HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 February 1943, Page 5

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

RHMEUATIC FEVER. “GROWING PAINS” SYMPTOMS. (By the Health Department.) No. 96. Growing pains in children are not always what some parents think they are—the normal consequences of growing up. Healthy, vigorous boys and girls don’t have growing pains. Unbelievable are the number of cases where parents paid no heed to these warning symptons—symptoms that usually follow rheumatic fever weeks, months, and even years later. Rheumatic fever is responsible for a large proportion of heart defects in children between the ages of 6 and 15 years. Why it should leave children’s hearts weak is a mystery which scientists are trying to unravel. In its early stages it is sometimes difficult to detect. Swollen painful joints, fever and sore throat should always be investigated, because they are all apt to be symptoms of the disease. Slight pain over the heart in adolescence, rapidpulse and shortness of breath, are cause for suspicion. When a child suffers frequently from nose-bleeding, he should be taken to a doctor, because many children suffering from rheumatic fever are subject to severe attacks of nose-bleeding. The fever is most persistent. A child may seem completely cured, yet the germ still lurks in his body waiting to strike again as soon as bodily resistance becomes low enough. This crippling disease is one of childhood’s worst enemies, and since there are certain definite symptoms that give warning of it, parents should be quick to act on them, because there is an infinitely greater chance for a cure by early detection and treatment. And on no account neglect those “growing” pains.