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  • What have we learned in the wake of the Penn State scandal?

    Recently there has been much discussion about the disturbing events involving a former Penn State football coach and allegations of sexual abuse of several children.  Serious questions have been raised in this case regarding the role and responsibility of adults who have direct knowledge or suspicions of child abuse to report their concerns to the proper authorities. Sadly, media reports reveal that the failure of adults to report suspected abuse is not isolated to this one university, sports team or organization.

  • Cutting and self-injury: what to do if someone you know is hurting themselves

    “Is it weird that I cut myself on purpose?”

  • Living life to the fullest despite being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis: Emily's story

    Emily is a vibrant, happy-go-lucky 10-year-old. With white-blonde hair, sparkly blue eyes and a contagious grin, she’s likely to steal your heart as soon as you meet her. To look at her, you’d never know that she has been fighting a serious illness her entire life.

  • When your sibling is sick: dealing with illness in the family

    Being sick isn’t easy, but neither is being the sibling of someone who’s sick.

  • A letter to other families battling childhood cancer

    Written by Colleen and JP Wright, parents of Ethan Wright, Ewing's Sarcoma Fighter and to date, SURVIVOR

  • How my roles as a woman, wife and mother have made me the doctor I am today

    This post was written by Dr. Brozyna, pediatrician at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children

  • Reading aloud to your kids affects literacy and school readiness

    Did you know that by the time your child reaches the 3rd grade, experts can reliably predict whether he will graduate high school?

  • ADHD medications: Things you should know as a parent

    Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common conditions among school-aged children, affecting roughly one in 25 kids. Children with this disorder often have trouble controlling their behavior, which can have wide-ranging effects on their home and academic lives.

  • If news headlines have made you feel like a bad parent, you aren’t alone

    You are a bad parent.

  • Itches and sneezes: Understanding allergies in children

    As I prepare to write about allergies, my poor daughter is sitting next to me sniffling away, red-eyed, stuffy-nosed, and miserable. If you don’t live with allergies yourself, it can be hard to understand how bad this common medical problem can make people feel. But allergy sufferers know that as their season draws near, they can count on disrupted sleep, trouble smelling and tasting food, itching out of their skin, and blowing through boxes of tissues.

    Types of allergies

    Allergies can be perennial, meaning all year long, or they can be seasonal. Perennial allergies are to things like: pet dander, dust mites, molds, and, believe it or not, cockroaches. Here in Florida, where humidity reigns, most of these allergens are everywhere. Seasonal allergies are pollen allergies, and involve trees, shrubs, grasses and weeds. In Florida, where things bloom and pollenate year-round, some unfortunate allergy sufferers can react to multiple pollens during multiple seasons, with little relief between seasons.

    Symptoms to look for

    Symptoms of allergies are many, and are sometimes hard to tell from viral or other illnesses. A common cold follows a rather predictable course: sore throat with or without fever at first, followed by runny nose, followed in another few days by cough. Things get worse over the first week, and then improve over the second week. The flu is marked by high fever and body aches. The hallmark of allergy is the lack of fever, itching of eyes, nose, throat, and/or skin, and the ups and downs of symptoms. Some people have classic allergic rhinitis, with itchy, sneezy, runny nose. Some have allergic conjunctivitis, with red, runny, itchy eyes. Some patients have maddening itching in the back of the throat.  Cough is common in allergy sufferers, and can be from post-nasal drip or from bronchospasm (allergy-induced-asthma is wheezing caused by allergic inflammation). Some allergy sufferers also have itchy dry skin, or eczema.  Complications of allergies can include infections of the ears, sinuses, lungs, and skin.

    How are allergies treated?

    Treatment of allergies may involve determining triggers and eliminating or preventing whatever you can. Sometimes, identifying triggers is easy; for example, if every time your child visits grandma and curls up with the cat she starts to tear and sneeze, your child is allergic to cat dander. You don’t need a test to prove that. On the other hand, allergy tests, which can be blood tests and/or skin tests, can be very helpful in patients with severe symptoms. For example, if your child is often congested and has recurrent sinus or ear infections and turns out to be allergic to dust mites, you can remove carpeting and curtains from his bedroom, encase his mattress and pillow in allergy-control casings, limit plush animals in his bed to one or two, and even run a dehumidifier to kill dust mites. Prevention is considered to be preferable to treatment with multiple medications.