Common Cold
Many people are exposed to the summer cold, especially infants, where these symptoms begin to appear by the sixth month of age and the incidence rate among infants or children at pre- school age is approximately seven to eight cold spells per year.
School- age children are affected at a rate of six cold spells per year, whereas for adults the annual incidence rate is approximately four.
Causes
Moving from an air-conditioned atmosphere to the blazing natural summer air directly, or the reverse, entry to an air-conditioned place from a hot midst, causes the nasal allergy symptoms, in which situation some suffer from recurring sneeze with a runny nose (rhinorrhea) and nasal itching, and these symptoms may persist continuously for a month or more in children without the manifestation of fever, and here antibiotics should not be prescribed one after another, since giving allergy- specific drugs can control the symptoms in children effectively.
In many cases, we find that parents fear for the health of their child who suffers from recurrent bouts of cold, believing this is the result of negligence in his care, or that he has a weakness in the immune system.
Here are some helpful tips:
- If the growth of the child who suffers from repeated cold is normal, he usually doesn't suffer from any disorder of the immune system, and it is a matter of years until the child comes to an older age for the condition to abate.
- A person may suffer from the cold without leaving home; for example, when he takes a hot bath, and then is directly exposed to an air conditioner or a fan’s cool air.
- It is not necessary to keep the child in the house until the disappearance of all cold symptoms and can go to school as soon as the fever passes away and the symptoms improve.
- Antibiotics have no role in the treatment of common cold, or its early use on the grounds that it may ease some of the complications that may accompany some cold spells.
- Common cold is caused by a virus, and not a germ and antibiotics eliminate germs, and the use of antibiotics is limited only in case of verifying the presence of, for example, an inflammation to the ear (otitis) or the nasal sinuses (sinusitis).
- Tonsillectomies or adenoidectomy is not a protective treatment against repeated cold.
At the end, vigilance and taking preventive measures like paying attention to the child's act of going in and out in summer or winter is considered the more important in reducing the incidence of cold.
Pharyngitis “Inflammation of the Throat”
Among the lexicon's most circulated items among people, and it can be said that no one was not exposed once or several times in his life time. It may be an individual case, but it usually has befallen all family members, or may have exceeded even that sweeping the neighborhood or more.
Pharyngitis is that disease that deprives people, especially children, of the pleasure of food and drink and may deprive them of the comfort of sleep too. It has been likened metaphorically to a stranger being moving its coarse legs and arms inside the throat, back and forth, causing pain with any attempt to swallow anything even the air. As for the children, their refuge is crying when it gets too much for them to bear.
Pharyngitis, despite its simplicity and ease of treatment - thank God - its neglect may cause - God forbid - many problems. Therefore, we don't wrong it when disclosing its secrets, what is this preoccupation of the public?
It is an inflammation in the throat caused by a germ or in the context of a systemic disease or for other reasons, and children are most vulnerable to infection, wherein it often leads to complications. It is uncommon under one year of age. It occurs mainly between ages (4-7 years), and certainly continues throughout childhood and later in life.
Germs and viruses that cause it:
There are more than 200 kinds of viruses, germs or bacteria are also numerous and each kind has many types of up to a hundred and the most common bacteria are those known as the streptococci beta condition of the blood, which alone account for (15 %) of infections. A viral infection can pave the way for bacterial infections, which find in the flammable throat a fertile turf, and if a person were infected with a particular type, this doesn't mean that he became immune to other types of a certain bacterium and therefore, a single kind of bacteria can cause inflammation in as many as its types.