Epidemic Of Fever Phobia: The Facts On Why Fever Is Your Friend

Health and medical journalists are not presently providing the public with what might be the most important health advice that they should be given during the flu season:   people with the flu should avoid taking fever-reducing drugs, such as aspirin or acetaminophen (aka Tylenol^TM), except in rare situations.

It is widely recognized that fever is a vital defense of the body in its efforts to fight infection. A fever enables the body to increase its production of interferon, an important antiviral substance that is critical for fighting infection. Fever also increases white blood cell mobility and activity, which are instrumental factors in fighting infection. Jane Brody, a long-time respected health columnist for the New York Times, reported back in 1982 on the healing benefits of fever. She noted, a number of physicians, including pediatricians, are now suggesting that moderate fevers be allowed to run their course, for they may shorten the illness, potentiate the action of antibiotics and reduce the chances of spreading the infection to others. [1]

Recognition that fever is beneficial has been known for more than 2,000 years, and historically, the healing benefits of fever are so substantial that many patients have actually been treated with ''fever therapy'' to aid their recovery from such ailments as cancer, syphilis, tuberculosis and even mania.[2] [3] However, in the 1800's, aspirin compounds that rapidly reduced fevers became commercially available, and the medical view of fever changed dramatically. Since the mid-1800s, drug companies have successfully convinced conventional physicians and the general public to become vigilant in bringing down fevers, even sometimes using such drastic measures as cold baths and alcohol rubs along with aspirin.

In reference to the flu and fever, the bottom line is that it makes little sense to aggressively suppress the body's natural defenses against viral infection. There are, of course, some exceptions here. For instance, it may make sense to seek medical care if one's fever is above 104 degrees for over six hours or in any fever in an infant under four months of age.

Calling Dr. Gupta:  CNN’s Correspondent Gives Himself Questionable Medical Advice

“Fever phobia” is so rampant that many usually intelligent people, including physicians and medical reporters, forget what they know about the inherent defenses of the body when they become sick.

On September 23, Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN's chief medical correspondent, described his own experience in getting the H1NI flu while reporting from Afghanistan.[4] Although Dr. Gupta reported that he experienced a “high fever,” he never gave specifics, but it is unlikely that over 104 degrees.  The fact that Dr. Gupta was away from home and in war zone probably led him to want some relief of his fever, and because of this, he choose to take Tylenol.  However, he certainly didn’t help himself by taking this drug to suppress his fever.

It is therefore no wonder that he became the sickest he has ever become.  Taking drugs that suppress fever disables the body’s own defenses in fighting infection.  It is akin to unscrewing the warning oil pressure light in your car as a way to get rid of that irritating red signal.  Such “treatment” is not curative, and in fact, it can lead to much more serious problems. 

Ironically, the word “symptom” derives from the words “sign” or “signal” …and just turning “off” a sign or signal is simply not smart, even if double-blind studies show that unscrewing the warning bulb is “effective” in turning the light off. 

Ultimately, Dr. Gupta missed a great opportunity to educate the public about not taking fever-reducing drugs, except in certain extreme fevers.  Perhaps this article will “light a fire” underneath him to do so.

The New Drug Pushers:  Parents

In a 2007 survey of Australian parents published in a pediatrics journal, a shocking 91% of parents used fever-suppressing drugs in the treatment of their children’s fever.  Even more startling is the fact that this survey found that the medications were refused or spat out by the child in 44% of the cases, and yet, 62.4 of the parents actually used force to get their child to take these drugs, using different methods of ingestion (29.5%) or by using a suppository (20.8%). [5]

It is interesting to note that children tend to have an inherent fear of doctors, and this fear may not simply be the result of getting injections from them.  This fear may be an instinctual fear that what doctors offer them may not really be good for them, despite the seemingly short-term benefits of many drugs.  It may be time for us to listen to our children.

Serious Problems from Aspirin and Acetaminophen

Many people minimize the problems from these common drugs, but do so at their own and their family’s peril.

Children who get a viral infection and are given aspirin can lead to Reye’s syndrome, a serious neurological condition that can cause death.  Aspirin is also known to thin the blood and increase the chances of various bleeding disorders.  Its use more or less doubles the risk of a severe gastrointestinal event, which in most cases can lead to hospitalization. Lower doses that people take to reduce heart problems only seem to decrease these risks by a small amount.

