Up Your Nose and a wonder cure?

"Up your nose with a fire hose" is all I could think of.

I read about a nasal swab as written by a local columnist and it was entertaining. Watching it in person was not. I can only imagine how it feels.

Charlotte has been under the weather for a few days. It was just a little cold, then a low fever, and then on Saturday a fever that topped out at 106.0. Yep. I know. At first the fever was responding to Motrin. Then a tepid bath would help. And then neither did anything. When that fever wasn't coming down, she wouldn't stand up, and then got totally lethargic and didn't want to get up at all, we headed off to Urgent Care. Thankfully her fever broke while we were waiting (2hrs after motrin and the bath), but the doc was concerned and hoped to find a reason for such high temps.

Ears: clear.

Nose: mostly clear.

Throat: only a tiny bit red. But we did a strep test just in case. That was not her favorite activity of the day. Thankfully that was negative.

But that left us wondering. We went with the ever popular "it must be a virus" and were advised to keep an eye on things and to stay on top of the fever. He also suggested we follow up with our pediatrician if she didn't start improving.

Sunday she was marginal.

And when she woke up Monday with the fever still (we actually got a reading of 107 on the side of her head she'd been laying on), it was time for a recheck. Thankfully the fever was again responding to the good old motrin/Tylenol alternating pattern, but we headed in for another check.

Ears and throat still clear, but the Dr wanted to run a full respiratory panel to see if we could nail down what might be causing this. Enter this:

Like I said-up your nose with a fire hose.

Ouch! It was unpleasant enough to watch the wire (which looks about 27 feet long) go up into her nose, and then keep going and keep going and I swear swab the inner recesses of her brain. It was harder to hold her down. I can't imagine how it felt. Poor kid.

He sent that off to the lab and gave us this:

I'm not big on meds, and thankfully we have a dr who works along those same lines. He's all for natural remedies when possible (but drugs when needed of course). He sang the praises of this and it's ability to quash colds and flu and all sorts of gunk. He said the rate of improvement within 24 hours is amazing. Hopefully we'll start seeing a big improvement in her very soon! If not, then we'll go for meds, but hopefully we can figure out what the problem is first so that we aren't just randomly treating just to treat.

The good news-she at breakfast this morning. And her morning nap lasted only an hour instead of dragging on for 3 or 4. That is a marked return toward normal. Here's hoping for a continuation in that direction. Keep your fingers crossed.