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This is an iHeart podcast.
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So your AI agents, they make the team that uses them more productive, right? But if they aren't connected to other agents or your data or your existing workflows, how productive can they really make your teams? Any business can add AI agents. IBM connects your agents across your company to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business IBM. Hey, Whip Smarties. Today we have an ultimate smarty guest. You all know that in not just trying times, but honestly, all the time, I want expert information. I want to ask people who are incredible in their field what the rest of us who don't work in those fields need to know. Whether that was talking to Jessica Melody Rivera in the early days of 2020 and the pandemic, whether that's getting to talk to legal experts about civics. There's so many things we all have questions about, and there's a lot kicking around right now on the Internet and in the media about health and medicine and doctors and especially our kids. And it seems scary to me. I know it seems scary to a lot of parents. So I called up Dr. Megan beach, who is an amazing pediatric emergency medicine physician whose social media account her handle is eachgem10. I love so much. She makes me feel informed and happy and safe. And I just asked her, hey, will you come on the podcast? Will you give us a little guidance? Can I ask you some questions? And also, as everyone's favorite resident asthma girly, I need to know some things about asthma and allergies. I just. I got questions. And it's more than for the DM chat, so Dr. Megan has honored us with her presence. Today. She is here to answer all my questions, which hopefully will answer some of yours. I came to know her during pandemic shutdowns. She got on Instagram and started asking questions like, I'm going to ask her today. And grew her page into this platform where she educates people and parents and audiences everywhere on everything from diagnosing foreign body injuries like ingesting metal grill brush wires. Yes, seriously, obviously that happened. Or practicing tips for managing common childhood illnesses, which we all need to know. She has incredible medical expertise, and as a mom of four, relatability, she's so skilled in translating clinical issues into understandable advice that we all can digest. And I know, for me, makes me feel safer. We're at a time where, unfortunately, science feels like it's under attack, and it really feels more important than ever to have trusted guides to help us navigate the overwhelming world, not just of health, but the overwhelmingly vulnerable world of children's health. So if you're feeling the way I'm feeling, let's get smarter with Dr. Megan Beach. Megan, thank you so much for being here today. I, I think that public health advocacy and so good science communication is so important today when there's so much misinformation and so much fear mongering and like, I just have the biggest brain crush on you and what you do. So I just want to extend all of my thanks before I ask you a million questions.
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No, you know, it's a, it's a different world that we live in right now. And I, I appreciate that there's people out there that understand that, you know, we're out here doing our best and that the negative voices sound louder sometimes than the positive ones. And so it's totally good to hear some validation that there's people that are listening.
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B
Absolutely. And you know, it's not lost on me that you've built this incredible following online because so many people, I think, feel the way we do. There's so many parents out in the world going, what can I trust? What's real? What's not? What should I be maybe a little scared of, but not completely sleepless over what am I being told to fear that I don't need to? It's, it's such a complex space because sadly, there's a lot of people profiting off of misinformation and we're all incredibly vulnerable when it comes to the fear we carry for the kids in our lives. So it's like, I get it and it's frustrating and that's why I like to talk to experts like you.
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100%.
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So before I ask you about your career, if it's cool, I actually want to do a quick rewind down memory lane. I always like to know how people grew up, where they grew up. And I'm really curious if you got to go hang out with eight or nine year old Megan. Was she one of those kids that from a young age was like, I'm gonna be a doctor, or did you have totally separate goals as a child?
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A
I grew up wanting to be a doctor. Like, I've wanted to be a doctor as long as I can actually remember. My dad's father was a physician and he was someone that like, just took care of the community. Like would trade medical care for chickens if you couldn't pay. Wow, he was awesome. My mom was in the medical field. She's an X ray tech. My dad was a law enforcement officer and so Just having the, like, adrenaline on one side and then the medical care on the other side.
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Yeah.
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And I met in the middle with emergency medicine, and I very quickly fell in love with it. And it's kind of all I wanted to do, like, most of my life. Wow.
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So what do you think drew you to pediatric emergency medicine? Was that sort of part of the rotation you go through in med school, where you have to get into every specialty for a bit and then you figure out what lights you up, or did you always kind of have a hunch that it would be emergency medicine because of that sort of duality in your family?
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I really liked the adrenaline aspect. Pediatrics was one of the first rotations. I fell in love with it. There is so much hope when it comes to kids. There's so much resilience and recovery possible. And emergency medicine was actually a late rotation, so I didn't even know that I was going to apply to it until the end. And so I ended up applying for pediatrics and emergency medicine in the MATCH program. So when I submitted that match, I actually didn't know what kind of doctor I was going to be, if I was going to get picked for emergency or pediatrics, but kind of ultimately, I knew the end goal was pediatric emergency medicine, so I knew I would be fine either way. But, you know, which direction to go was still a mystery.