Many people take acetaminophen because it is not associated with increased bleeding.  However, the general public is usually not aware of the fact that poison control centers in the US receive more calls as a result of an overdose of this drug than any other drug.[6]  This same problem exists in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.  Most commonly, overdoses of acetaminophen can lead to acute liver failure.  In children, it has been associated with increased asthma and eczema symptoms. 

Safer Solutions for the Flu…

Instead of using conventional drugs that suppress fevers or that inhibit other important defenses of the body, it makes more sense to use some type of natural medicines that mimic and augment the wisdom of the body. 

Homeopathic medicines are my own favorite method to augment the body’s own defenses so that they can more effectively heal themselves from various ailments, including the flu.  Because of the similarity between the 1918 flu and the H1N1 flu, it may be helpful to reference homeopathy’s impressive successes in treating people during the 1918 flu.[7]  The death rates in the homeopathic hospitals in the US were only around 1%, while the death rates in conventional hospitals were closer to 30%.  Another important fact from that era is that New York City had the lowest mortality rate during the 1918 flu than any city in the U.S., and this impressive statistic is primarily due to the fact that this city’s health commissioner at that time was Royal Copeland, MD, a renowned homeopathic physician, who later became a thrice-elected U.S. Senator (Franklin D. Roosevelt was even his campaign manager during his first election as senator).[8]  Copeland asserted, “There can be no doubt that the superiority of homeopathy in a purely medical condition is just as great as it was fifty years ago.”

One of today’s most popular homeopathic medicines for the flu is the popular Oscillococcinum, a medicine that has been used by homeopaths since the 1920s.  There have been four controlled studies that have shown that this medicine is effective in reducing the symptoms of influenza as compared with those people given a placebo.[9] 

The effectiveness of another homeopathic remedy, called Gripp-Heel, was compared with that of conventional treatments in a prospective, observational cohort study in 485 patients with mild viral infections and symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle pain, cough or sore throat.[10]  As evaluated by the practitioners, 67.9% of patients were considered asymptomatic at the end of Gripp-Heel therapy vs. 47.9% of patients in the control group. Practitioners judged homeopathic treatments as 'successful' in 78.1% of cases vs. 52.2% for conventional therapies. Tolerability and compliance were 'very good' given for 88.9% of patients in the homoeopathic group vs. 38.8% in the conventional treatment group.

The above homeopathic medicines are primarily helpful during the first 48 hours of onset of the flu.  Other homeopathic medicines to consider during this time and afterwards include:  Gelsemium, Bryonia, Ipecacuanha, Arsenicum album, Eupatorium perf., Rhus toxicodendron, and Baptisia (homeopathic medicines are traditionally listed by their Latin names so that consumers and doctors will know the precise plant, mineral, or animal species of every medicine).  Each of these medicines has a history of efficacy in homeopathic doses for treating the specific syndrome of symptoms that each has been found to cause when given experimentally in overdose to healthy people.  To determine the details of each of these medicines, please consult a homeopathic guidebook, such as Everybody’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicines by Stephen Cummings, MD, and Dana Ullman, MPH or the Complete Homeopathic Resource for Common Illnesses, by Dennis Chernin, MD, MPH.

REFERENCES: 

---

^[1] Brody J. Fever: New View Stresses its Healing Benefits.  New York Times, December 28, 1982.

^[2] Hobohm U. Fever therapy revisited. British Journal of Cancer (2005) 92, 421–425. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6602386

^[3] Brody J. Fever: New View Stresses its Healing Benefits.  New York Times, December 28, 1982.

[4] http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/23/i-went-to-afghanistan-and-all-i-got-was-h1n1/

[5] Walsh A, Edwards H, Fraser J.  Over-the-counter medication use for childhood fever: A cross-sectional study of Australian parents.  J Paediatr Child Health. 2007 June 29. 

[6] Lee WM (July 2004). "Acetaminophen and the U.S. Acute Liver Failure Study Group: lowering the risks of hepatic failure". Hepatology 40 (1): 6–9. doi:10.1002/hep.20293.

