Blog
Viral Illness Predictions Point to Earlier, More Severe RSV Season
It’s back-to-school season, once again. And that means it’s “bringing germs back home from school” season, as well. It’s the perfect storm for viral infection; a combination of children being around one another in close quarters after a summer reprieve, the beginning...
Hidden Superpowers: How Kids with High Sensitivity Are Often More Creative and Curious
When it comes to our children, we often marvel at their boundless creativity, unquenchable curiosity, and unwavering sense of wonder. But did you know that there may be a surprising connection between certain allergic conditions and these remarkable traits? It has...
Why Respiratory Adenovirus and Pink Eye May Cause Treatment Confusion
When most of us think of pink eye, or conjunctivitis, we often associate it with a common eye infection that can be easily treated with eye drops or ointments. But recent studies have shed light on a fascinating link between pink eye and respiratory adenovirus. And a...
Beware: Poor Air Quality Affects Kids Differently
Many Marylanders stepped outside their homes today into an orange-tinted haze that smells far less like citrus and far more like sulfur. Smoke caused by Canadian wildfires that began erupting in early May has quickly drifted south. It first cast an ominous shroud over...
Your Child Didn’t Catch the Croup, They Caught the Croup Symptoms
Parents of small children know all too well the sharp, telltale cough that wakes the entire household in the wee hours of the night. It’s a dreadful, agonizing sound – somewhere between the bark of a circus seal and a broken foghorn. Most common during the onset of...
Testing for a Bunch of Viruses May Pinpoint Cause, But Fail to Have Positive Effect
All too often, contemporary medicine is conducted with an onslaught of testing that fails to get to the heart of problematic symptoms. Faced with a sick child, doctors immediately call for viral panels as a matter of course, a kneejerk reaction that does little to...
Attention Parents of Atopic Kids: Gastrointestinal Bugs Are on the Rise
Over the last several months, Culex Wellness – as well as every other pediatrician’s office, urgent care, and Emergency Room throughout the country – has noticed a significant uptick in gastrointestinal bugs and stomach upset in young patients. In addition to being...
Differentiating Between Strep Infection and Strep Carriers Can Cause Confusion
Amidst an increase in multiple respiratory viruses like RSV, the onset of flu season, and continued pandemic concerns, ERs, urgent care centers, and doctor's offices are seeing an uptick in visits, prompted by every sore throat, sniffle, and sneeze and accompanying...
It’s Not the Flu Vaccine That’s Making You Sick
Work long enough in medicine, and eventually, you’ll hear the all-too-common phrase: “I don’t want to get the flu vaccine. Every time I do, I get sick.” The reality is that today’s influenza vaccines are all inactivated, as in “dead,” says Dr. Keyvan Rafei, MD, Chief...
It’s Not the Infection We Catch – It’s Who Catches the Infection
Cold and flu season has arrived. For parents of school-aged children – particularly families with multiple kids – that frequently means a lot of revolving sniffles, sneezes, coughs, and fevers throughout the fall and winter months. What is sometimes interesting,...