I'm a Mother, So I Know!

A get a lot of questions in the pharmacy, and most people tend to take the advice, or at least listen without an argument and then do whatever they wanted in the first place.

A few days ago, a mother came to the dispensary with her son who was about 1.5 years old, asking if there was a medication she could give him for his runny nose. After a bunch of questioning, she had come to Canada recently from somewhere-that-I-will-not-mention, and she was worried because her son seemed sick. He recently had had an ear infection and she had just finished a course of antibiotics. He recovered from that, but he was now presenting with "lots and lots of runny nose". After asking more questions, I found out that he had a "very very runny nose" for two days, but had no fever, and the nasal discharge was not colourful. He also was acting normally, eating well, and in the pharmacy while mom was speaking to me, all I saw was her son picking up bottles of drugs off the shelves and moving them around – very energetic!

Mom wanted a drug "to cure her son". I told her that given the symptoms presented, it's possible that he had caught a cold. Because of their change in location, or even because her child was young, it was very possible that he had never been  exposed to these germs and was sick again. I then said that there was no medication for her son that would cure him. I explained that here in Canada, all cough and cold medications were for children older than 6 years old due to the safety of the drug, or even just its lack of effectiveness in younger kids. Also, even if her child were over 6 years old, this medication just comforted the child, rather than curing them. If she needed a medication, she could perhaps use some saline solution to help with stuffy nose.

Maybe that was offensive.

Mom: What do you MEAN there is no medication for my son?! He has a very, very runny nose! It's runny every few minutes! (Note that she never wiped her son's nose the entire time we were talking.)

Me: Well, your son seems to just be having a cold, and there isn't really medication for younger children, especially since he doesn't have a fever. You can just wipe the runny nose gently with a tissue.

Mom: Well, last time he got sick, he had minor symptoms then he got worse! I need a drug to give him RIGHT NOW so that he doesn't get worse!

Me:  There's no way of telling right now if he will get worse, but it looks like he just has a cold right now, and there isn't really medication that will cure him.

Mom: YOU ARE CRAZY. THIS IS CRAZY! How can there be NO medication?! I'M A MOTHER, AND I AM SAYING THAT MY SON NEEDS MEDICINE! At the other pharmacy, someone said that there was something "0 to 9" that would help.

Me: Oh, you're probably talking about the homeopathic medication. That stuff isn't well studied, and the science behind it doesn't make any sense. If you want to try giving that medication to him you can, but it probably won't do very much. It's likely that your son will get better with or without the medication. (Despite not believing in homeopathic remedies, I showed the bottle to the mother.)

Mom: I GAVE this already and IT DOESN'T WORK! I'M A MOTHER AND I KNOW MY SON NEEDS MEDICATION!

Me: Well, you could just wait a few days and monitor your son. Colds usually last about a week. If he develops fever or starts losing his energy then maybe you can do something about that, but he looks perfectly fine right now.

Mom: YOU ARE CRAZY! YOU have NO medication?! THIS IS RIDICULOUS! YOU ARE CRAZY! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! *and…she stomps away….*

I don't think I've been called crazy by a customer before for giving perfectly sound advice, although I've received some other rude comments. I also have never heard anyone use the reasoning "I'm a mother, so I know" (but I'm sure this happens more than I am aware). I find it funny that people think that just because they carried a baby for a few months and gave birth to them makes them more educated than a health professional. I really wonder what kind of health education this person from an unmentioned country has received and I feel really bad for these kids who are shoved medicine every time they have a sniffle or a runny nose.

Really, parents are doing a disservice to their kids when they MUST get them medication. It's better to let your kid (or yourself) be sick once in a while to give your immune system a work-out. I work in the pharmacy exposed to sick people all the time, and I probably get sick at most twice a year (generally it's a very mild cold). I think the last time I took antibiotics was 2 years ago, but that was for an infected mosquito bite, haha.