[7] Marino R.  Flu pandemics: homeopathic prophylaxis and definition of the epidemic genius . Int J High Dilution Res 2009; 8(28): 100-109. http://www.feg.unesp.br/~ojs/index.php/ijhdr/article/view/354/399

[8] Robins N. Copeland’s Cure: Homeopathy and the War between Conventional and Alternative Medicine. New York: Random House, 2005, p. 154.

[9] Vickers A, Smith C. Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD001957. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001957.pub4  http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001957.html

[10] Rabe, M. Weiser, P. Klein, Effectiveness and tolerability of a homoeopathic remedy compared with conventional therapy for mild viral infections. Int J Clin Pract. 2004 Sep;58(9):827-32.

 

 

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Comments

[DoctorToni]

Many of you are missing the point. The real reason it is ill advised to take anti-pyretics(fever lowering drugs) for the flu and other infectious illnesses, is that the fever increases your immune response to the infecting agent. It is plain stupid to fight against your body as it's fighting a virus. The best way to stay sick is to prevent the fever that your body needs to fight infection.

[Debby Bruck]

Dana. The community is indebted to you for providing valid and important information about self-care during this influenza season. History has taught us that taking aspirin can cause negative effects in the healing process leading to secondary infection. The real cause of mortality during flu is pneumonia and other bacterial infections.

As I began to read through all the comments I found myself skimming over the negative attitudes, the ones that tried to side-track the discussion, those who had an axe to grind, while reading more deeply the comments that had some positive information to contribute and an attitude of thankfulness toward your efforts to educate the public.

I sincerely thank you and look forward to more excellent articles.

[fls327]

Really? Pointing out that the assertions made in this article are not supported by good-quality evidence is axe-grinding? But a thinly-veiled sales pitch to get your money is educating the public? Isn't that supposed to be the other way around?

[Conk]

Dr. Gupta is of the established convention. Conventional medicine ignores the fact that the body is self-repairing and self-sustaining. Allopaths totally ignore nature and pretend the physical body is deficient in some petrochemically derived drug. Insanity!

[fls327]

I think you are mistaken. If medicine didn't recognize that the body is self-repairing and self-sustaining, then it wouldn't see any need for placebo-controlled trials. It seems to be all those people who support the idea of "common sense" who fail to recognize that the recovery one sees with homeopathy or other CAM therapies is simply the recovery that one would see with no treatment at all.

[bthechangeyouseek]

Thank you for the reminder of letting our bodies do their own internal work, and the scholarly information.

[Doybia]

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4455951

Impact of Temperature Elevation on Immunologic Defenses
Norbert J. Roberts, Jr.
Reviews of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 13, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1991), pp. 462-472
(article consists of 11 pages)
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

This article explains that they aren't actually sure how or why fever may help the immune system. In my view, if you aren't sure that something is hurting, then giving drugs to interfere with what appears to be a normal bodily response to illness, is silly. Why not allow the body to use its own tools to cope?

There seem to be two main reasons that parents have fever phobia. They don't understand that fever may be a part of the body's response to the microbe rather than a direct result of the microbe. And they cannot stand to see their child suffering and want to relieve them of their misery.

Let's look at chickenpox. There is a bit of evidence out there that treating chickenpox to lower fever increases the likelihood of complications. Makes sense, doesn't it?

[mofmars333]

Makes sense all right. Every bit of what you wrote does.

In our family, from generations back, it was common knowledge to allow fever it's course.

Common sense as well as instinct dictates the fact fever is our our immune systems normal mechanism to make us well.

[Doybia]

Good article. I've know for a long time that fever phobia can turn a minor illness into a major one. What I've never been able to understand is why people are so enthusiastic about disarming the immune system when it is in the middle of dealing with an invasion.

Many years ago I read an article about a measles epidemic in Africa. The author was a doctor who was working in a small hospital where they were treating many children with measles. Many were dying. After a while, the author was put in charge of the measles treatment. He immediately declared that fever was to be left untreated unless it was life-threatening. The children with measles were miserable, lying in bed, suffering with high fevers. However, they stopped dying from measles. After he took over the treatment only one more child died--one who already had a very bad case of malaria. The other children lay there being really miserable for a day or a day and a half and then they started recovering.

