I’m happy to introduce Kid Row’s second guest blogger: Stephanie Harris, a local chiropractor and mother of young children. Please enjoy Stephanie’s post and contact me via the contact link (upper right-hand corner) if you would be interested in doing a guest blog yourself.

Health and Your Childʼs Symptoms

It can be distressing as a parent to watch your child endure the uncomfortable symptoms of a cold or flu. We donʼt want to see our children suffer unnecessarily. But have you ever considered that the expression of symptoms can be good for your childʼs health?

For example, an elevated body temperature helps the immune system to kill a pathogen. The watery eyes and runny nose that accompany a cold are a way for the childʼs body to flush out that pathogen. When we get sick, the immune systemʼs job is to once again get the body well. And a childʼs body does this by manifesting symptoms.

But hereʼs the tricky thing about all those pesky symptoms: they appear long after the balance of health has been altered. In fact, symptoms are the last thing to show up in the course of a disease or illness. By the time that nose is running and you are chasing your toddler around the house with a tissue, her immune system is already fighting off the offending bug in full force. And, believe it or not, that fever and the head congestion are just what she needs to effectively and efficiently rid her body of the invader, once and for all.

There are natural ways you can support your childʼs healing process during such bouts of symptom expression. Health-restoring treatments such as chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathic remedies, and herbal supplements can help strengthen the childʼs immune response from the inside-out. Health comes from within. A childʼs body is perfectly designed to regulate itself and to deal with slight imbalances in itʼs homeostasis.

Over-the-counter pharmaceuticals do not actually heal the body; instead they suppress symptoms. Giving your child symptom-suppressing medications can actually stifle the natural course of the healing process. They may indeed alleviate the childʼs discomfort.

Understandably, this makes you, the parent, feel better because your child is not suffering. But in the long run it makes your childʼs body have to work harder to overcome the illness because the natural course of the recovery has been interrupted or stifled. Symptom-suppressing medications operate from the outside-in, whereas the body was designed to heal itself from the inside-out. By the time the symptoms show up, the child is already well on her way to recovery. Getting through the symptom part of the illness can be messy, to say the least, but your childʼs body will be stronger because of it. Those pesky symptoms are a means to an end, and a childʼs body knows just how to heal itself.

Stephanie Harris, D.C., has a family wellness practice in downtown Durango. She can be reached at drstephdc@gmail.com.

Tags: Health, illness

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