Transcript
Speaker: Math? Also, math. Oh, wow. um That's why i didn that math wasn't my strong suit. I didn't eat breakfast. I never knew this. Thank you for solving all my problems. I got to tell my parents. There's the answer. bad at math because you didn't make me eat breakfast.
Speaker: This is On Call. house This would be really cool to just wear scrubs all the time and you don't have to think about what you're going to wear to work. That is awesome. We're here to answer your questions. We can sit down and discuss on...
Speaker: Wait, I gotta go. I'm on call. Wait, you're on call? I thought I was on call.
Speaker: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. And really, really, really welcome back to another episode of On Call with April and Alicia. I'm Alicia. I'm April. It's good to be back. We got really April, right? Yeah. For real this time.
Speaker: We're like really, really back now. Well, we were kind of like fake back and then summer happened, life happens, whatnot, but... Summer break off. Welcome back. Welcome back to school. That's what it's going to be today. How you been? april we haven't talked in forever.
Speaker: i know. but What's new? What's been going on in your world for the summer? Travels, fun things, germs. and Yeah, um we tried to we actually stayed away from germs mostly. um We traveled, so we we camped in Disney around the 4th of July, which was fun. You camped at Disney?
Speaker: Yes, they have a a campground. It's called Fort Wilderness. It's a huge campground. And you can, um there's actually people tent camping, which is really hot to tent camp. But we rented a camper. i mean, a lot of people just drive their own campers in and can camp there. But we rented one. And there's like companies that partner with them And they will um deliver them. and then they're there. You know, like they bring in like a fully furnished camper. So it's not really camping. It's more like glamping.
Speaker: i know. my speed. I've never been there. i mean, Disney Cruise, we talked about that, but... So you camp, is it near the... So campsite's near the entrance? And the I guess the benefit is we can say we're outdoorsy, but we're also going to go to Magic Kingdom?
Speaker: Yeah. So, um, the hotels and Disney aren't, so there's four parks, but the hotels aren't right at the parks. Like they're different, like it's all Disney property, but so there's, uh, um, the magic kingdom sits on a lake and there's like three hotels and then the campground that are around the lake and then there's a tons of other hotels that are other places on property but this campground you can take a boat over from campground to the magic kingdom it's a large property but um you take a boat i mean yeah only option no you can also take a bus or you can drive so it was just one break like i'm I'm guessing boat cuts the water. you get there faster. But I was. Yeah, that's the fastest. Do I want to take. Well, yeah, it shuts down on the bad weather. So then you can take a bus. But um the campground is huge. And it was so fun. Like, I don't you. do You don't have ever been camping either. Have you on a campground?
Speaker: but Listen to me. I was a Girl Scout. Okay. Girl Scout honor. Three fingers. um I was a Girl Scout and we didn't glamp. We actually camped with wolf spiders and latrines. So I did do those things. But that was as a Girl Scout.
Speaker: Yeah, but not like in a big campground. So it's... As an adult, camping is like putting my window... I told you, I just lift my windows up. and Yeah, I know. And that's camping.
Speaker: Yeah, but it was just so fun. Like the campground is just such a fun, to me anyway, it's a fun atmosphere. Like everybody's out, like, you know, sitting around their campsites, everybody's friendly. So on the 4th of July, were there and we didn't even go to the parks that day. We just stayed in the campground and we had, we had a golf cart and we, we literally drove around on the golf cart for like two hours and just visited all the campsites. Like everybody had...
Speaker: decorations for the fourth they had like tables out and they were giving away like bracelets and necklaces and little like fake tattoos and candy and they do a like a golf cart parade like a lot of people decorate their golf carts and they do a parade it's just a fun that's like cool actually atmos atmosphere to be in like yeah One times you guys get down there, you'll have to invite Aunt Alicia. And then at least that way, like, I'll be with people who are experienced.
Speaker: Yeah, Disney's very overwhelming if you don't know it. Like, I think people that go the first time are like, oh, my goodness. But... We've been so many times. I don't love waiting in lines. So we've got Kings Island by us, you know?
