat and, you know, you can barely, you know, get that water down. And you know, your partner is like, I don't feel anything. Right. So I mean, the same cold virus, but why are there so many different symptoms and why is one person more sick than the other? It's because of the oxidative stress. It's your immune response to that virus doesn't mean that your immune system is weaker or stronger, just means you're. This is how your immune system is responding. And, and so when we fight infections, our body, our immune system creates free radicals, it creates oxidative stress. And the faster we can bring down that oxidative stress, the fewer the symptoms and the faster we feel better. And glutathione as our master antioxidant can help us feel better faster. So going back to the bath thing, if you're giving your kids a bath, doing an Epsom salt bath is amazing when your kids are sick because the magnesium sulfates in, in that Epsom salt will get absorbed through your child's skin and enhance their own glutathione productions. So that's just a tip. So going back to the Tylenol versus the ibuprofen. Well, acetaminophen depletes glutathione, which is why I used to say, you know, I prefer ibuprofen because it doesn't have that effect, because Tylenol could maybe make you feel sicker ultimately, you know, after the fever wears, the fever reduces or part of it wears off. On the other hand, though, there's a recent study looking at ibuprofen and found that ibuprofen could actually have as much of a gut microbiome disrupting effect as antibiotics. And so that made me step back and think, huh, well, we want to do everything we can to support a healthy gut microbiome in children, especially when they're sick. When we look at some of the COVID data, you know, gut dysbiosis and prolonged gut dysbiosis was associated with worse outcomes with COVID and also long Covid. So we want to optimize your child's gut microbiome so you know which is better. Not really sure, but if you're going to give the acetaminophen, give them your child an Epsom Sal bath, you know, that day. Or maybe give them an extra dose of liposomal glutathione or N acetylcysteine. If you're giving your child ibuprofen, maybe give them some probiotics or an extra spoonful of fermented foods if they have that appetite, you know, right then to eat it. So it's just a about knowing what some of the unintended consequences are of the medications we might be using and using our sort of functional medicine hats to say, well how do I mop up the unintended consequences so I get the benefits without the adverse effects. On ebay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tee.

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That's great. Thank you for that breakdown. Super detailed. You know this just goes back to the larger things thing which is that we've had multiple parents, moms especially on my team that have written in and especially first time parents who felt the fear, felt the fear themselves. Maybe the fear from a well intentioned practitioner or family member around them said don't let this fever get too hot. It's going to lead to all these different things. Intervene too early. Tried to reduce the fever through medicine. Listen as you as you've covered earlier and now their child is sort of in this cycle where they get sicker often and they're trying to break that cycle and they're looking for answers. And I feel like your work is so great we're going to link to your ebook People can find that below the top five mistakes that parents make when it comes to, you know, treating a fever. We have a lot more of these references and some of these details in addition to our show notes. But the part that I want to bring up up that I'd love to hear some commentary from you is that when you are going from the old way of doing things which sure these things that you can bring in these medications to reduce a fever, they do work to reduce a fever and everybody claps because you get some, you know, quick benefits that are there. But as you mentioned, the child is more likely to have either get sick or have their fevers become more common if we interrupt that process. So it takes a little bit of a transition period is what I've seen for parents who are now going to this new direction. And I've seen that the transition is primarily psychological. You know, it's like I'm doing all these things, Mind you, I'm not a doctor, I don't even have kids, But I try to pay a lot of close attention. So I see parents saying, I'm doing these things, but it's not working quick enough. Have you seen that in your practice as parents start to make the transition from kind of the old school way of doing things to this new integrative and functional approach?

Absolutely. And you know, it is true. We have to.

One of the biggest hurdles is letting go of that fear. I remember, you know, homeopathy and herbs can work great for something called croup. You know, croup is typically called. Caused by a virus called parainfluenza virus. It's nothing to do with influenza. It's a totally different kind of virus. But that can cause, you know, strider. You know, this, you know, looks like your kid's having trouble breathing and, you know, trips to the er and so, you know, the first time I walk a family through, okay, your child is getting croup. Let's do X, Y and Z. Also know when you should head straight to the er. You always have that kind of backup information. It's a lot of kind of holding your breath and, okay, is this going to work? And. And then it works, works. And okay, I think I can do this the next time, right? But. But in terms of strength, strengthening, you know, boosting, supporting, whatever you want to call it, building up that immune resilience, bottom line, right? Because, you know, you know, boosting kind of became a bad word during COVID right? Because everyone's like, I don't want to boost too much.