As a mother and a grandmother, I'd much rather see children miserable with a fever for a day or so than dead because I disarmed their immune system for a little temporary relief.

[dereklorenzo]

Really, the bottom line is to subject homeopathic medicine to the same standards as the FDA requires prescription products to undergo.

[MicheleCA]

yes that & do something about the fda.

[stevescrutton]

Treat homeopathy through the same standards applied by the FDA?
I would hope that homeopathy could do much better than that! The FDA has approved every drug that has caused havoc to people's health for decades, and drugs that were known to kill people. All this after 'science' has tested them, and they have been given to us as both safe and effective.
Homeopathy has never harmed anyone - so our standards are already much, much higher.

[DanaUllman]

This new article was just published at SciencDail­y.com...an­d it verifies what I wrote in this article.

Aspirin Misuse May Have Made 1918 Flu Pandemic Worse
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm

The reference to this article is:
Karen M. Starko. Salicylates and Pandemic Influenza Mortality, 1918%u20131919 Pharmacology, Pathology, and Historic Evidence. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2009; DOI: 10.1086/606060

[dereklorenzo]

I thought we were debating the efficacy of homeopathic medicine, not aspirin use in 1918.

[Doybia]

Well, derek, the article is actually about fever. The homeopathy is a side point. And it seems quite likely that aspirin misuse might have made the 1918 influenza epidemic worse.

[fls327]

Your article is about avoiding the treatment of fever in influenza which would include the use of aspirin in doses found to be safe and effective. The article you linked to was about the possibility that people in 1918 may have used doses 4 to 13 times higher than would be considered safe. The article has nothing to do with the use of aspirin or with the treatment of fever and does not support your claim at all.

[Alanheal]

The theoretical debate over whether homeopathy works is like two people arguing whether lemons are sour. One could produce endless studies and argue for years, or .....taste a lemon. It turns out that people who deride homeopathy, even so called scientists, have admittedly never tried it. The 500 million people who use homeopathy believe in it, not because they read a study, but because they experienced its effect with their own bodies.

There are homeopathic clinics and hospitals around the world, successfully treating illnesses for which the conventional establishment is still "looking for a cure". The homeopathic doctors who work in these clinics have regular MD's and studied for many years, yet decided that homeopathy was superior.

For some, it is pleasurable to ridicule, and feel superior, especially when you have been beaten down your whole life. For some, homeopathy may seem too fantastic based on what they have been taught. I understand both these positions and respect the pain and doubt.. To those people I urge openess, because it may be important to you, or your loved ones in the future.

[fls327]

A more apt comparison is arguing over whether your lemon becomes more sour after the addition of a drop of a homeopathic remedy. People state that they definitely notice a difference when they are told which lemons were treated in this manner. Yet, when they are not told which is which, they can't tell them apart.

[cable1977]

Your analogy is not really accurate. Something either cures you or it doesn't. And that is measurable and can be tested. It does not require belief in the treatment.

If a treatment works, you can prove that it works. There is no need for belief or openness, just good and rigorous scientific method. If you really want to prove something works you have to actively attempt to prove that it doesn't and be able to accept negative data disproving your hypothesis.

If homeopathy works, it can be proved easily using double blind, placebo controlled studies. If it works, it will show clear efficacy. If it doesn't work, it will be equivalent to placebo. The problem is, because belief in the therapy is so strong, that negative data cannot affect that belief, which then makes homeopathy no different than any other superstitious medical belief.

[dereklorenzo]

It's called the placebo effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

[fls327]

Well, my analogy describes a blinded, placebo controlled trial. You go on to suggest that homeopathy should be subject to blinded, placebo controlled trials instead. It's hard to see how that makes my analogy "not really accurate". :-)

[DanaUllman]

It is quite strange reading some of the comments below from the skeptics of homeopathy. It is strange that they all say that homeopathy is just water or a placebo...and yet, in this article, I cite several studies, one of which reviews four large studies testing Oscillococcinum in the treatment of influenza. There was clearly a difference between patients given a placebo and those given the homeopathic medicine.