Speaker: Yeah. Like literally three miles from my house. So we definitely take it for granted. um but i don't take the traffic for granted during the summertime. I recognize people want to be here. And there's a camp site that's off of Kings Island. So that must be something that they do because that's Paramount, right? so Yeah. ah But they do like jellyfish campground or whatever, like after yogi and the jellyfish campground is something similar but it's supposed to have like glamping stuff too but being three miles down the road is kind of like i don't need to go camp when i live closer than the campground yeah um so but i do love amusement parks i just like we pay for the fast track we pay for all of the stuff we go at nine o'clock one hour before the park opens so that we can like hit everything up where we go on really
Speaker: sketchy weather days because we can peel out and get home fast like we're not committing too much time to it so yeah but that well that sounds fun and you guys do disney a lot too yeah in different ways so that's kind of i just wondered if you did it the same way all the time no it's different every time that's awesome only thing i know about florida uh i have nothing add about my summer um work but um the only thing i did hear about florida recently though No weather, by the way. um Pythons are starting to be like an invasive species.
Speaker: I think it's pythons. Yeah, it's pythons. um and like they used to only be in the Everglades. And apparently now they're completely like annihilating all of the all of the animals and like taking over territory. And so now like traditional Florida homes or maybe while you're glamping,
Speaker: There might be a python. Be careful. but Keep an eye out. April, y'all did rattlesnakes once upon a time? he did. We should not have a story about a python.
Speaker: We'll try not to. We'll try to stay away. all right We need to like figure out how to like not kill them, but like um work on their reproductive health. the i is way Okay, but here so the has gone.
Speaker: i've done nothing you've done everything But we are back to school. eight It's August. It is. So... School time. What a better way to come back than another episode of fact or fiction, medical myths, or whatever we want to call this bad boy. it is time to talk about back to school and test our knowledge. How do you feel about doing that?
Speaker: I'm ready. All right. you have your post-its. Oh my God. Do you used still have post-its? It's been this long. I do, but you know what? I have but just realized that I used my last one and that one, so I have to get a new pack out. But I do have my post-its.
Speaker: Okay. And I'll keep track. I just want to make sure that you've got a really good, strong pen that writes good tally marks next to A. That's it. Like A-L-I-C-I-A, not April. Okay?
Speaker: All right, I got it. Things changed. All right, so let's do some let's talk back to school. But in all seriousness, we are going back to school. We like to do these type of things. It helps... One, it's fun for us. Two, it kind of helps refresh all of us as parents, as caretakers, caregivers, providers, patients, whatever. it kind of helps us all organize our thoughts. We've been relaxed during the summer, but fall and winter on the way. And a little prep, right?
Speaker: So how about you start? All right.
Speaker: We'll start with a make a good factor fiction. Are you ready? Hanging up. Um, all right. Factor fiction, wearing a heavy backpack can cause scoliosis.
Speaker: This is, um, I'm going to, I'm going to say nothing's changed. ape You just still over thinking. Fiction. fiction You're going to say fiction.
Speaker: is fiction. Because it's a loridosis? What's that? No. So the key there is that it doesn't cause it. So wearing a heavy backpack does not cause scoliosis, but it can worsen existing curves if they exist. I was thinking like more of a loridosis or something like that. um Yeah. Because the S curve is like you're built, you're born with that.
Speaker: Yeah, right. Exactly. So it's scoliosis is most often caused by like a genetic or developmental factors, um, not by external overloads, but it can exacerbate an existing curve, um, and people who have it by adding extra strain on the spine, um, also causes muscle pain, fatigue, some posture changes, which can also lead to muscle imbalances. Um, so the,
Speaker: I found this interesting. So the weight, the weight limit, if you want to say that you're supposed to keep the backpack. Do you remember backpacks that are bigger than kids? Well, yeah. And I mean, like my daughter's in the high school now and they don't use lockers. So she carries this. I mean, it's ridiculous. Like how heavy it is. I'm like, I don't know how you carry that all day, but so you're supposed to keep the backpack weight at 10 to 15% of the body weight. So like if it's a hundred pound child, less than 15 pounds, um,
Speaker: And also you got to make sure it fits right. Right. So the top of the bag should sit like one or two inches below the shoulders, um not below the waistline. um Make sure they have good straps, like all those things.
