the older i get the weirder it is that not a single p.e. teacher in my entire school career was able to recognize the difference between āa child who doesnāt get enough exerciseā and āa child with serious health problems impeding their ability to exercise in this particular wayā
you know what else is weird? we had to do that fitness test every year but likeā¦ we never actuallyā¦ learned how to do the things they tested us onā¦
like, now that i am an adult i have learned how to build up my strength so i can do pushups, but that seems like something they could have taught us? in school? in the class where they tested our ability to pushups? they never taught us how to work our way up to actually doing a chin-up, or whatever. even if i had just been āout-of-shapeā (as a CHILD), nothing they did would have solved that problem. i did not learn how to exercise in a functional way until i was out of school and teaching myself, so iām not sure what those p.e. classes were even intended to accomplish, really.
American P.E. class could not have been more perfectly designed to make fat kids hate exercise, sports, and being in school in general.Ā
i was lucky. i never got that crap. my p.e. teacher knew my limits.
I got lucky. My p.e. teacher saw me have an asthma attack the first day of class and didnāt know what to do, so I got to sit out when we were supposed to do things that would trigger an attack.
hahahahaha if only.
I have asthma that only really flares up if I have to run a lot. Guess what they made me do every damn year at school? Run the mile. Guaranteed asthma attack, and they wouldnāt let me stop even when I couldnāt breathe. Iād be wheezing and staggering towards the finish line with a P.E. instructor literally over my shoulder yelling. It would take me days to recover because I would get so sick. And this wasnāt just one teacher, it was a different teacher every year.
This treatment didnāt teach me fortitude or perseverance or what the fuck ever I was supposed to learn – it taught me to hate running forever. Not sports – I loved sports! I played on the school basketball and softball teams, no problem! But running I hate and refuse to even try, when I might have learned how to extend my endurance and reduce the asthma attacks if they had just respected my limits and taken my health seriously.
Similar experiences here. I had one elementary school PE teacher in particular who would actively mimic and make fun of my running-induced asthma attacks.
I actually ran across some of thebibliosphere’s other warnings about certain aromatics commonly used for breathing problems not being safe for young kids only a few weeks ago. (When somebody was loudly going on about how “problematic” she was with the essential oil safety PSAs, and I got curious enough to look through archives.)
That actually made me really mad, too. Because, yes, that does include Vicks. It contains enough menthol, eucalyptus, and camphor to be dangerous for kids who are sensitive to any/all of the above. And this really should be better known safety info.
On a personal level, which really got me going? After I started school and got exposed to every cold/flu in the world that way, I spent at least half the time with really nasty-sounding “asthmatic bronchitis”. No actual chest congestion involved; it was all undiagnosed asthma flares from colds/flu (with tons of inappropriate antibiotics that did nothing to help). I still get that for weeks after a cold, but thankfully a new doctor listened to the wheezing and finally decided to try treating the asthma symptoms when I was like 15. Amazing the difference just access to a rescue inhaler makes.
Anyway, my mother was a huge believer in Vicks salve. Especially at night, when sleeping was already hard enough with the coughing and wheezing fits. I could tell that getting slathered in it was actively making my breathing worse, besides the burning being hellish with my sensory issues.
But, of course that was ridiculous, I was just being Difficult–and worse breathing was proof that I really needed more Vicks to loosen the chest congestion! Which didn’t exist, yeah. Plenty of awful croupy-whooping cough hybrid sounding coughing, very different cause. And those fumes did the opposite of calming the asthma spasms.
I didn’t die, obviously. Though I’m not convinced now that it didn’t help with some of the blacking out episodes š¦
Anyway, I imagine that’s a far from unusual scenario, even when nobody ends up in the ER or worse.
In this particular case, I am at least pretty sure they were not yet having to include label warnings not to use it on kids under 10 back then. Less excuse now.
But, even if you think you’re Doing The Right Thing, with good intentions? Please pay better attention to what other people are saying about their own bodies and health. Yes, even if they’re children and you don’t understand how what they are saying could be so. It’s not your body.
And the main problem probably lies with you if you want to turn that sort of thing into some kind of power struggle, maybe especially dealing with a very sick child. No matter how annoying you find it when they’re sick and keeping you awake! Better to be honest about that and deal with it in some other way on your own, than to take it out on the other person. Much less under the excuse that it’s For Their Own Good.
(Besides the general PSA that no, Vicks salve is not good to slather on younger kids. Please don’t do that, even if they’re not telling you it’s causing worse problems.)
Oh my god, food extract is not the same as an essential oil.
Food extract is the flavoring of something cooked down into a carrier oil or alcohol that is safe for human ingestion.
Essential oil is the pure extract of the plant refined down and distilled for concentrated medicinal purposes to a significantly higher strength than simply adding ground up mint leaves to your water. The two are not comparable in any way.
Cinnamon extract and cinnamon essential oil are not the same thing.
One is about 100 times the strength of the other and can also cause acute organ failure. Iāll give you a hint, itās not the food extract.
Sweet gods Iām not trying to be mean, I want you to be aware and safe and stop putting yourselves and others at risk. Please.
Like maybe my tone is hard to read, maybe it just comes off as really angry but itās not, itās fear and worry. I read posts and clutch my head in alarm going āno! No! Thatās how people die!ā And then I get exasperated because a bunch of people not formally qualified chime in with āum actually this is a lieā and itās not, itās really, really not.
