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There is about nothing that tosses up the week for a mama like a sick little one. Everything, every.thing. has to be refigured from grocery shopping to school pick ups, not to mention out of the home commitments. It all just gets paused to care for your munchkin.
And then there is the debate of if you need to get them into the doctor or just give them a few days to recover. Personally, I am big on letting my or my littles immune systems fight off the bugs as much as they can. I am of the school that a fever – within reason – is there to burn off the germs and should be allowed to do it’s work up to a certain point. Obviously, if it gets too high or my little is unable to rest because of discomfort, then I am going to break out the Advil, but a moderate fever & a sleeping child will be left alone to rest in my home.
But as for a trip to the doctor, well, I am lucky to have a pediatrician that I see eye to eye with and both of us would like to see the kids develop strong immune systems… and we all know that if there is a place to pick up germs, it’s that pediatrician’s waiting room with all the other sick kids!
With all that in mind, when my husband first told me that he was going to buy home strep tests for us to have on hand, I definitely gave him a skeptical look.
First, I had no clue that was even a thing.
Second, seriously, how accurate could that be and what were we going to do with a positive strep test anyway? We couldn’t exactly write a prescription for amoxicillin and treat it ourselves…
Well, turns out, I am a big fan of having them on hand. The tests are super easy to do and so far, they have been 100% accurate for us. Which means, we have not had a single time that we tested, got a negative and later discovered that the child did have strep. At about $1.25 a test, that saves me the time and energy of a doctor visit – not to mention the extra germ exposure.
And when we have had a positive strep test, we zip on into out pediatrician, a minute clinic or the like and have antibiotics into our little super fast.
I was hesitant to mention to my pediatrician that we had done a home test but after they got a positive too, they were totally onboard.
So yes, today’s Friday Favorite is a little less glamorous than some, but I gotta say, as a mama with a house full of littles, it’s a big sanity savor for our crew.
What do you think, could you strep test your own littles?
XOXO
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