Published: August 12, 2024
Here is a helpful list of urgent care options for kids offered by Norton Children’s and Norton Healthcare.
Urgent care options for kids
It’s not just kids back in class. School is now in session for germs — viruses and bacteria that cause illnesses that make your child (or you) sick.
Most common illnesses can be prevented with regular hand-washing and not sharing food utensils and drinks.
As a parent, what do you need to watch for? Here are seven illnesses commonly spread in school and how to treat them:
Symptoms: Sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, cough, mild fatigue, fever
Treatment: Home care products may relieve some of the symptoms but will not get rid of the illness. Antibiotics won’t help either — it just has to run its course. Take over-the-counter pain relievers, rest and drink plenty of fluids.
Kids can get eight colds per year or more, making colds the top reason kids visit the doctor and miss school.
Most colds are caused by rhinoviruses. These germs travel in tiny, invisible droplets in the air and on surfaces. Once inside the lining of the nose or throat, the virus can trigger immune system reaction and common cold symptoms.
Dry air and tobacco smoke can lower resistance to infection. Not wearing a jacket, sleeping where’s there’s a draft or going outside with wet hair do not cause a cold.
If your child develops a fever a week or so after cold symptoms begin, it could be a sign that sinusitis or another infection like bronchitis is developing. If so, call your pediatrician’s office. A child’s headache with a cold usually isn’t a sign of a sinus infection. Sinuses in the forehead don’t start developing until kids are 9 to 12 years old and aren’t formed enough to get infected until the early teen years.
Symptoms: Red, itchy eyes; blurred vision; sensitivity to light, eye discharge
Treatment: Antibiotics, usually eye drops, are effective for bacterial infections. Viral conjunctivitis will go away on its own.
Pinkeye is an inflammation of the conjunctiva, the white part of the eye and the inner eyelids. Some forms of conjunctivitis are contagious, while types caused by allergies aren’t.
Contagious pinkeye is often caused by the same bacteria and viruses responsible for colds, ear infections, sinus infections and sore throats.
Symptoms: Abrupt onset of fever, headache, muscle pain, and malaise; possible sore throat and cough
Treatment: Replace fluids and electrolytes (salt and minerals), and eat bland foods (crackers, toast, rice or chicken). Avoid dairy products and highly seasoned or fatty foods for a few days.
Everyone ages 6 months and older needs the flu vaccine.
The flu vaccine will protect against a bad case of the flu. It may prevent getting infected in the first place, but even those who catch it will have milder symptoms and a faster recovery. Each year’s vaccine protects against strains of flu A and flu B.
Flu viruses usually cause the most illness from October to May, so vaccination is most effective in the early fall.
Symptoms: Itchy scalp. Frequent scratching may cause broken skin or sores to form on the scalp. The damaged skin may weep clear fluid or crust over, and it may become infected. In response to infection, the lymph nodes behind the ears and in the neck may become tender and swollen.
Treatment: Over-the-counter lice shampoos work in most cases, though others require a prescription. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more specific instructions.[AG1]
Lice are tiny, but you can see them if you look closely enough. An adult louse is grayish white or tan and about the size of a small sesame seed. Lice move fast, so you’re actually more likely to see their eggs than the lice themselves.
Louse eggs are called nits. Nits look like dandruff that doesn’t brush off. Lice attach their nits to pieces of hair, close to the scalp. Nits often look like a small, oval blob on a strand of hair.
If nits are yellow, tan or brown it means the lice haven’t hatched yet. If the nits are white or clear, the lice have hatched and just the casing remains. Lice eggs hatch within one to two weeks after being laid.
Symptoms: Fever; sore throat; enlarged lymph nodes, especially in the neck and armpit; facial swelling; general discomfort; drowsiness; loss of appetite; muscle aches or stiffness; enlarged spleen; rash.
Treatment: Talk to your pediatrician or primary care physician. Get lots of rest — sometimes for a month or longer. Use warm salt water (half a teaspoon of salt in a glass of warm water) to gargle for sore throat. Take acetaminophen for pain relief.
Mono spreads from person to person through contact with saliva. Coughing, sneezing and sharing utensils, toothbrushes, straws or drinks are all ways mono can spread.
Symptoms: Sore throat (of course), fever, headache, joint/muscle aches, skin rash, swollen lymph glands in the neck
Treatment: If caused by a virus, antibiotics won’t help, and it will go away on its own within five to seven days. However, antibiotics can help if the sore throat is caused by a bacterial infection.
Symptoms: Sore throat, pain with swallowing, fever, headache, stomachache, swollen tonsils and lymph glands
Treatment: Your health care provider likely will prescribe an antibiotic. Gargling with warm salt water (half a teaspoon of salt in a glass of warm water) several times a day and taking pain relievers such as acetaminophen can help with symptoms.
Strep throat is caused by a type of bacteria (group A streptococcus). Strep bacteria cause almost a third of all sore throats.
Strep throat usually needs treatment with antibiotics. With the proper medical care — and plenty of rest and fluids — most kids get back to school and play within a few days.