Iām not some big pharma advocate. Iām a crunchy witch hippy just like you with salt rock lamps and rose quartz all over my house. I just happen to have spent the last 15 years of my life studying the actual science of holistic medicines and Iām trying to help you not get hurt (or worse) becuase you trusted a sales person with no idea what the ever loving hell they were talking about beyond a sales pitch designed to maximize profit. Gah.
I see this so often in the Mommy world. There was a lady not long ago in one of the mom groups who was really worried about her toddler. Heād had a persistent cough for weeks and the doctor couldnāt figure out why. Someone asked, well what have to tried to treat it with, so far? She said she was using a humidifier, honey, and eucalyptus EO in the shower every night.
Yeah.
In case you were wondering, eucalyptus can cause respiratory distress in young children.
Sadly I donāt wonder. I have a friend whose daughter died from a home made menthol oil chest rub. She wasnāt even ten yet, but her momā a qualified aromatherapistā thought sheād be old enough to handle it. She went into respitory distress and died seizing in her motherās arms on route to the hospital. It was one of the most harrowing stories I had to listen to during my holistic training. She stood up there, on this podium next to a bunch of ponzy scheme essential oil sellers who looked like they wanted the floor to swallow them, and said āI killed my child with good intentionsā.
Iāll never forget the look on her face.
So to reiterate, children under the age of ten should not be directly exposed to things like eucalyptus oil, peppermint or wintergreen. If you are using such things in your house and your child starts to complain of headaches, lethargy and general āfeel worseā, donāt just assume itās the cold/flu. Those are all signs of menthol sensitivity and they only get worse with increased exposure. Ventilate the room, take them outside if you can until the air clears. Do not apply again.
Rapid onset wheezing may be a sign of allergic reaction or possible asthma attack triggered by the menthol too. If they tell you their chest is warm or fuzzy when you use it, thatās another sign itās not going down well with them. Again, ventilate the area or remove anything you applied to them. Administer inhalers if necessary. Watch for any more labored breathing or if they suddenly go limp or you canāt wake them up. If they do call 911.
This can also apply to people with allergies and asthma who are otherwise healthy.
One of the safest, natural ways to alleviate congestion is with just pure good old fashioned warm steam. Keep the air moist, drink plenty of warm fluids. Menthol can help relieve the feeling of congestion, but thereās limited evidence to suggest it actually clears the airways. And for the love of god donāt inhale mustard or horseradish (Iāve seen that suggestion on posts too, though how youād get those oils I donāt know). Thatās literally what tear gas is made of.
I apologize sincerely for bringing this long post back into your lives, fam, but Iām getting inundated with questions about what can the possible harm be if you dab a little neat peppermint oil on your childās skin to help them with a little head cold, and this is the most succinct way I can put it.
The harm you may do, is in fact death. I am not telling you these things to be a kill joy, Iām telling you so you wonāt accidentally kill yours.
Until I saw this, I had somehow missed that eczema is also associated with EDS. But, of course it is. (And the asthma that tends to run along with eczema.)
Besides the destruction, I really feel for all the people with breathing problems in areas affected by the wildfires out West.
It’s gotten rough enough back home a number of times, with seemingly half of WV on fire again and prevailing wind patterns funneling a bunch of the smoke straight down into the New River Valley. Which is prone to fun inversion layers anyway.
A few weeks one fall when I was in high school was the worst time I can remember, especially with the school’s shitty HVAC system actually concentrating the smoke inside the building šµ With significant asthma problems from it, of course, and I was hardly the only one who couldn’t breathe. It was bad enough everywhere else. That school shouldn’t have stayed open, and I’m amazed in retrospect that nobody’s parents kept them out for their safety that I knew of. (And people no doubt would have been talking about it, not wanting to be there wheezing and choking either.) Guess they didn’t believe the air quality could really be that much worse inside the school if it was staying open. Because kids š But, all of those forest fire seasons look like sparkling clean air, compared to large chunks of the Western US right now. It’s scary to think about from a distance, and I do wish there were something we could do to help people there on the ground.
Primarily, I looked these things up for wildfire and general particulate pollution checks and.. well, the color code is this:
and the rating for most of my stateā let alone anywhere effected by flooding [ie Louisiana atm] isĀ āUnsafe for sensitive groupsā andĀ āUnhealthyā. The guide for the ratings is found here.
I just wanted to share it because when people talk about pollution in the air, they donāt talk about fires, or how the particle pollution heavily comes from said wildfires and how the west coast suffers under a prolonged fire season as well. Itās a subject that needs to be paid attention to.Ā As an asthmatic living square in one of the more northern red blobs, it needs to be addressed.Ā
Add smoke and ash to what we generally put into the air and weāre all gonna bake/choke to death. If something isnāt done, weāre going to be in dire straights, not just because of the environment, but because of resulting health issues in elderly, children, and vulnerable people.
When I said please boost, I meant please reblog this. No one talks about how the western US goes up in flames and much less how the air quality goes to shit every year.
With Tr*mp in charge, pay to firefighters is backed up months behind schedual. People cannot personally afford to go fight fighters, departments canāt afford to go help other departments fight them. Public awareness campaigns are not being planned and put into action to keep people inside/aware of how to keep healthy and to reduce fire risk.
Unless people are seeing the particles in the air, they arenāt considering it a threat and this is a problem. Iām not the most environmentally versed person and iām not a scientist, but people need to know about it. Things like ash and smoke drift over the continent and affect much more than their local area.
So pleaseā spread this!
I wanted to know what it looked like currently andā¦Ā
My area is in the orange, it was yellow this morning when I walked out to the car to find it lightly covered with ash.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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