Image courtesy of Keerati at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Riddle me this. My just-turned-five year old son, who was never ever really sick (at least on the surface), is now sick all the time.

He has, since birth, always suffered from an immune system that was under reactive at best or completely nonreactive. It seems now that he has moved into a state of overreaction. Which means my boy who, for years, never showed a fever or even a runny nose, has now gotten several fevers, a stomach virus, and colds more times than I can count in the last few months. To the typical person, this does sound like a bad thing. But the truth is, we want our immune systems to work, knocking out all those little bugs that kids are exposed to. Fevers and runny noses help us do that. In the old days, my son would be exposed to illness, and instead of getting sick like his peers did, he would rapidly blink or stim or exhibit other obsessive behaviors and meltdowns. I wouldn’t know in the beginning what was going on with him, but as I got used to the pattern and started working with a homeopath, I was able to start recognizing that he was probably exposed to some something. These behaviors often occurred when a friend or a kid in his class was sick. I remember one day seeing him sit on the couch looking at a book and watching his eyes start to blink rapidly. I remember that day he was also running his cars back and forth and back again repetitively, much more than usual. Sure enough, the next day at nursery school, there was sign up about a strep outbreak in the classroom. I started to be able to call it based on his behaviors.

When my daughter was born, I was surprised to see how often she had a runny nose. That was until someone reminded of the fact that children with typical immune systems are often snotty little things (said with love). It’s just that I never had that experience the first time around. Which is all to say, I am so glad to see that my son’s immune system is healing. That was our main goal with diet and homeopathy. I know that the current over reaction of his immune system seems to be a combo of being in school more hours per week as well as the fact that he now has to build up the natural immunity that other kids his age have had a few years to achieve.  But, yes, it’s been a bit of a rough road, with missed school days and a cranky, sick kid (or two). I think the addition of something like acupressure or cranial sacral therapy will help support him during this time, and I will be looking into those things soon. It’s always helped me in the past.

Just another chapter in our healing journey. Pray for a bit of a break from germs in the spring and summer months!!