Am I going to get tipped over into cytokine storm? It's like, okay, let's talk now about immune resilience. And it takes a while to build up, right? And. And, you know, as you were saying before, it's not about, you know, never ever having the packaged foods or the things, right? I mean, for my son, his friends, I mean, they're just all into the Takis, which has all over artificial colors and flavors, right? And prime. I mean, they're all into the Prime. Do I always say no? You know, if you always say no to your child, it's not going to work, you know, and at some point they're going to be a teenager or a college student and on their own and, you know, you know, they're gonna do what they really, really want to do. And the more you say no, the more you kind of want to do it right. We've all had that experience. It's a forbidden thing, you know. So it's really about learning how to build that cushion, that safety net, I guess, if you want to call it that, that life preserver around your child of, you know, healthy foods, healthy lifestyles, enough sleep, you know, learning how to manage their stress so that when they have that, you know, unicorn colored frappuccino or, you know, whatever it is, they have that cushion around them. But it takes a little while to build that cushion up. And, you know, we also know that there are many, many common nutrient deficiencies in children, which frankly, prime mirror the same deficiencies that a lot of adults have. But these can directly correlate in kids with the troubles that we might be seeing with their immune system or in their brains. And so optimizing those with, you know, food as medicine. But also sometimes it's really taking. If you're, if you're, if you're feeling like, okay, I'm stumbling along, my kids are not getting healthier like I really thought they would with all of these, you know, food and lifestyle changes. Then I say it's time to, you know, think about getting some lab work done, some blood work done to check for vitamin D levels, red blood cell zinc, you know, red blood cell magnesium, maybe doing a stool analysis to see do they have dysbiosis or inflammation from those past, you know, antibiotic or antipyretic medications or whatever medications that maybe disrupted your child's gut microbiome unknowingly. Right? Your doc didn't know. You didn't know. Do we need to do some of that repair first and rebuild first before we can get to that place where we know, ah, okay, yeah, they can get sick, but it's just going to pass really quickly and, you know, they're, they're not going to need to, you know, go to urgent care or need whatever medications.

A lot of times when kids get sick, you know, going from the conversation of fevers to now transitioning over, the parents themselves are worried about, okay, here it comes, I'm going to get sick. And there's a cycle of kids get sick, parent gets sick, Maybe it's a delayed reaction. Another parent gets sick at a later time than the other kid gets sick and then the first kid gets sick again. Right. So there's that whole sort of stream that a lot of families have, or cycle rather, where one person gets sick and it continues on. What's important for the parents to know about when the household is going through this time of, you know, having a cold or a respiratory virus or something, something. The typical things that people get when they're in that back to school season. What's important for their parents to know? Because I feel like often we talk about the kids and the parents sort of feel like, okay, I just have to like, just stick with it and like, just, this is just our lives now. Not that there's not families that don't get, you know, that every family is going to get a little bit of sickness, right? Especially if your, your kids are in school. So what's important for the parents to know when it comes to their own health and the basics when it comes to diet, supplementation that they should be doing when a household gets sick?

