Helping freshman learn to make healthcare decisions for himself

Parents Forum
21

“In our family we really tried to cram all that sort of basic life training stuff into the first 18 years.”

Our oldest wasn’t sick at all in high school. He is now 21. The only time he has gone to the doctor for an injury/illness since 8th grade was this summer when our cat bit him. At first I thought that it would be ok then the next day it had swollen up. I had no idea that you should always go to the doctor if you have a cat bite and it breaks the skin because they usually get infected. This was news to me since I’ve had cats bite me before and it’s never gotten infected. Now both he and I know that. My point is unless the kids have some reference point it can be hard to figure out that you need to go to the doctor. It sounds like this foot problem is along that line.

22

Thank you to all of you who understand that no matter how much you try to prepare your kids, there are some things that are hard to teach out of context, especially if the kid has very little experience with the issue. Aside from a couple of broken fingers, my son hadn’t been to the doctor for anything more than an annual physical since he was 12 or 13.
He has contacted his doctor as I asked and we’ve managed to get him an appointment an hour after his last pre-Thanksgiving class tomorrow. I am relieved.

23

We had an emergency incident just recently. Without contacting us first, he Uber-ed himself to the nearest emergency room (hospital only a couple miles away) after looking up the symptoms online. A rather bizarre thing that has not recurred and hopefully has turned out to be a false alarm. If it had been what was suspected, it would have required emergency surgery within a few hours or there would have been life-altering consequences. I’m glad he went ahead with the emergency room rather than trying to find an urgent care clinic, who frankly might not have diagnosed the situation properly since the appropriate specialist wouldn’t have been available. Our insurance did cover it as medically necessary.

24

Agree. 18 year olds (even older adults) can often believe they have an “S” on their chest or that the laws of physics don’t apply with unfortunately sad outcomes.

25

@Awesomekidsmom Your son has a fungal infection like athletes foot, made worse by a secondary bacterial infection. Tell him if he doesn’t use his medicine and wear flip flops in the shower he could easily lose a toe.

26

@Awesomekidsmom you asked for advice, so I hope this doesn’t sound overly critical.

You said your son had a skin issue a month ago on his feet, and was prescribed / given something that helped at first, but now it seems much worse. I think it is possible that @TurnerT is correct, but I would recommend an additional Dr visit. It is also possible that if he was wearing a bandage over the affected area, he may have developed a further reaction to the tape. Some medications, especially OTC stuff, will stop being effective after a short while, so an alternate treatment may be needed.

In a situation like this, did you ask you son during your weekly calls (I don’t think that is too much to ask) how his feet were doing - for example, ask if it was it entirely cleared up? You could ask him to take a picture of it and send it to you, “just so his mom will feel better”. When you see that has gotten worse, ask him if he’s been applying the ointment, or taking the steroid, taking especially good care of hygiene, etc. Tell him to ask the doctor about the best way to apply anitfungal spray, how to clean and properly dry an irritated area, etc. before putting CLEAN socks on, etc. Be sure to ask about how long the recovery should be, when to follow up, etc.

And get him a new pair of shower flip-flops - the peace of mind for a couple bucks is well worth it.

I obviously don’t know how bad his feet are, or any details of his personal hygiene, and I don’t mean to accuse him. But it would not surprise me if he was one of those young men who, well, get a little sloppy when they go off to school.

One boyfriend of a roommate of mine in school developed skin problems because he was using too much fabric softener in his laundry, it wasn’t rinsing out, and he became allergic to the perfume scent. His athlete’s foot irritation provided the skin opening for the skin allergy.

Before you send him back after Thanksgiving, let him know how concerned you are, you’ll never stop being his mommy. Don’t forget to tell him how proud of him you are, because he is working hard, etc., lest you risk the chance of him feeling foolish/childish, and withdrawing.

The other suggestion is to let him know about times when you had to get medical attention for the first time for yourself on your own, how you felt better talking about it with your own parents since they worried terribly.