Speaker: So, but in general, watch the, watch the weight of that backpack. Did you have a big backpack when were school? I don't really remember. I mean, I remember having a backpack, but I used my locker all the time.
Speaker: Yeah, I said we did. I would keep everything in my locker. Like, I don't remember walking around school with a backpack, but I, you know, we did. Our lockers will do that now.
Speaker: We had the big L.L. Bean. had a big L.L. Bean backpack, Royal Blue. and your locker was an inconvenience because we had six floors, but you couldn't take the elevator. So you did steps. This is old, like an old, old, old building. It was in downtown Cincinnati.
Speaker: So it was like, it was a trick. So if you had, and the floors were long, I mean, 30, 40 rooms around this large circle. And if your backpack was on the fourth floor, but the bulk of your classes were second or fifth or sixth floor, like two so you had five minutes or six minutes transition between bells.
Speaker: So you didn't have time. So our backpack, we took our backpacks everywhere. They were huge. They were probably easily like, equal body weight at one point at least in seventh grade my backpack was about that size and we didn't have tablets so i don't know if your kids have that but our kids have tablets now so i feel like my kids backpacks yes yeah same things like they they look like kindergarten backpacks when they come home to me because it's like there's this big backpack with like two pieces of paper and a tablet So they don't have like the books and like the textbooks.
Speaker: They have some books us. They have some books. They have notebooks. But i I just use my locker all the time. Like I don't remember caring when was back in the It makes sense you always follow the rules. And you're probably already thinking about your curvature of your spine in seventh grade. And the rest of us just didn't care. So that makes sense.
Speaker: ah Yeah. All right. So i got i got a point though. What's that? Yeah. i got You got a point for being right. Yeah. All right. Thank you. See, welcome back. All right. I'm going to go. can say fact or fiction, true or false, however you want to answer this one. Okay. I'm going to you more of a clinical scenario. All right.
Speaker: You have a nine-year-old. Your daughter is nine. She wakes up with a sore throat. She has congestion. She has fatigue. She never has a fever. She wants to go to school. And you say, well since she's never had a fever, she's probably not cantra ti contagious.
Speaker: Is this true or false?
Speaker: It's true that I would say that and probably send her to school. It is false that that is correct. But it is true that that's likely what I would do.
Speaker: Yes. and So this was, you're right. And I'm the same, you know, like, um it's so funny guidelines. When I was thinking of this one, this question in particular, I spent a lot more time on because a lot of our guidelines are structured around fever.
Speaker: And it's, you know, like you can't read, like we're talking about contagious, being contagious versus when are you okay to return to school? And I so think somewhere like those lines got a little bit blended, but like fever is just a manifestation of the body's inflammatory response overall, right?
Speaker: But it's not a measure of infectivity. You can have a patient that comes in with a one of, know, one of four fever and one with one of one and the fever alone does not determine how,
Speaker: much more ill they are. I think we just ah tend to obsess. um But you can have viruses like influenza, COVID, RSV, I know, all these different things that can be transmitted before a fever ever develops. So in theory,
Speaker: We like to say, hey keep your kids home until they're fever free for 24 hours. That is usually after they've already been sick. But that doesn't mean that the fever is the reason they're not coming back to school because of contagiousness. It's that it allows, i guess what docs should be saying is it allows the kid to rest.
Speaker: Yeah. But it is not a marker of being contagious. So what parents should know is like the thermometer is really just an only piece of like one of the only piece of the puzzle. I know it's really hard to get our mindsets out of because we're like, do they have a fever? No, perfect. They can go to school. But if we're really thinking about what we're trying to prevent on the upfront part is we don't want to spread the virus to other people. However, when your pediatrician or doc says return to school 24 hours with no fever, that is not about...
Speaker: being contagious necessarily so yeah it was just something i thought i would share especially in light of everything viral that happens in the fall yeah i mean i remember as a kid the rule was you're going to school and unless you had a fever you're throwing up that's right and then they were like um don't get a fever yeah i can't remember like daycare days where it was like oh my god it's like 101.6 does this matter so yeah yeah But sorry, folks, if we're really talking about the greater good, don't send your kid.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. All right. All right. alright so we're one for one. Yeah. All right. True. I got one. True or false. There is a correlation between eating breakfast before school and higher academic grades.
