Croupe

Like most of my articles, this is written in the throes of the things I’m writing about. As I write, I’m in the bathroom with the humidifier humming and a cold window open lying next to the three year old who woke up this morning unable to breathe – and, after an emergency steam shower to restore airways, had a great, happy day (minus his raspy voice, “I can’t talk so well Daaad”), aaaand we’re trying for round #2 tonight. I was hoping he was over it, but tonight is worse than last night – which is what I was afraid of. Still, having prepped, I think tonight will ultimately be better than last night. The thought that keeps running across my mind, looking at all the health supplements and stuff we have, simultaneously: (a) wow, I’m THAT health nerd, and (b) all this stuff is WAY easier and cheaper than even one trip to the ER, and more importantly sets the kid up for lifelong health instead of nuking their system and starting the time bomb for chronic conditions.

Maybe I’ll include a play by play at the end, sometimes it’s helpful to hear. But for now, here’s what I’ve learned, from this NASTY virus (*it’s sending allot of people into the ER with pneumonia, even adults):

Generally:

• The #1 thing is to keep an eye out for pneumonia. If they’re seemingly breathing fine, but still languid, especially with a constantly fast heart beat, you’ll want to address the pneumonia ASAP. Fever is another big stop sign here. What you decide to do in the event of pneumonia is up to you. I’d talk that over with your spouse in advance, by the way.
• Dose them with NasTea ASAP (and daily, until it lifts) and potentially the following:
• Licorice (DGL): another angle at viral replication inhibiting
• Colloidal silver: to help preempt pneumonia
• Bee Propolis and/or Echinachea and/or Elderberry: to boost immune response generally, hopefully preempt pneumonia. Unfortunately, you want a big immune response to block pneumonia; but at the same time more immune response = more inflammation= more larynx restriction.
• DMSO (I used 70% DMSO, 30% water mixed): to help circulation, and minimize any tissue damage if there’s pneumonia or other reason for damage
• Oysters + Quinine (chincona bark tincture): Oysters yes, for a big zinc push, Quinine, only if you’re familiar with it and know what you’re doing – you can overdose and hurt someone otherwise (or kill them if you go hog wild). But it’s good stuff, makes a huge difference usually. I usually put black pepper on the oysters to help absorption.
• ACV: because ACV is never a bad idea
• Vitamin I (ivermectin): no it’s not COVID, but these things are usually built from the same chimera platform, and thus respond to the same redneck. Although this one apparently isn’t. Vitamin I won’t hurt.
• Research and utilize homeopathic protocols here; very often they’ll hit the target and your get out of jail free card. Not this time, for us, but when it works it works great.

During the DAY, if they’re looking good:

DO:

• Drink Chamomile tea, especially before bedtime.
• Encourage them to yell, jump, move their arms, dance
• Make them wear socks and not let them get their feet cold
• Blow bubbles with them (clears their lungs
• Do not let them go outside and get cold

If they’re NOT looking good, during the day:

• Bubbles, yelling, etc, just as above, but closely monitor them to make sure they don’t need to be steamed or cold-aired (see below)?
• It’s up to you whether you want to take them in. The ER people will try to give you vaccines, antibiotics, NSAIDs, and steroids. Up to you – just be prepared for snarky comments from the nurses if you reject any of the above.

During the NIGHT (assuming your child is having trouble, that’s why you’re reading this):

