For years I have worried about my kids getting sick with whatever I have. I came down with my symptoms within months of my mother being diagnosed with Rhuematoid arthritis. I was diagnosed with JRA at that time. What are the odds of that if arthritis is not contagious?
My son and daughter at 9years and 13 years have been startlingly healthy their whole lives. They see the doc less than once a year and average about one illness a year of the flu variety.
My daughter had surgery for a burn she received as a toddler, my son had his tonsils removed for sleep apnea. They both recovered quickly with no complications.
Because of my multiple bad medical experiences, I chose to have a home birth with both children. Because of this I was able to choose to skip routine measures like antibiotic eye drops (which are for gonorhea and we now have a good test for). And they didn't recieve their first set of vaccines in the first 24 hours.
My daughter had a reaction to her first set of immunizations at three months and her uncle is highly allergic to eggs and several animals (making him allergic to many vaccines). Given this famaily history my pediatrician advised me to hold off on vaccines in my children until they were teenagers and then only give the shots for the really lethal diseases. I waive this drug allergy form at any school official who hassles me.
They both dislike milk. Won't touch it. Same goes for cheese, yogurt etc. Do you know how many times I've been told that my kids will get rickets? The only dairy they'll ever eat is ice cream and cheese on pizza.
I breastfed them until they were a year old, then they went almost directly from the breast to table food. I didn't do the reccomended supplements although my son received some formula...which I see as a mistake now because he developed an eczema like condition about then and it comes and goes 8 years later.
They've both recieved antibiotics twice in their lives. Once for surgery and once for verified strep infections. I quit with the well child visits which I felt were a waste of time and money. I can tell when my child is sick, thank you.
As you can see, I've done a lot of things "wrong". I used to get lots of flak for the way my kids eat...Lots of people want to push supplements because my kids don't like dairy. I spent the first part of their lives being too tired and sick to micromanage their diet. I just shopped for basics and didn't keep too much junk in the house and hoped human resilience would make it okay. Of course, the fact that I was too sick to work meant that we only had one income and spent quite a few years too poor to buy much junk, or supplements. Another reason I breastfed so long...baby formula was too expensive. Funny that human breastmilk doesn't contain VitD...
So, my kids are a very small control group--most other things are equal to other North American kids. They go to the local public schools, spend too much time on the computer for my taste, but less time than they'd like. Eat junk when they can get it. Do lots of things that are considered "bad for you". Yet they are healthier than their peer group.
After reading the research on this site, its starting to come together.
____________________ Lyme FM JRA1985 endometriosis osteopenia 125D79 25D39 Ph1Mar07 ModPh2Aug07 Ph2Dec07 Ph3Apr08 Armour Thyroid, Effexor Motrin Vicoden 25D14 (Aug07) NoIRs lite exp r/t child care