Speaker: Ooh. Higher academic grades, like how how you do well in your classes? Uh-huh. Okay. yeahp I'm going to say false. False. You are incorrect.
Speaker: Am I really? That's probably why I suck academically, because I don't eat breakfast.
Speaker: So ah research consistently shows that eating breakfast before school is associated with better academic performance, higher grades. um So, i mean, of course, there's probably a lot of other factors that go into this, but in general, um eating breakfast, eating shows that eating regular breakfast, um they have better concentration, they have better memory, better problem problem solving skills, make fewer errors on tests. Things like that. One study specifically showed that they made fewer errors in math tasks. um So also math.
Speaker: Oh, wow. um That's why i didn that math wasn't my strong suit. I didn't eat breakfast. I never knew this. Thank you for solving all my problems. I got to tell my parents. There's the answer. bad at math because you didn't make me eat breakfast.
Speaker: But also like just like nutritious breakfast, like they provide energy and nutrients needed for ultimatetimal optimal brain function, right? So they lead to better alertness, participation, and focus in class as well.
Speaker: So, but you also have to make sure you quality breakfast. So it should be a balanced, energy-rich meal rather than, you know, some like, you know, i don't know, when I was a kid, I used to eat a lot Pop-Tarts for breakfast. It's probably not the most nutritious meal to eat before school, but still.
Speaker: Something. Yeah. Interesting. I, um, I just can't eat. I can. it really depends. think it depends on how late I eat the night before, especially the older I get. I'm noticing i might be really, really hungry or not hungry until lunch, but historically I've just not been a breakfast person. So I'm not good at math is the correlation. I'm always a bride, like wake up hungry. I have to eat breakfast. This is why I always win in these games because my math skills aren't good.
Speaker: but just so you know i can't count really well you don't keep a track very well i'm winning that today i'm winning right now okay no breakfast for me okay so we're two one i'll be honest yes no no no no one she so i didn't have breakfast yeah you just i still don't know the math whatever haven't had one wrong and of question i'm losing that's all that matters okay now mine's pretty easy here though We hear this a lot. This one's important. I'm just independent of what age, but your child, your adolescent, your whatever, they get the flu and they've been vaccinated for the flu.
Speaker: What do we hear all the time? Flu shot didn't work, right? So you as a parent, is it true or false that your child gets the flu, but did the flu shot work or did this flu shot fail?
Speaker: Will the flu shot work? I mean, the flu shot is not designed to prevent you from getting the flu. It's to make it milder if you get it or to reduce your chances. so yes Yes. So, and I botched the way I asked that question, but I'm saying as a parent, if you were to say the flu shot didn't work, you would be false. So you are correct.
Speaker: Vaccines are designed to do more than prevention. And I think this is important. We talk about all the COVID boosters, all the influenza boosters. Now we're starting to see emergence of other diseases that I hope we don't have to talk about too much right now, but with respect to viral,
Speaker: um they reduce the likelihood, let's do these the flu shot in particular, reduces the likelihood of infection. It also decreases your risk of hospitalization or severe complications or intense like ICU admissions, death even for some people or vulnerable marginalized populations.
Speaker: Vaccine like efficacy, it does vary from season to season. So we are getting, especially with flu, we're getting information from the other part of the world and what we think is migrating. And we're trying to predict what is going to come.
Speaker: And ultimately, we do our best to do that. And it doesn't always protect us from getting it, but it does clinically reduce our symptoms. And I think we can absolutely um like prove that with medicine. so I think measuring the vaccine success solely by whether the infection occurs kind of overlooks its better benefit.
Speaker: Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. It it makes me think particularly around COVID and understanding we were in a completely different partner, like in in the world at at that time.
Speaker: the way I think we marketed the vaccine was like, get your coat. Like if you care about your grandma, get the COVID vaccine. If you care about this person, get into a non-medical community. And there are people that listen to this podcast that are not part of the medical community.