So that's a great question. I always tell parents, you know, it, it, everything passes, right? This too shall pass. You know, parents, kids and parents tend to get the most sick when they're starting school, whether it's preschool or daycare or kindergarten, if they haven't been in school before, because you're just exposed to a lot more. It's the same reason why, you know, this year I have a lot of kids heading off to college. It's just, you know, having been in practice for this long, there are kids for some reason this year, I'm like, oh my gosh, so many kids are leaving. But a lot of freshmen get really sick, right? Same thing, you know, you're just in close quarters, lots of different exposures. And so it's not necessarily something wrong, you know, with your immune system. It's that training and, you know, a lot of parents last year, right, Last year when we, you know, life was really much more, quote, back to normal, you know, with school and, you know, everyone really gathering more. And I mean, schools were unmasked. We did see, I mean, there was RSV that was really seemingly more severe than in past years. There was influenza, a lot of strep, you know, hand, foot and mouth. I mean, it seemed for some families, like, whoa, it's like one after the other after the other. And not only that, it's one after the other and really sick after the other. And so, you know, what we, what we want to remember is last year coming out of, you know, too much isolation, frankly, our immune systems. It's almost as though we were entering preschool for the first time. Yeah, I mean, really, you know, for most of us, right. For our kids and for our children. So this winter, I mean, fingers crossed, you can't ever predict, but I really think this winter is going to be better for a lot of, a lot of, of kids and for adults because you've now had more training, you know, you've built your immune system muscles and that's really important. You know, if we think back, it seems like a lifetime ago, but there was a time during the pandemic where there was this, you know, full minute hepatitis that was going around, you know, and people were holding their breath. Is this the next thing that kids are going to get? Kids are little kids, babies and, and toddlers were being hospitalized with, you know, acute hepatitis, liver failure. Some were getting liver transplants. Thankfully, it never became, you know, a huge, widespread epidemic, but it was in, in many, many countries, including the States, we were seeing this surge in cases. Well now the leading theory is what they identified in these children. Most of these children had something called, you know, well, two viruses, so human herpes virus 6 and an adenovirus 41 and then something called the dependoparvovirus. I mean, it's a weird thing. So this combination of viruses that should be very benign, self limited, no problem at all. But some of the research speculated, because these children started their early lives in complete isolation, really no exposures to any germs, these infections that they should have had before and built up a tolerance to all of a sudden came and converged and created this, you know, this fulminant immune reaction. Same thing with RSV before the pandemic. By the time kids are 2, in some studies, 100% of kids have had RSV. And you know, RSV is something that should be, you know, if you're, you know, under one, I mean, definitely can be a little bit more serious. But, but over almost half, something like 40% of kids with RSV are completely asymptomatic.

But we just saw this convergence of all of these children that didn't get RSV when they were younger. And now all of a sudden, boom, they're in school and they're getting sicker and sicker. So I do think in this case this year, it will be a little different. But if something's going around in the house, first of all, when we have natural, when we're using Natural integrative tools. It's a paradigm shift, a mindset shift, because in conventional pediatrics, oh, there's nothing you can do supportive care, you know, give your kids Tylenol if they're uncomfortable, maybe a little Benadryl if they're stuffy, which by the way, has not been shown to have any benefit, you know, for kids when they have colds, and then just wait if they have a fever for more than five days, you know, give us a call. If they have a runny nose, cough, snottiness for 10 days or more, more, give us a call. Because now they might have a sinus infection that requires antibiotics. Okay. When your kids have a cold, first of all, we know, you know, from the data that coughs can last two to three weeks. Runny nose can last for a couple of weeks. So it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bacterial sinus infection if it lingers and lingers and lingers. But here's the thing with natural remedies, the earlier you start in the course of the else, the faster you can nip things in the bud. I have kids start, get a higher dose of vitamin D in, get their vitamin C, a little extra zinc, get the, you know, get the vclear, you know, the UMCA cold care syrup in and literally within a couple of days, you know, two, three days, it's done. So you don't want to sit on it. So, you know, we want to start things right away. The other thing too, when, when your kid comes home and they have that glassy eyed, kind of droopy look and, and you're like, oh, no, I wonder what they're going to wake up to in the morning. That's when the rest of the house, even your child, just flush your nose out. Whether you use exclus nasal spray, saline nasal spray, if you do a neti pot, great. But the more you can flush out whatever virus you're exposed to in your nasal respiratory passages, the fewer bugs are going to colonize and the less likely you are to actually get sick. And so flushing that out is really helpful. In fact, that's something that I recommend and we do in our household, you know, during the winter months, we do it more regularly after plane flights, you know, when we travel for the holidays, you know, we'll, we'll squirt our noses up and kind of clear just so that whatever we were exposed to, we just, we clear it out. Who wants to get sick when they're on vacation? So that's one thing. And Then the rest of the household too, you know, even if there's only one child sick right now, if you want to support everyone's immune system, take, maybe take an extra probiotic. Really, that's the time to kind of clean up your diet and focus on, you know, whole fruits and vegetables and fermented foods can be really helpful. That's the time to really prioritize sleep because even sleep deprivation, even by one hour has been found to reduce your white blood cells abilities to fight infections too. So, you know, just doubling down on all the things we know support our immune system. I mean, none of it's rocket science, but we have to do that now, unfortunately for the parents, you know, I mean, not to be sexist, but it's usually the mom, but sometimes the dad. Right. The parent. The parent who is the primary caretaker for the sick people in the household. Right. Oftentimes you don't necessarily have the time then to sleep because you're up all night with your child who's vomiting or, you know, you're, you're trying to manage, you know, everyone else, you know, while, while you're just holding it together. But it is really important then for, you know, for, for those parents to, you know, I would take extra vitamin C, extra D, extra zinc, even if you're not feeling sick just yet.

