Quote:
Originally Posted by 4X4 
Personally, I have a big debate in my head every time my kid is sick. Am I wasting everyone's time by taking her to the doctor when she appears to have a cold?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay
Yes....you are.
Honestly 4x4, I'm not trying to be a dick but is she appears to have a cold, why take her to the doctor? What is he going to be able to do for her? I think parents need to trust their gut feeling a bit more. You know your kid pretty well and I think most know when it's serious and when the just picked up "what's going around". Of course as a parent you get upset when your kid isn't feeling well and you want to do everything you can to make them feel better. But more often than not, just letting them rest at home is the right course of action.
My dad was a doctor and his number 1 pet peeve was hypochondriac parents who ran their kids to the doctor the second they sneezed.
Not saying that's exactly what you are doing but if your kid isn't feeling well, give it a couple of days. If it's clear that they are not getting any better or getting worse than yes, absolutely take them in.
But like you said, if it appears she has a cold, why not wait a few days to see what happens?
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And 99 times out of a hundred (probably way more) you're right.
However, not always - which makes you criminally wrong.
My daughter was 6. She had been sick for 2 days with what
looked from all accounts to be the flu. Absolutely nothing different than standard flu symptoms.
So let's wait a couple more days and if she's still sick, then we can go to the doctor, right?
I don't take kids to the doctor when they get the flu. However my wife is a bit more of a hypochondriac and she wanted to go to a clinic just because. So she took her to the walk-in clinic.
The doctor takes one look at her and orders my wife to take her to Children's immediately.
Turns out my daughter has Kawasaki Disease. I won't go into a bunch of details, but it is typically seen in Japanese boys 5 and under (not white girls). Symptoms are flu-like until spots on the hands, feet and tongue appear, and it can be fatal if not treated by day 3.
Problem is that the spots don't really become noticeable until day 3.
This doctor -
who has never seen a case of it before - spots the signs at a very, very early stage and makes the correct diagnosis.
If he thinks "hypochondriac mom, the kid has the flu" and sends her home with a prescription, she's probably dead.
If we wait a couple days before taking her to be seen, she's probably dead (or at least permanently affected).
The doctors at Children's, most of whom had also never seen a case of it before (my daughter was the 6th case ever in Manitoba), were amazed that this doctor recognized it at the early level it was at. He literally saved her life.
As did my wife for being a hypochondriac.
If she had listened to me, we could well have lost our daughter.
Edit: sorry for derailing