It is almost as though that these people don't read, don't understand, and don't want to learn...and yet ironically, they think that they are defending "science" and "medicine."

Please remember that "science" and "medicine" are verbs...ever changing. Sometimes science and medicine overlooks discoveries...and homeopathy is simply just other example of this. In future blogs, I will reference other clinical research and basic science research. Hopefully, I will help to create a forum for people who want to learn, not just people who want to spout their rehearsed uninformed and under-informed points of view.

[fls327]

You state that there was clearly a difference between patients given homeopathy and those given placebo. Variation in the presence and degree of symptoms is expected. The question is whether or not that variation is related to the use of homeopathy. The finding of minor and inconsistent variations in symptoms suggest that the differences are not related to the use of homeopathy. And the reference you provided clearly states "the data were not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndromes."

Medicine is simply interested in reliable and valid information to guide its practises. That medicine has moved away from the use of information that has been discovered to be highly unreliable and left homeopathy behind is hardly something to be disparaged.

[rationalcon]

I didn't see elderberry extract mentioned. Although not homeopathic, I have had seemingly good success preventing viral infections with 1 teaspoon a day. Any thoughts?

[cable1977]

Anecdotal data isn't really proof that something works. You need to compare treated patients versus untreated patients to really be able to understand if any compound whether it is homeopathic, natural, or pharmaceutical works. Only then can you get above the noise of statistical randomness and actually understand if your treatment is efficacious.

[cable1977]

Science and medicine are indeed ever changing based on the acquisition of new knowledge. But how does that make them verbs? C'mon...you wrote a book, you must have a better grasp of nouns versus verbs.

If you want to garner respect about your ideas, you should post clinical research of double-blind, placebo controlled studies that show clear efficacy. As fls said, the reference you provided clearly states "the data were not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndromes." Hardly a ringing endorsement.

[equianimi]

These doctors need to stop pushing homeopathy since it has no science backing it up and they're committing just as much if not more research fraud than the mainstream. This puts a serious damper on the Natural doctors that practice real science backed medicine using herbs, all natural medicines and occasionally pharmaceuticals. People end up grouping the homeopaths with the naturopaths and this just makes those that practice allopathic profit driven medicine hold onto a hope of making naturopaths look delusional as well. This nonsense needs to stop.

[stoat100]

Homeopathic 'medicine'?

As it contains nothing but water, remind me again how the water 'remembers' the good stuff, but 'forgets' all the poisons it has been in contact with?

Ah - I remember now. You... shake it about a bit. Yeah, that works.

Jesus...

[Blixa]

Natural fever is one thing. But "fever therapy," as used to treat Lyme's Disease, for instance, is dangerous and very frightening. Please consult a doctor.

[fls327]

It is a reasonable question to ask. There have been some randomized trials designed to look at the benefit or harm of treating fever in rhinovirus infections, varicella, and malaria. There tends to be more relief of symptoms (for obvious reasons) in those who take anti-pyretics. Duration of illness tends to be no different. Some measures are inconsistently increased with anti-pyretics - for example, virus shedding in rhinovirus. The trials are too small to draw reliable conclusions one way or the other. There is no reliable evidence that taking anti-pyretics prolongs duration of illness.

The concerns mentioned with the use of aspirin and acetaminophen are not associated with their short term or occasional use.

Good-quality clinical research demonstrates that homeopathy is indistinguishable from the effects of placebo and bias. There is insufficient evidence to recommend its use in any condition. In particular, review of the four randomized controlled trials for oscillococcinum found that the data was not strong enough to recommend its use in the treatment of influenza.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=12492603
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001957.html

[Jaywalkker]

Aspirin, no. Acetaminophen, maybe. Unfortunately acetaminophen is in everything so when you're done with you're daily does of prescription drug you may turn to an over the counter that the doctor may say is safe to assume so long as you don't exceed recommended doses of both - but both have acetaminophen.

[DanaUllman]

In due respect, you are either mis-reading the conclusion of those studies on Oscillococcinum or are purposefully providing mis-information. The conclusions of these studies is that there WAS a statistically significant difference between those given this medicine and those given a placebo. They further asserted that this research was "promising," but warranted more trials.