Speaker: um i think that that's important for us to delineate. You may still get it. Yeah. But you are likely to not get it as bad as it would have been had you not been vaccinated.
Speaker: Right. In that case. So something I just wanted to point out there, there's my public service announcement, but you get a point there. Now you're really winning and this is terrible.
Speaker: That's true. I have pulled ahead officially. All right. One more round. One more round. You got Okay. True or false. Sleep requirements are higher for teens than younger children.
Speaker: You know, you know, my Enneagram five brain's going to say, what do you mean by younger children? Like 12 and younger. A teen is a 13 year old. So anybody below that?
Speaker: and Ask the question one more time. Sleep requirements are higher for teens than younger children. I'm going to say true. False. My teen needs to sleep all of the time. So I'm sorry. I'm taking this one to the big. Plus I was like tired, you know, when I was looking at this. I was like, yeah, let's talk about sleep. Well, considering we both have teens, I'm kind of like, hmm.
Speaker: Yeah. Yes. You need to go sleep, love. Go sleep. Yeah. So teens generally need fewer hours of sleep than younger children, but that's not the um because like they just need lower overall. It's rather, it's more due to like biological changes that happen during adolescence. So recommended sleep amounts for children that are like six to 12 years old is like nine to 12 hours. Teens,
Speaker: ages 13 to 18, it's like eight to 10. So they still need quite a bit of sleep. Um, but in terms of why the numbers go down, um there's a circadian rhythm shift that happens during puberty. Um, so it makes them more alert naturally, like later in the evening, more tired earlier in the morning. um there's some developmental changes that happen in the brain. um with like physical growth slows down compared to the preteen years. and then energy balance, younger children are often more active and higher, um have higher metabolic demands. So they require more sleep to recover when they're littler. Um, the teens activity levels and requiring needs are aligned more with adult patterns. So fewer hours are better. So the key takeaway is that they, you know, they can stay up later, but they're sleepy in the morning and they still need eight to 10 hours, but not that nine to 12 hours of sleep.
Speaker: I say give them whatever they need. um Yeah. I'm just kidding. But but you know, it's interesting. Seriously, in one of my questions, and I'm not going to, clearly I'm not going ask this one now. And for anybody listening, we don't share our questions with each other. This is really like live. um ah mine One of mine was just about a little bit more like parents that want to supplement kids through sleep or supplement um to support immune system, things like that. And it it actually came all the way down to adequate sleep is your best immune function support. Yeah. Period. So like you can do all your immune defense, vitamin C, Z, like those are great additions, assuming like that's what your provider recommends, but your best immune system is sleep, which is why I'm always like sleep. Okay.
Speaker: just Yeah, you go ghost which is why you're supposed to, too, like, you know, as they you know they get in the summer schedule where they're up late and sleeping in and you are supposed to take like a week or two to kind of shift, you know, going into the school year so that um it's not a huge shock to their bodies. It's interesting that it even changes like their metabolism. And we'll get into that differently. But as I'm watching Juliana, she's very in tune with her body and think where she'll even talk about like GI changes and things like when she is.
Speaker: like gets poor sleep or when she's not really well wested. It's very interesting, especially from her perspective, cause she's pretty locked into that. Okay. Last um question for the win. I'm going to call this double jeopardy.
Speaker: We're not playing jeopardy, but I've just changed the game. So now it's double jeopardy. If you get this right, you take it. All right. If you get this wrong, I take it. Nope. Okay, so you've you got some soccer players in your house. um I've got some volleyball athletes.
Speaker: They love energy drinks. So your daughter or your son, well, you don't son, but your daughter plays soccer. She drinks two hundred energy energy energy drinks before every game.
Speaker: She says, Mom, they help me focus. They help me focus a lot better than water helps me focus. Since she's otherwise healthy, she doesn't have any issues, nothing. Do you think, not do you think, this is an appropriate strategy.
Speaker: Just keep drinking energy drinks before game, true or false. This is easy, but there's an important part of this. This is that definitely not okay. but Absolutely right. But are you saying it a lot?
