The last 72 hours have been rough for my baby boy. A few nights ago, as happens every week in our house, Mr. Isis went to church. He sings at our church on Sunday mornings and has rehearsal one weeknight per week. This works out great for me because on said weeknight I get to go out on a date with the hottest little toddler in the land.
So, Little Isis's saga begins at the end of last week when we were enjoying some Little Isis-Dr. Isis time. I was enjoying being with him so much that I broke cardinal rule number one. I kept him up past his bedtime. in response, Little Isis had a total and complete meltdown.
Figure 1: Dr. Isis's artistic interpretation of Little Isis. Little Isis is like a mogwai. He's adorable and cuddly, unless you feed him after midnight or get him wet.
During said meltdown I tried to pick up my precious bundle of half my DNA to comfort him and, as he squirmed, proceeded to drag my wedding ring across his face. This left a 2 cm swath of missing flesh across his left cheek. He cried. I cried. We both cried. I think I cried more. And then I took him to the kitchen sink and placed a paper towel over the wound to try to stop the bleeding. He said to me, "My paper towel make my owie all better." To this I agreed, 'Yes, honey. The paper towel made it all better."
This oversimplification has since resulted in shenanigans.
You see, by telling him the paper towel "made it all better," I have created a monster. In the last two days he has fallen off of a swing and bumped his head and taken a tumble off the sofa and in both cases he has requested, nay demanded, a paper towel to fix it and make it better. This morning after the sofa tumble I tried to explain that the original purpose of the paper towel was to stop bleeding. Because Little Isis was not bleeding, only "bonkered," a paper towel would be an ineffective therapeutic intervention and that perhaps ice or a bag of frozen peas would be more appropriate. I pulled up PubMed and showed him evidence that ice is beneficial in the treatment of soft tissue injury. He pouted, stompted his feet, and then showed me evidence to the contrary. I told him that I am is mother and I know what is best. To this he replied, in the shrillest of tones, "My have my paper towel! My fix my owie my own self!"
We are now off to The Children's Museum. My purse now contains my wallet, cellphone, and keys, plus a couple of paper towels in case of injury.
Medicine & Health
Comments
Sometimes you've just gotta go with what works. Glad little Isis has discovered such an economical deity.
Posted by: MikeMa | February 15, 2009 2:21 PM
My sister-in-law "takes away" the pain of my niece by some weird movement of hands that is supposed to be magical.
A friend of mine, convinced her son that she would give him her 'nanobots' to fix any 'owies'. He used to give them back when she was sick.
I think that mothers all have their own special way to get their kids to quit crying, if you can get away with a paper towel, I think that you are all good.
Posted by: geeka | February 15, 2009 2:48 PM
After our DD developed such a fascination with her pink Princess band aids that she wanted them for every little bump, we switched to imaginary pink princess band aids. Works like a charm.
Perhaps Little Isis will countenance the idea of imaginary paper towels one day?
Posted by: perceval | February 15, 2009 3:31 PM
Isis, The placebo effect is mediated through neurogenic release of nitric oxide.
http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2007/04/placebo-and-nocebo-effects.html
The archetypal placebo is the mother’s “kiss it and make it better”. What that neurogenic NO does is switch physiology back from the “fight or flight” state where all resources are held ready or allocated for immediate consumption to the state where resources can be allocated to healing.
The placebo effect is in Little Isis, not in the paper towel.
A slobbery kiss might be somewhat more effective because there is nitrite in saliva following a high nitrate meal (i.e. a salad), where the salivary glands concentrate nitrate ~10x over plasma and bacteria on the tongue reduce that nitrate to nitrite. Saliva has been measured at 2 mM/L nitrite in humans following the equivalent of ~100 grams of lettuce. This nitrite does have physiological effects.
I carry around a little squeeze bottle of the bacteria I am working with in growth media simulating sweat (about 40 mM/L nitrite) and if I get a boo-boo, I apply it to my boo-boo myself (not having a female-type figure to kiss it and make it better).