The bottomline is that ALL of the important benefits that the body experiences from fever cannot be replaced or replicated in a conventional drug. The supreme arrogance of Big Pharma perspectives is palpable, and ignoring the importance of the body's own defense creates a narrow view of life and nature...

[Jaywalkker]

The very act of dilutions and hoping on water to retain "memory" of whatever was in it, seems redundant. Water already contains, in trace amounts, every element on the periodic chart, so why add something and filter it out?

Also, in 2 other comments I raised the following issues:
-you advocate not treating a body's natural defense (fever) by treating the body's other natural defenses (cough, lymphatic aches)
-the paper in cite note #7 that advocates for homeopathy in flu treatment, says in the paper itself that it is citing self reported numbers from other homeopaths, once of which is a citation of numbers from a paper that was itself cited in a book that was cited by the paper. How is that peer reviewed science?

The above in itself, seems to be incredibly circular reasoning that is self-contradicting.

[fls327]

I provided a link to the Cochrane review where it is stated that "the data were not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndromes". The two main clinical trials on Oscillococcinum did not measure the presence of influenza or the resolution of influenza, but instead asked the patients to record 12 different measures including 9 different symptoms. Recovery was defined differently between the two studies. In one study, the absence of 5 symptoms at day 2 was chosen to indicate recovery and in the other study two different measures of recovery were used, the absence of 2 symptoms (1 different from that used in the first study) or a reduction in symptoms indicated recovery or effectiveness. The size of any differences was described as "modest".

[fls327]

Statistical significance refers to a test of significance applied to a single comparison. The two studies involved multiple comparisons. There was a choice of multiple symptoms, multiple measures and multiple days to use for a final outcome measure or measures. And whether the small differences were statistically significant depended upon which measure was ultimately chosen. For example, the percent recovered each day over a 1 week period (instead of choosing a single day from that week) did not show a statistically significant difference. The choice of a different collection of symptoms or measures to indicate recovery did not show a statistically significant difference. A correction to the statistical significance test in order to take these multiple comparisons into account renders any of the small differences statistically insignificant in addition to being clinically insignificant.

However, none of that is relevant. Even if the changes demonstrated in the study were substantial, they show that oscilococcinum only alters symptoms. Since your recommendation is to avoid the use of therapies that only alter symptoms, that unscrew "the warning bulb", the use of oscillococcinum contradicts the substance of your article.

[Anissa Hargis]

Treating a fever below 101 is unnecessary, however, the symptoms with fever above 101 (headache, myalgias, lightheadedness) are so significant that I feel avoiding antipyreti­cs/analges­ics causes needless suffering. There are no studies that I am aware of that prove not treating fevers increase the length of flu or secondary illnesses (pneumonia being the primary one). Having a 7 year old with the flu currently, I am pushing fluids, and treating fever of 101 or greater with acetaminophen or ibuprofen. (Though he mentions Reyes syndrome as a secondary result of treating children with aspirin I believe it is common knowledge that children are no longer to be treated with aspirin.) Also, in an aside to the mother who is treating her child's earaches with oil or garlic oil, a pediatrician worth his or her salt will avoid using antibiotics during the first 48 hours of symptoms/infection. Remember, the primary reason for treating earaches with antibiotics is not necessarily to relieve symptoms or resolve fluid behind the middle ear, (a mechanical problem, not an infectious one) but to reduce the risk of secondary meningitis. A common-sense balance of conventional medicine, newer understanding and use of homeopathic practices, and our mother's advise seem the best route when treating fall/winter flus and colds. Chicken soup, anyone?

[rationalcon]

Aspirin danger may be common knowledge, but Stevens-Johnson Syndrome related to ibuprofen and amoxicillin is NOT. All parents should visit here:

http://www.sjsupport.org/fact.shtml

NEVER give your child ibuprofen, amoxicillin only when absolutely necessary.

[Anissa Hargis]

As a physician assistant for thirteen years practicing primary care I prescribe all drugs with caution. However, in thirteen years I have never seen Stevens-Johnson syndrome as a result of these particular drugs. All drugs should be used with an understanding of possible adverse events. But severe side effects associated with short term use of these drugs in otherwise healthy children are very rare.