Mi bebe tienes RINGWORM!

My kid got ringworm.  How, you may ask?  I have no idea, is the answer.

A few weeks ago I noticed this circle of red skin forming on the back of his head.  My first thought was, "Oh no!  Lyme's disease!" But the lack of a tick bite convinced me that he did not have Lyme's disease.   Also, the fact that he was not exhausted and sick should have tipped me off that he did not have Lyme's disease.  Since the red ring appeared about a week before my son's 9 month appointment, I decided to keep an eye on it and if it didn't change, I would just ask the doctor then.

About two days before the appointment, I thought, "Could that be ringworm?"  But I was fairly certain that it was not, as he had not been wrestling around on damp mats with high school boys.  (This is all I knew of ringworm.)  So, I googled it.

Ringworm, for those who don't know, is an infection of the skin caused by a fungus.  It is not caused by or related to worms.  It is similar to athletes foot and spreads through contact with someone who has it.  And was probably what was on the back of my kid's head. (The more you know-----shooting star!)

Two days later, I took him to the doctor, and to his surprise he said, "Wow!  That is ringworm.  I haven't seen that on a kid this young for a long time."  Cool!  My kid is lucky!

The doctor said that because the ringworm was on the back of his head, that he would prescribe an oral anti-fungal, as the scalp is hard to treat.  He also said that he would need to take it for at least 3 weeks until the ring was gone.  As a good patient, I went and picked up the prescription and forced the sickly, sweet orange liquid into my kids mouth.

(Aside)  My child is super easy.  He is so stinkin' good.  He only looses it when I lay him flat on his back or try to give him medicine.  (End Aside)

I filled the syringe and tried to hold little man on my lap, arms pinned down, and squirted the medicine into his mostly toothless mouth.  He flung his head, cried, screamed, gagged, and spit out most of .5 mL  that I had squeezed out.  There were still 3 mL in the syringe.   I squirted those into a bottle.  He said, "No, thanks."  Then I put some juice in there with the meds and tried to give him that.  Still nothing.

I gave up.  I would try again the next day.

The next day I tried to give him smaller doses throughout the day mixed into various bottles, but I could  not get him the take the stuff.  Knowing I had to get rid of the ringworm, I decided to try something different.  I have recently gotten into essential oils and home remedies, so I started researching how to naturally get rid of ringworm.  I found that tea tree oil has great anti-fungal properties, so I gave it a shot.  Each day, I put one drop of oil onto the ring in the morning and before bed.  In six days the ring was dried out (dead) and healing.