Fever is the most common reason for pediatric ER and family practitioner office visits. A typical toddler can expect to develop between 3 to 6 fever-related infections a year. Sooner or later every child will get one. Fortunately, most of them aren’t serious—90 to 95% of fever illnesses in children are caused by viruses (for which antibiotics provide no benefit). Continue reading
Month: January 2017
I’m skeptical about … cough medicines (revisited).
(Over the past few weeks nearly half of all the patients I’ve seen in the ER have come seeking treatment for cough. Here’s a lightly edited version of last year’s post on the topic. Nothing works, and that’s not a bad thing.) Continue reading