I didn’t talk about it while we were in the midst of it. Frankly, I wasn’t ready to. I was scared.
I gave birth to Baby Quinnly on March 13th and the next month, several members of my family had contracted whooping cough.
I knew little about the disease, but I knew that if they vaccinated against it, it was probably not a pleasant experience. And believe me, when I say it wasn’t!
Here’s Our Story….
It started out like a cold. It did come with a cough, but often times, colds do. It didn’t seem to be a big deal either. But, one night, the cough got worse! Way worse. I mean, coughing until you can’t take a breath worse. Coughing until you throw up worse. But it was weird. Between coughing fits, they didn’t even seem sick. They would play as normal, have a coughing fit and then continue playing. After a couple of nights of barely any sleep, due to all of the coughing fits, I decided that something wasn’t right. I started researching what could be wrong and settled upon whooping cough. I listened to YouTube videos of coughing, poured over symptoms and decided that this must be what my children had. 2 of them were coughing pretty badly at this point and I was really worried that they were going to give it to the baby. In fact, the toddler was always all over the baby, so I was REALLY worried that he already had given it to her. Off to the doctor we went, but the doctor didn’t take us seriously. They didn’t believe it was whooping cough.
They would cough all day, but like I said, it wasn’t horrible. Then night would come. Wow, it was bad then! They would wake up several times a night with coughing fits. As time went on, I learned to sleep through most of them. If they didn’t puke, anyway. They slept through most of them, too.
Because of our experience, I learned so many things I never thought I’d even need to know. I decided to record them for you, in case you ever need them. May I suggest that you pin this on Pinterest now, so that you will be able to find it if you ever do have to experience this dreadful disease.
Even if you’ve been vaccinated, you can get whooping cough.
It’s true. Some people who are vaccinated, get it just as badly as those who aren’t. That really surprised me! In all of my research, I kept reading about vaccinated children and adults getting the cough. In our family, that wasn’t completely true. My husband and I and the 2 oldest children have had at least some of our vaccinations, including the whooping cough vaccine. We all did have symptoms of whooping cough, but they weren’t nearly as severe as the unvaccinated children. Another family I talked to had a daughter who had been vaccinated have it just as badly as the unvaccinated children. So, keep in mind, it can be different for every family.
Be prepared with puke buckets.
One of the things that really surprised me was that you puke at the end of a coughing fit. Not everyone, but each of my children affected with the disease did. With whooping cough, the pertussis bacteria attaches itself to the cilia (tiny hair like extensions that help to move mucous) and eventually erodes it down, so that it doesn’t move the mucous any more. In order to get that mucous up, you have a coughing fit and eventually spit up the phlegm. Along with that phlegm, comes the food you ate that day in many instances. I know, gross!
It is not just the unvaccinated who spread whooping cough, but the vaccinated equally so, if not more.
In my research of whooping cough, I read many instances of angry parents who said that the unvaccinated were so evil, because their children gave their family whooping cough. In reality, the unvaccinated are the ones that know they have whooping cough, so they’re not as likely to spread it because they’ll stay inside, not exposing others to it. Yes, they can spread it if they’re careless, of course, but whooping cough spreads like wildfire because those who were vaccinated and didn’t have a strong reaction to the disease, have it and think it’s only a cold. They’re not worried about spreading it, because they’ve had the vaccination. I believe this is how we got it. There were many people at our church who were coughing around the same time, many of whom had strong coughs that sounded similar, but they were able to get over it quicker.
Your doctor may blow you off, because they do not see it much.
Once I figured out that it was likely whooping cough, 4 of my children were coughing so hard that they were puking. I researched how it would be handled, and I read that they can test one child and treat the rest in the family with antibiotics. Knowing that I have to pay $25 Copay to the doctor for each child that comes in, I decided to take one of my children in, hoping to get her tested. Of course, she did not cough while in there and her lungs didn’t sound bad, so they sent us home, telling us we can use cough syrup if we need to ( which is entirely ineffective for whooping cough). We took her back in, a few nights later and they went ahead and gave us the antibiotic because she had been coughing for 2 weeks at this point, but did not want to test her because she did not sound bad in the office. Of course, as we were leaving the office, she puked all over their floor.
Later, the baby started coughing. I had read that babies can die from whooping cough, so I wanted her to be checked out immediately, to get the antibiotics needed to slow the progress of the disease. Once again, we were told that we were probably over reacting and that baby sounds fine. If they have whooping cough, they are much more sick than this, we were told. They sent her home with nothing.
