Undervalued Symptoms in Kids that Call for Immediate Attention

Incessant Crying Indicates A Bigger Problem than Discomfort

Visuals impact more than anything else. Seeing a child vomiting, having high fever, bleeding badly, bad injuries, diarrhoea or cough immediately makes us panic and visit the physician fearing something serious. At the same time, parents don’t find it essential to consider a few other symptoms as important or more important than the ones mentioned above. This is terrorizing and deadly as these are the ones that can cause devastating results:
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Lethargy: Don’t equate lethargy to laziness! Having a lazy child sleeping on the couch is not the matter of concern here! This is sheer sluggishness that needs a bit of jostling to bring your kid back on track for which one can always make use of www.firsteatright.com. Lethargy is showing signs of sleepiness that is strange. Sick people sleep more due to antibiotic effect of medicines, tiredness or weakness. But, when a child wants to do nothing but sleep, finds it difficult to wake up from sleep or stay awake after getting up, these are never ok. Some children feel like lying down and doing nothing even when they are awake. Children who cannot sit up, walk around, interact or play must need immediate attention. A physician would be the right person to find out if lethargy is due to dehydration, infections, bad bumps in the head, chemical imbalances or toxins.

Constant pain & irritation: Sickness can make a person irritable and suffer from pain. Medications can diminish these feelings and make the child feel better. Pain and irritability come and go but when they don’t seem to vanish, it’s a matter of concern. When infants don’t want to eat or drink anything, don’t settle down for any distractions or cannot sleep, these are signs of some illness that needs to be conveyed to the paediatrician immediately. It’s the same when pain or discomfort in older kids don’t go away in sometime too.

Breathing trouble: If you are surprised by this symptom, especially when you think that every parent would surely recognize breathing problems, there are some instances that don’t turn out to be as blatant as you thought. Such situations include:

• Retraction: Children might use extra mucous to breathe and it looks like they are sucking in around the ribs or at the front of the neck. You can see it clearly only when you take off your child’s shirt and look at the chest.
• Breathing accompanied by wheezing or squeaking noise that does not go away after coughing or coming out of a steamy bathroom.
• Difficulty talking or drinking due to breathlessness
• Rapid breathing which cannot be easily identified until you take off your child’s shirt.
• Looking pale or blue.
  
  

Red/purple spots: Rashes usually pale down when pressed against but there are some that don’t, because they are caused by bleeding into the skin. Known as petechiae or purpura, they can be due to a life-threatening infection or some other health problem. When you notice such rashes, don’t wait for them to diminish but bring it to your doctor’s attention immediately.

Some children become normal and brighten upon entering the physician’s place and this embarrasses the parent many a time. Its completely normal for such peculiar episodes to take place and never repent for this. It is better to be silly now than sorry later!