Again, I don’t intend for this to sound harsh or accusatory, I understand you are worried as any parent would be. I hope your son heals quickly, and uses this as a learning opportunity. Then tell him you want him to learn about how to deal with doctors, what questions to ask, etc. not just for himself, but selfishly, you want to prepare him for 25-35 years from now when he may need to be asking the doctor’s questions advocating for you.

27

@3puppies - I appreciate your long note, and don’t think you’re harsh. As you might imagine, we’ve taken many of these steps. I managed to get him a late afternoon appointment today and my husband was going to take him directly there after picking him up for the Thanksgiving break. I expect they are on their way home now and I should have some answers soon. It’s not fungus from not wearing flip flops in the shower. In fact, it started as contact dermatitis exactly where the flip flops touch the tops of his feet, and has just gotten MUCH worse so that it is now oozy and bloody (sorry for the graphic). I’m not sure how well he followed the initial protocol, but I know that it initially appeared to clear up, then started to get worse and he stopped the medication (without mentioning it at the time). I think he may have missed the instruction to also apply moisturizer because the medication was drying. I did swap out his flip flops this past weekend and have retrieved all of his socks to wash in hot water and bleach.
We’ve always been careful about detergents because he had eczema from an early age, so we’ve always used Dreft. I sent him to college with it in an unmarked container so that he didn’t have to bring a pink box of baby soap into the laundry room. I’ll be curious what the doctor says. She said she wanted to look at it, then would give him a referral to a dermatologist if warranted.
He hasn’t had skin problems since he was about 12, but he went through a really bad patch then (though not on his feet), and he probably remembers only that the treatment was successful and not that it took many months to resolve.
I hope that this experience will lead him to ask for help earlier. And perhaps I won’t back off as much as I have - I really wanted to give him room to make his own mistakes, but this scared me. I’m worried about contracting a staph infection in the open wounds. His dorm is not the cleanest place I’ve ever seen.

28

Diagnosis - severe psoriasis triggered by contact with flip flops. 30 days of medication with a referral to a dermatologist if it isn’t markedly better in 2 weeks.

29

My niece had a skin condition on her feet, delayed going to the doctor, and got a bad staph infection. She also did not know to get help and is across the country from her parents. Unfortunately, we parents continue to be training wheels for some years after they become legal adults at 18. You have done a good job getting him help and guiding him through steps like e-mailing. He is learning!

30

It is not at all unusual for young men to get or aggravate eczema during hormonal growth spurts. Nephew has gone through a few bouts of it.

Sorry you’re both going through this. Glad that it has been diagnosed and that he understands the treatment plan.

My husband had a hernia while he was in college, it had first started bothering him over the summer but he didn’t do anything about it until Thanksgiving, he ultimately had surgery over Winter break. My mother-in-law told us for years and years after that how she couldn’t believe after all she had done to raise him, he wouldn’t think it something hurts and kept hurting, he should go see a doctor.

31

Mine are all good about going to the health clinic or urgent care for the normal illnesses but terrible at going to the hospital when they need to. Thinking back I’ve had several phone sessions where I basically ended up screaming, “hang up the phone and find someone to take you to the ER and call me when you are on the way.” All three had one major accident while at college that really required the trip with a friend driving, one declined ambulance transport and went home to call me to ask what to do… all three were waffling about it. There are a ton of great infographics about when to go to Urgent Care and when to go to the hospital and I told each of them to print it and clip it to their fridge.

32

I got a fun call from my son on junior ear abroad in Jordan, “How high should your temperature be in order to go to the emergency room?” It turned out it was 103, but went down when he got out of bed. So he said he wasn’t going to go, despite our saying he should, but in the end he did go. Then we got the phone call where he asked us what all the stuff they gave him was. Thankfully it turned out to be one of those mystery bugs, he got better fairly quickly.