At another visit, while arguing with the doctor about testing, she even told me that she would either test all of them or none of them. I ended up calling another doctor’s office to see if this was protocol or not and they said no, only testing one of them is the norm. At this point, enough time had gone by that I wasn’t sure the test would even be positive any more, and I didn’t want to put all of them through the test, so I declined. I knew that the protocol was 5 days of antibiotics or 3 weeks of cough before they are no longer considered contagious and we were already through 2 weeks of the coughing at that point. Had she agreed to test one of them, I would have done it, just to get the confirmation.
There are ways to treat whooping cough naturally.
Because of the runaround that I was getting from the doctor’s office, I decided to look into ways to treat the pertussis naturally. I found a study that said if you give the body plenty of Vitamin C, it will heal faster. I knew this to be true from my past research of other illnesses, but I never realized quite how much Vitamin C you could take. I followed the instructions written in this article and even gave the baby several doses of Vitamin C a day. Large quantities of Vitamin C will definitely slow down the progression of whooping cough (as well as many other diseases). Not just any Vitamin C though. The article recommended Sodium Ascorbate by Nutribiotic. Amazingly, as soon as we quit taking this amazing stuff, their coughs would suddenly get a whole bunch worse again. It really does work! We didn’t quite taking it until we were well past the throwing up stage.
Another thing that I didn’t know about Vitamin C is that some people can take 100,000 or more mg of it in a day. You take it to “bowel tolerance”. This means, if you start to get loose stools, you know you’ve reached your maximum dose and should slow down on the Vitamin C. If you’ve not reached that point, you can take more. Those who reach bowel tolerance are more likely to get over their illness quicker, if they continue this regiment on a daily basis.
Babies are the most vulnerable, but they will not automatically die if they contract whooping cough.
The baby had started exhibiting the normal cold symptoms that whooping cough starts with, so I was getting worried. That’s when I began my research of natural treatments. Of course, being breastfed, she was already in a good place, getting the immunities that come with breast milk. But, starting Vitamin C early was also a very big thing that I believe helped her to get over the whooping cough quicker than the other kids. I had read that babies need to be hospitalized as soon as they find out they test positive, and yet I couldn’t get a doctor to take me serious enough to realize that this was indeed whooping cough. Not that I wanted my baby hospitalized, but I also didn’t want to take this disease lightly with a baby. After all, she was only a month old. So, don’t believe everything you hear about babies and whooping cough. Not every baby gets that sick. Obviously, you don’t want to take it lightly, but not every baby will die. In fact, a small percentage of babies who contract whooping cough will die. However, if someone is to die from whooping cough, it will more likely be a baby than a child or an adult. But, if you are aware of the dangers and treat with the Vitamin C, your child will definitely have a leg up on the whole situation. I now believe that treating with high quantities of Vitamin C is the missing link in the medical world. They should be treating with Vitamin C much more than they do.
Whooping cough is called the 100 Day Cough for a Reason
Yes, sirree. 100 days. You may be coughing for 100 days?! It’s been about 85 days for us, at the time of this writing. That means we’re almost done (I hope). Until then, we occasionally freak the general public out with their crazy coughing skills. Thankfully we’re not contagious any more!
Any time your kids have drainage during those 100 days, you’ll think they relapsed.
I think we’re a little more susceptible to colds right now, but we’ve gotten 2 colds since the whooping cough began. Each of the kids coughs get so much worse during this time, because their body is not prepared yet to deal with the drainage and mucous that the cilia is trying to move up. It sounds like they’ve gotten the cough back in full force, however, they aren’t puking each time they cough and for that I am thankful!
People May Think You’re Over Reacting
I think I thought I was going to lose my mind. Being stuck inside with 5 coughing children for weeks on end was getting a little old! I would call and complain to my mom and a couple of friends but nobody really understood. Eventually, my mom came to stay with them one night so that I could go away overnight with my husband, and after a sleepless night, I think she understood. But, unless you’re there with them and hear the coughing and wake up a zillion times a night, do you understand exactly what it’s like. You’ll be sleep deprived and half crazy! Be easy on yourself. Buy paper plates and cups, don’t stress about the cleaning; sleep when they sleep and eventually you’ll all be OK again. While it seems there’s never going to be an end in site, it won’t last forever, I promise!
Original article and pictures take www.sidetrackedsarah.com site
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