• DON’T hot pad – that will increase blood flow to the chest area and thereby increase the bronchial restriction
• DON’T be like me and give them cozy warmed water, thinking it’ll help. Give them COLD water, for the same reason as everything else here
• Emergency airway opening: steam shower AND/OR breathing cold air. Considering most croupe will be happening in the winter, this might be as easy as opening a window or wrapping them up and taking them outside: warm body, cold breathing. If it’s not the winter, you can literally open the freezer and have them breathe that air if need be.
• DO ensure that their neck isn’t hunched forward while sleeping. Some people swear my propping them up at an angle – just as long as their head stays tilted back slightly.
• Option: if you’re really worried it’s going to be a bad one, get a dish towel, or similar cloth, and soak up water. Wring it out, until it’s still wet but not dripping. Freeze it, freezer or outside. (Or just be like normal people and have a cold pack lying around and use that instead, naw, too easy). Then, after the child is asleep, wrap the frozen towel in a cotton T-shirt or similar thin cotton cloth, and place it on the side of their neck or across their chest.
• Option: I haven’t tried this, but some little swear by putting the above cold pack on the child’s feet. The problem with both of these – as I write – is that they’re uncomfortable.  “DON’T PUT THE COLD ON ME.” Especially if the child is older than 6 months, there’s a good chance they’re not putting up with this nonsense.
• Optional item: possibly a thermometer, to help you gauge whether you’re just could or if it really is cold temperature they’re getting

Honestly, the best combination seems to be humidifier + open a cold air window. (I suppose A/C would work in a pinch, but it would counteract the humidifier – but cold > humidity, it seems like).

Ok, so the back story: we let our three and four year olds play outside in the cold, except that they immediately went out of sight and took off their shoes and most of their clothes, as usual. Except it’s not summer anymore.

Not surprisingly, they’ve both came down with the wheezy breathing. And whatever’s going around isn’t responding to anything: NasTea maybe put a dent in it for them, and maybe (apparently? Some of the kids have a little cough, but nothing crazy so far) blocked it for the rest of us – but that remains to be seen. Anyways.

Supposedly the third night is the worst. This is the third night for the three year old. They were staggered: the older child started a day before the younger. Night #1 for the both was a slight fever and wheezy breathing. Daytime they were both fine, chipper, but they had a cough and dark circles under their eyes (which, in my experience, indicates either food-related problems or insufficient oxygen – obviously here it’s not food related). Night #2 was bad; very croupy breathing. The older one soldiered through it, and despite getting credited by RSV two years ago (different article on that!), he was able to stave off big intervention – he responded pretty well to the homeopathic protocols – his night #3 he woke up coughing allot, but seemed to rebound pretty well in the morning.

For the younger one (3yo): night #2 was the night he kept waking up, coughing and unable to breathe properly, until he woke up coughing in the morning and very evidently couldn’t effectively breathe: he coughed, stalled his breathing, and started getting weak, unable to respond to verbal cues or give high fives, etc. He was only able to barely wheeze breathing in and out, and his pulseOx was showing 87 (For the record: I wouldn’t necessarily rely on a pulseOx, they’re notoriously unreliable, esp for kids, and if the child is languid and having trouble breathing, get him into the steam shower ASAP, who cares about measuring pulseOx). As soon as I saw this (~5 AM), I rushed him to the shower, and started the steam – after about 2 minutes, he was able to cough and breathe more normally, and started crying. He calmed down after about 20 minutes of steaming, and we sang songs and my wife got us bubbles to blow in the shower.

All day he was apparently great, no problems breathing, only a very occasional cough. I made sure he was wearing warm stuff, socks. Also, essentially an AIP diet – minimal sugar, minimal inflammatory plants, mostly meat, animal fats, electrolytes like salt, raw or kefir diary, and lots of water.

Then, he took a nap at 1pm, and in just one hour he was back to languid and glazed-eyes on waking – I grabbed him, and we did the steam routine again – this time, we got him before it got too bad, because I was monitoring him.

Once again, he was bouncy and happy – they watched a movie to calm him down, and he occasionally (but not often) coughed. He had an extremely raspy smoker’s voice – usually more or less a whisper. But this time, I knew it was probably going to be a rough night, so I prepped in advance.

First, I have him the kitchen sink: NAC, NasTea, oysters + quinine, resveratrol (knotweed – ONE drop), vitamin C, licorice, Goldenseal, Bee propolis, raw honey, colloidal silver, and DMSO (Also continued the homeopathic protocol). Most of these things act in different ways, so I wasn’t worried they would interact, and I was pretty conservative about the dosage, erring on the smaller side.

Second, I prepped him, and the blankets, pillows, etc, that he and I were getting a special camping time – we got to camp tonight in the bathroom. FUN.