Powerful, you know, to go back to something that you shared, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, which is that you were one of the earliest, if not the early, like the first person that I saw publicly speaking of about as a pediatrician, some of the dangers of our approach to how we navigated the pandemic and some of the sometimes well intentioned, sometimes not so well intentioned, fear mongering that was happening around all sorts of different things. And then how that matched up with the evidence space, especially the evidence base that was starting to come out from other countries. And one of the things we had chatted about in our early podcast is just this idea, idea of isolating and the challenges with it, not just when it comes to education. And if you look at the stats that the current administration was talking about at the end of last year, beginning of this year, just how far back kids have fallen in school because of remote learning, which impacts, you know, the most vulnerable populations the most, they don't have the resources, etc. Other stuff. But now also it seems to have impacted the health of a lot of kids, as you mentioned, the isolation, the remote school, the other things like that, people not being together yet, this massive wave where last year, it really, truly felt that so many of my friends and team members were feeling that their kids are getting sick way more often because they're coming back from that isolation, which is what you're mentioning, knock on wood. The hope is, as you mentioned.

I know, right?

Going back to school, coming. Coming up this, you know, fall, and hopefully this winter, things are a little bit better because we've, you know, now gotten back to, you know, regularly people spending time and hanging out together. So I just want to acknowledge you for being one of those people. And, you know, I think it was a very. Somebody could look from the outside, even though you know the signs through and through.

Because you spoke up early. And I know other people that maybe I don't want to say didn't have the courage, but were a little bit more worried about backlash that would come. You put yourself out there. And actually, I got so many. Even though my podcast is not about kids. Right. We very rarely do episodes at all relating to kids. You've probably been the main individual that we've talked to. I got so many parents reaching out to me and saying Dr. Song's breakdown of the therapeutics that are being recommended for kids, the fear around coronavirus and. And kids susceptibility has changed my mind, but more importantly, brought me peace in my life. And I just want to take a moment to acknowledge you for that.

Oh, thank you. That really warms my heart. I mean, that's exactly why I do what I do, because there is so much. I mean, it's not just the pandemic. There's just fear all around, and it's hard to know what to trust and who to turn to. And as you know, I mean, I'm very thorough in trying to present all the data, look at the research, and also really trying to present things in a.

In a neutral to positive way. I mean, an actionable way. Right. It does no good to pres. Present.

Scary data and just leave it at that. Right. That's. That's when. That's what promotes more fear. Because then you feel like I have no control over anything that's going on in my life. And there's so much we can control. I mean, even as we head into this. Whatever this. You know, I just saw an article on Medscape, you know, heading into. I mean, are they now calling it the quadmic? I mean, Covid flu, rsv, common cold? I'm like, you know, we're done with that. And, you know, we want to have a healthy respect for viruses, but also Know, it is time now for immune systems to build up that resilience and also to understand. I mean, when I, when I broke down, I taught a class and broke down all the common virus, viruses, just so people could understand, right? And what people don't know about, you know, now, because anytime a person has a sniffle, we're like, oh, boy, stay away. Right? But we don't necessarily have to do that. The. I mean, frankly, first of all, it's not going to prevent anything because most, most people anyway are the most contagious just before they start having symptoms, right? I mean, from many viruses. So.