Acidified nitrite (skin pH is ~4) is a potent broad spectrum antimicrobial and specifically inhibits quorum sensing compounds and so prevents expression of virulence factors including biofilm formation. I have blogged about the theory behind the interactions of these bacteria with the skin.
http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2008/06/suggestion-to-reduce-antibiotic.html
Posted by: daedalus2u | February 15, 2009 3:32 PM
Just be glad that you got away with carrying around something as simple as a paper towel. If he'd bonked his head first you might be carrying around a bag of peas in your purse.
Posted by: JM | February 15, 2009 3:34 PM
cut him some slack on the evidence-based conclusions for now, his brain has some developing to do.
ps- you may want to keep that in mind when he's a teenager too. ;)
Posted by: leigh | February 15, 2009 3:51 PM
Paper towels! Excellent.
We have something in our freezer which has come to be called the "cold fish." It's a fish-shaped teething thing for babies, idea being that the cold will soothe their gums. The girls never took to it for that, but it evidently heals everything else. Scraped knee? Suck on the cold fish, you'll be all set. Explanations were in order if my toddlers hollered "I NEED A COLD FISH!" when they bonked themselves away from home.
My Bean scratched her little cheek at about 2, and though it didn't seem like a big deal at the time, it left a visible scar for much longer than we thought it would. Be sure to use sunblock on Little Isis's scratch as it heals.
Posted by: sandy | February 15, 2009 3:54 PM
Magic paper towels. Not bad. When we got to the bandaids thing after spending an inordinate amount of $ on bandaids, made the rule "no blood no bandaids." However paper towels can be re-used.
Posted by: Lilian Nattel | February 15, 2009 4:09 PM
that is cute! my little monkey depends kisses on the toes for every owie, regardless of where it is..
Posted by: ScientistMother | February 15, 2009 4:16 PM
When we were kids my father convinced us, with a straight face, that the way to stop mosquito bite itching was to wet them & sprinkle salt on them. So we did. For years.
Someone eventually realized this was a crock & blew his cover, but the power of placebo sure is powerful!
Posted by: lago | February 15, 2009 4:52 PM
My 10 year-old still grudgingly accepts kisses on owies, in the thought that they may do some good. :)
Posted by: Carlie | February 15, 2009 5:08 PM
Awww all this talk is making me miss my mom while I'm here at college!
Posted by: Brittnimeyer@gmail.com | February 15, 2009 8:16 PM
...
I do not know about owies . . .but 'paper towels' apparently do have their place in the field of science...
...tom...
.
Posted by: ...tom... | February 15, 2009 8:32 PM
I have taken away kids' noggin bump headaches through direct brain-to-brain pain transfer. I touch skulls with them, wince, scream, and thrash about - think Mr. Spock in "The Devil in the Dark". It usually makes the kids feel better right away. Sometimes I do it so effectively I actually give myself a blinding headache.
Posted by: Harold | February 15, 2009 11:58 PM
Your Photoshoppery Skillz are improving.
Posted by: Toaster | February 16, 2009 1:04 AM
Beautiful illustration of what is wrong with woo and its proponents, and why some of us seem to fight an almost hopeless battle against the pseudosciences (and also why we who do are so often charged with being "heartless", among other things).
Posted by: G.D. | February 16, 2009 2:03 AM
Thanks, Toaster! I am looking to put this on my next grant application as a unique talent -- "Dr. Isis is uniquely qualified to Photoshop stuff on to other stuff and have it be hilarious.
Thanks, GD. I knew some of you would also see the thinly veiled meaning of this post.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | February 16, 2009 4:23 AM
Try to replace paper towels with kisses, which was the cure when I was a kid. They're cheaper and more portable than paper towels, and who can complain about extra kisses for your kid? Just make sure you wash off the skin first.
Posted by: catgirl | February 16, 2009 3:14 PM
I've always believed that if the placebo effect is working and nobody is really affected by it (save the environment in this case, but as Lilian Nattel pointed out, it can be reused so still ok) then there's no harm to it.
For instance, my Dad was convinced for the longest time that a glass of red wine was curing his migraines. Since nothing else was working, I kept quiet and never bothered to tell him that red wine was actually a trigger for migraine. Then my brother had to go and open his big fat mouth and now my Dad is back to suffering from migraines...
Posted by: Shen-Li | February 24, 2009 12:28 PM