I got the blankets ready, the humidifier, cold water for him, water for me (I hate cold water, no thanks), set out the raw honey, got the sound machine cues (aka Bluetooth speaker + Ocean waves), froze the wet towel, and ran the hot water until it steamed.

The last element didn’t really work; the cold + humidifier seemed to be the ticket. Basically, my goal was to get him decent sleep and let all the remedies I gave him do their thing.

So, night #3: He went to sleep way later than I’d like, but he had taken a nap, and he loved hanging out and drinking chamomile tea with Mom and Dad. He finally dropped off at 8:15. At 8:30, he was already starting to breathe growly, and so I opened the window, let the cold air in.

He kept coughing, about every 15-20 minutes (I log everything). Around 10pm,  I could tell he was struggling; I turned on the steam, and just picked him up and rocked him for a bit until he stabilized. 

But the big nasty surprise was around 1:30 – a massive nosebleed, the biggest I’ve ever seen. For at least 10 minutes, maybe more, his little nose was gushing like a faucet. I had been asleep, and initially of course I was worried that it was nosebleeding from trauma of choking or suffocating, but thankfully no – just a good old fashion nosebleed, probably from the cold dryness (which he’s gotten before recently, not this bad) –  even with the humidifier.

I logged everything from that night. Everything.

We got to at 5:30a the next morning so good to be done with the night. As soon as he woke up, he popped up, breathing chirpy as a bird (well, still growly, and couldn’t really talk well, but very chipper).

The next night, #4, he was a bit growly, but it was so nice – be was breathing just fine all night. I was still on hair trigger, but even I got some very solid sleep. The next morning he woke up, and I think he may have been flirting with pneumonia (he had a “happy fever,” [common with homeopathy, no pain no symptoms just hot and burning something off], and was pretty languid in the morning. But I doused him with all the things, including a little but of the antibiotic alternative Goldenseal, and he seemed to pop right out of it within a half hour.

As far as that goes, we’ll see. I’m still in the middle of it all. I have no doubt that, had I not done all the things, I’d be writing a hate post about ERs and how wretched they are. These nights are tough, but never as tough – as expensive, as frustrating, as health-damaging – as ER visits.

N.B. I came across this article, and study, that illustrate one of the many idiocies of worshipping studies as the ultimate mode of knowledge transmission:

https://www.healthday.com/health-news/pulmonology/high-humidity-doesn-t-ease-croup-531544.html

Tradition > Studies, nearly always, at least in the context of actual healing. In this study, the researcher (who clearly never tried this himself?) polled kids in a critical care unit with croup, checking in with children at different humidity levels at different times. He found no difference in normal air vs higher humidity – humidity must be irrelevant here, right? OLD WIVES TALE DEBUNKED!

Especially as I sit next to my croupy baby, this stuff makes me seethe. Clearly, obviously, this guy had an agenda (in another article, he admits the study is meant to dissuade parents from a “false sense of security” in thinking they can take care croup themselves). Think about it: if a child is in the critical care unit, they’ve, (a) been driven there by their parents, which means their parents lifted them, helping them loosen their airways, and drove them in a car with – very likely – cold air blazing [i.e. they’re already going to be showing improvement] and (b) in what universe does a critical care unit not give every child it gets it’s hands on steroids?!?? In other words, of course there was no difference due to humidity, since steroid administration had already stabilized the airways – humidity also stabilizes, but it’s not going to “stabilize more” if the child is already stabilized by a steroid. If any of the “fact checkers” or researchers who cite this actually tried it – stick a croupy kid in a steamy shower – they could instantly see that it helps clear the airways, at least open them enough for the child to stabilize. Sure – you can stabilize with steroids too. If you’d rather give your baby roids, vs a steam shower, up to you. Not me. (Likewise, if you prefer to bring them in to an ER at 2am instead of firing up some humidity! Woohoo! Love me ERs!) But the point here, the thing that really gets me angry, is that studies are almost never truly objective: the point of an expensive study isn’t to truly find something new and remedy something. It’s intended to prove something that the researcher wants to prove, and ultimately sell something they want to sell. /endrant