There you go. Right? I mean, kids are in school together and so many kids are asymptomatic. I mean, when we look at the flu in children, over 50% are likely asymptomatic. When you look at the common cold, something like 3/4 of kids are asymptomatic. Right. And so, I mean, you just then have to do what you can to strengthen your own child's immune system yourself. You know, be as nourishing as possible to your child's gut and their immune system and know, okay, they're going to be exposed, we're all going to be exposed, and let's just move forward and, you know, really have confidence in what we can do.

It's such a powerful reminder. I know there's a whole bunch of topics that we'll save for round two because you have a hard stop that's coming up at 10. And this is a really good opportunity to talk a little about your world and some of the resources that are there. You mentioned earlier, earlier, there's a book that's going to be coming out sometime, you know, next year. And so I'm super excited about that. In fact, one of my visions is I would love to fly you down to LA and we do like a mega sort of masterclass around the book and kind of answer and go through a lot of these top questions. I'd love to have you here in my studio, but that'll be around next year.

Super fun.

Yeah, that'd be a lot of fun.

Love to do that.

And people can follow you on Instagram and stay in touch with you through your website to kind of hear more about the book. When you're ready to reveal the title and the COVID and everything you mentioned earlier, we'll link to it in the show notes. You have an ebook about fevers that has been around for a really long time. It goes even more in depth on some of the things that we covered over here, the top five mistakes that parents make when it comes to addressing their child's fever. Any other ebooks that are there that is worth licking linking to for our audience on some of the topics that we, we covered today?

Yeah, I mean I think as it relates to immune health. Another super popular download is I have an infographic on food as medicine for immune resilience. So breaking down the top nutrients that you really need to support for your immune health and the food sources of them so that you can, and you know, during, I mean during the wintertime a lot of parents will print it out, put it on their fridge and then use that as a way to engage their kids in, you know, some of the grocery shopping and say, hey, let's you know, pick a fruit or a vegetable or food from each of these categories so that we can try to incorporate that into, into our meal planning. So I'll send you the link for that too. That's probably the most relevant for, for our discussion today.

Beautiful Dr. Song, this has been fantastic. I hope everybody follows you on Instagram where you're most active on social media media. A lot of really great videos and different Instagram lives that you do with folks and they can stay up to date with all the great things you have going on. And again, thank you so much for being a voice of calm, cool, collected approach to this whole world which can seem very new, this integrative and this functional world. But really you're taking us back to what but our ancestors in many different traditional societies knew just through trial and error and what they had access to that these are the ways that we can protect our kids immune system. These are the ways that we can strengthen our kids immune system. And when they get sick, these are the tools and the resources that actually work. I'm so thankful for modern medicine and as are you. And sometimes that fear mongering brings people to a place where, where we're all looking for and my heart goes out to everybody, we're all looking for that quick fix because we don't want to see a child especially suffer but inadvertently we could be prolonging their ability. I remember me as a child, I used to get sick so often and my parents doing the best that they could, you know, would and having a lot of doctors in the family, especially being Indian, it was like, hey, take this antibiotic. And I didn't even have, have a bacterial thing, you know, I had a viral thing going on. Obviously we've learned from that. That was the 80s, right? I used to get sick often. And it was only until probably around the age of like middle school, high school, I had some family members who were bringing in more sort of integrative approaches, you know, simple things like turmeric and honey that is, you know, very common in Ayurveda, that I started to notice a little bit of a difference. And then especially when I started to learn about the world and of functional medicine, I saw there was some core basic things that I could do to keep my immune system healthy. And I'm very proud, knock on wood, that like, I very rarely get sick. Everybody says, wait till you have kids and then let's see. So I'm excited about that opportunity and at least I'll have your tools and tips to keep me and my kids healthy. So thank you again, Dr. Song, for being that voice for all of us.

Oh, thanks for having me on my. My pleasure.

Hi everyone, Drew here, two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my week weekly newsletter and it's called Try this every Friday. Yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy to digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is by the way free, and get my weekly step by step protocols for whole body health and optimization. Click the link in the show notes that's called Try this or just go to Drew perroet.com that's-HRU P-U-R-O-H-I-T.com and click on the tab that says try this.