The Meticulous Mom

It’s rainy season once more, and for most Moms out there, we are always on guard in protecting our kids from coughs and colds and flu and of course, the dreaded disease dengue. One of the most convenient yet preventive way we Moms usually do is to apply a good amount of insect repellent product to their sensitive skin. But I doubt though if we are one and the same in the product we use for our kids.

Ever since the effects of DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide), a Neurotoxin that attacks the Central Nervous System apparently causing slurred speech, confusion, seizures coma, rashes and even death, came out in the news and brought much public awareness, I doubt if Johnson and Johnson’s Off Lotion is still doing well in the market.

Well, at least for me and for Moms I know, we no longer buy Off Lotion since we discovered the wonders of organic insect repellents that are proven to guard our kids against dengue-causing mosquitos the NATURAL way.

Am listing here some of the products alternative to Off (some product descriptions copied verbatim from various websites) that we’ve already tried and tested. Read the rest of this entry »

The photos above are our latest chocolate indulgence at home.  Goya Black & White Chocolates. We love them along with another Goya variation–the Goya Choco Mint. These chocolates taste oh soooo heavenly, you wouldn’t believe it was locally-made, unless you see the packaging at the back of the box.  But yes, it’s domestically manufactured. But Goya Philippines proudly exports them abroad, volumes of which goes to the US market.

These Goya variations, along with other competitive Philippine products, complies with the US Food and Drug Administration’s 2006 regulation which requires food products from exporting countries to disclose the possible allergens in food package labels.  In Goya’s case, it disclosed that its products may contain peanut and other traces of nuts which is one of the eight major food allergens. Read the rest of this entry »

The last two weeks got me really worried because Nico had an on-and-off fever for so many days. I feared it was dengue but thank God, I was wrong. Several tests of CBC and platelets counts indicated normal figures and the pediatrician ruled it was just one of those usual viral infection.  He was prescribed antibiotics in the form of Amoxiclav that Nico took thrice daily (on an 8-hour interval) for seven days.

In as much as we do not want to resort “always giving antibiotics” since it’s common knowledge that “the frequent a person takes antibiotics, the more his/her immune system weakens”, we had no other choice but to give him antibiotics. His throat was irritated so bad and all swelling that the aid of antibiotics is badly needed.

So we bought.  Augmentin was the brand.  And since the antibiotic was in suspension form, we had it already mixed at the Pharmacy.  The doctor’s instruction was to give 5ml, preferably after each meal for better efficacy of the medicine.  I took a second look at the doctor’s instructions versus the packaging of the medicine and it all got me confused.  Good thing I recalled a former prescription of another doctor for the same medicine (this was in August of 2007 when Nico took antibiotics because of swollen gums in his upper front teet that brought high fever).  I browsed Nico’s medical files and there, I saw the other doctor’s prescription was 7.5ml and not 5ml as what the current doctor’s instruction told.

I suspected that maybe the doctor was wrong with the dosage so we went back to the Clinic to reconfirm the dosage.  I showed him the former prescription of the other doctor for the same medicine and there he rechecked his computations.  Using a calculator, he based his computations of the age of my son, his weight and the milligram contents of the antibiotic. It turned out in his computations that he was correct with the dosage.  He said the former prescription of the other doctor was an overdosage.  Oh my!  But well, when I said the antibiotics were for the swollen gums, he rephrased what he said and told me, it still depends on what the antibiotics are for and how urgent it is needed.

So curious and still doubtful that I am, I asked the doctor how he arrived at the figure.  He showed me how it’s computed and oh boy, the more I was confused.  The per mg multiplied by the weight in kilos and age of the patient.  See, I’m very poor in Math, I don’t even remember how it’s computed.  So I just resorted to googling and thank goodness, Wikipedia did not fail me. Read the rest of this entry »