Speaker: Yes. yeah Okay, so i you can tell I've come with a different heart in summer 2026. As a coach, I'm like, stop it. yeah It is It's almost, I thought Red Bulls and Monsters were bad in our generation. the Celsius, like everything and anything. Alani, I don't even know what might have some stimulant or whatever in it. But energy drinks are frequently marketed and confused as sports drinks. So if I can employ anything and you, I don't know how you feel, April, but as a coach, these are not the drinks that you should be drinking before a game. Maintain high amounts caffeine.
Speaker: Other stimulants, like the was is it the L-carnitine? There's ah another like other thing um upper that they add is not the green tea extract, but there's another stimulant that's involved, but it can obviously increases your heart rate. That's why somebody feels a little, a bit more alert or focused, but also the blood pressure, it can cause sleep disruptions. It can cause anxiety. They do not replace hydration.
Speaker: They do not replace electrolytes. They do not replace your conditioning. And the way we market says, Take this pre-workout stimulant, XYZ, and you'll have a better result from your workout. They don't. They don't help with conditioning. They don't help with your recovery. They actually can impair your performance and worsen your sleep, which, as we just talked about, in your you worsen your sleep. Your body is not at its...
Speaker: like top game and you're not going to perform the same way. And then you're at a significant dehydration risk, just adding the caffeine. So fatigue in adolescence, especially adolescent athletes, it's really common, but it's related to their silly sleep cycles that they are doing poor nutrition. Okay. Or insufficient hydration at that point. I, I just seeing, um I am seeing a concerning amount of fatigue.
Speaker: kids addicted to coffee even espresso the all of this stuff i'm like this is insane so if your teenager needs an energy drink before practice here's my recommendation as a parent would be the real solution is probably an earlier bedtime yes maybe a little bit more water or maybe a pre-workout pre-practice pre-game meal Yes, absolutely. Let's get the energy naturally that way and not through caffeine. so Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I see it too. And I'm like, I i didn't drink coffee until I was like out of PA school. You know, like it just is so crazy to me. So and it' just so I tell them every time I see it. When it came out. and Yeah. That's it. We didn't have it, but we also didn't like have access to store like...
Speaker: Access is just a little bit different now and kids come in, they just hand them off and like they're, they're testing for them in college. Like the Celsius or some ingredient in there that college athletes can't take. i mean, if you've got that much additive to a drink, you don't need it.
Speaker: Absolutely. i Like go for the source. At least that's why I think so. Okay. So I won. Yes. Welcome back everyone. I was just going to say it was great to come back with a win and.
Speaker: You did, you did, you did. But I did miss you miserably as you know. Missed you too. It has been, it's been a long time and it's great to get back and it's great to connect with everybody again. What'd you learn today?
Speaker: and Did anything stand out to you? Not really. Even in your own research. For me, I'll say, i nothing stood out to me. i think I just had some public service announcements I wanted to make. As you can see, i was i had a mission today.
Speaker: couple things yeah that are I'm watching in my personal life or happen around my children. But the energy drink thing for me was a... was really eye-opening just yeah yeah that are well just reaffirmed to me that like you know every time i tell my kids uh no you're not drinking that you know it's um you don't have to feel like that it's justified yeah we didn't let you get starbucks and you get to save your six dollars for a drink that's going to give you palpitations and we're going to end up in some cards visit anyway is what's going to end up happening so
Speaker: This is awesome. I'm so happy to be back, at April. i can't wait. Me too. For the next episode. It's good to record. Absolutely. And I know this one's a little bit shorter than usual, but it's been great, everybody.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, thanks for listening as always guys. And, um, you know, if you have any suggestion for us or comments or questions for us, you can reach us at our Instagram, which is on call with April Alicia. Uh, we still have that email address, um, that I don't think we use it. I don't think we've used it at all. It's an on call podcast at sound physicians.com. Um, we'd love to hear from you and on our podcast. If whoever emails, I'm telling you, we're going to hit you might be famous. It will be a great day. The day we get that first email.
Speaker: All right, everyone. Until the next time, you guys stay well. And we are back on call. So we will be here. We'll see you guys on the next time. Bye, everyone.
Speaker: Have a good one.
