Upside Down

With Zach's illness and my illness, I haven't been online as much as usual the past few days. But I did still turn to the internet for advice on dealing with my ear. Friday, I woke up with the right side of my head completely full of cotton. Only my ear- not my sinuses. My head felt heavy and full on that one side. It was pretty miserable. I couldn't hear properly, I was uncomfortable. There are a lot of online resources for finding help when dealing with illness. I've seen other bloggers refer to "Dr. Google" for figuring out symptoms, I've been known to reference WebMD from time to time. But I didn't turn to a medical outlet on Friday. I turned to a bunch of moms. I'm part of a local online community for moms- MomsLikeMe.com (there are various cities under that main site). I posted on Friday about my symptoms. I also posted on Facebook- where most of my friends are moms. I turned to those moms again when looking for advice on dealing with Zach's cough over the weekend. Here's what I like about seeking out that kind of advice. I can read the responses, I can discern what I'm comfortable trying next, I can determine what we've already tried, I can rule out what already hasn't worked. Suggestions included taking a sinus med, taking an antihistamine, trying those ear wax candles, hydrogen peroxide in the ear. The suggestion I took that has, in my opinion, been really helping? Hanging upside down. Every evening, I hang over the side of my bed for about 10 minutes. I can feel the fluid moving around. The first time I tried it- and this was at the suggestion of one of the moms on MomsLikeMe- I immediately felt my ear open up and I could hear clearly for the first time all day! So every evening, I've spent time upside down. And each day, my ear has been a little bit better. When the pain gets annoying enough, I take a Tylenol sinus. I also sought out advice on Zach's cough- which became a lot heavier and more mucusy on Saturday night. A mom friend on Facebook suggested a homeopathic route- a honey based liquid. In all honesty, I blew off the suggestion. But when I was at the store Sunday afternoon and I was looking over the cough medicines... and I came across Chestal... all those cough meds aren't for use by anyone under the age of 4. I scoffed about that when it first rolled out- it impacted Teagan at the time. But she was a very healthy child who was rarely sick so cough medicine wasn't something I had much concern with when she was under age 4. Zach gets colds and such a lot more often than she did and medicine is on my mind a lot more with him. So we are trying the Chestal during the day. I have no idea if it will actually help break up the mucus or not. We've tried Mucinex in the past- as adults and with our kids. It doesn't work for us. And for anyone wondering- we did try the "Vicks on the feet" thing with Teagan and it wasn't the miracle everyone claims it to be. In fact, she slept worse that night than she had the night before with the Vicks on her chest! Last February/March, I posted about ways to get better. Read those posts here and here. Enough rambling from me- I'm back at work today after missing too much time last week and I have a ton to catch up on and a to-do list a mile long.