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B
Do you get what's happening in my brain? Which is also to be clear, both from watching and acting on Grey's Anatomy all these years? I'm like, oh, yeah, when you were in your peds rotation, like, I hear myself saying the terms, which, to be fair, I know because I once also thought I was going to be a doctor, and then I wound up being in the circus instead. Like, do you find that people who watch medical shows can banter some of those, like, not quite layman's just above terms with you? Or are you like, I get it, everyone's seen 20 years of Grey's Anatomy, but you have no idea what you're talking about.
- [07:38]
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You know, I think it's cool with shows like Grey's Anatomy and the Pit and some of the other medical shows have really brought a lot of what it's like to be a doctor, to be a resident, to kind of come up through the. The ranks, to. To see what, you know, a better idea of what it's really like to do that. And so I think there's a lot more terminology that used to be, you know, more medical is now more kind of in the mainstream. And I Think it's cool because I think it's. People have a better idea of what I went through to be where I'm at now, all those years of education and training. So I don't. I think a lot of people don't take that for granted and they understand that there's a lot to it.
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B
Totally. You know, it's really interesting. You're bringing up something that makes me think, I think kind of pulling back the veil on any of these worlds, industries that seem kind of glamorous or exciting or that people assume must be really hoity toity. You know, you become this big deal doctor and everyone thinks, oh, wow, your life must be so fancy. And you're like, do you know what my life is? It's actually so crazy. I think there's something to letting people in, and especially in the field of medicine, letting folks who haven't gone through it, they haven't gone through the years of schooling, the rotations, the residency, this, this whole placement program, all those steps, letting people see that doctors do this because they love it. Doctors do this because they want to take care of people. They want healthy kids, healthy communities, healthy families. There's so much misinformation out online. You know, there's a lot of accounts saying, oh, well, the reason vaccines are, you know, fill in the blank, crazy theory, don't even want to say it because I know it's nuts, is because doctors get paid. And recently I, I saw a great science communicator of which I, you know, consider you to be one. My friend Jess Maladi Rivera, who helped run the COVID tracking project, is another great one. This great science communicator I follow said, actually, no, we've had enough generations of vaccine science that we forget what it was like when so many kids got sick and died. We forget that 150 years ago in this country, one in five kids died before their fifth birthday. And by the way, vaccine storage is actually very expensive. And most doctors lose money giving them, but they give them because we need them. And that was a point that I wish she didn't have to make, but also I hadn't seen made before. And I was like, oh yeah, people probably need to know that it costs money to give this kind of medical care and you do it anyway because it's the right thing to do. And I use that example only to say, because of this following you've built up, you've been answering all these questions for people and you know, like so many you've said, like, okay, we're in lockdown. How can I help? What are some of the things you've communicated to your audience that you've seen really ring the like, ding, ding, ding. Oh, I didn't know that bell. That help shift the fear and that help people really trust science and medicine a little bit more.
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A
I think trying to break down some of the more complex topics. You know, we use some of these words regularly, like immunity and prevention. And as physicians and science people, sometimes we're using these in a completely different context than what a layperson would use. Like when, you know, we're talking about transmission in a community, someone else might be talking about transmission person to person. So trying to clarify those, I think that there's been some breakthroughs. I think one of the other big things that people don't realize or maybe that, you know, people make associations. They think immunizations, medication, and they use their knowledge of medication and dosage and ingredients and they bring that to immunizations, where immunizations are really not medications. Really. Immunizations are something that's completely different. They're not changing the physiology of your body. They're not changing like the sodium calcium channels like some medications do. They're stimulating an immune response and that immune response is creating antibodies and cells. But it's not, you know, a medication that you're taking every day for years that we're worried about, you know, long term complications from. And 15 years down the road, we're worried about something with a medication which happens. Absolutely, yeah. Immunizations just don't work the same way as medications do. And so I think, you know, having some of those breakthroughs where people go, oh, okay, you know, I was bringing that knowledge of medications and thinking about immunizations, but I think that's kind of an important distinction that helps people kind of pull those apart and realize that there is a difference.
- [12:23]
B
Yeah. Do you think part of the reason that you can really understand how to translate some of that terminology, how to translate those linguistic specifics, if you will, is because you're a mom of four? Because I find that moms who are experts at anything complex, whether it's the law, medicine, you name it, are the best, best at explaining those things to the rest of us that are curious, afraid, excited, whatever experience we're having. But like the laypeople, if I can get a mom who's an expert to explain something to me, I feel like she gives me the best lesson I've ever had.
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I think it's possible. I had my first kid in medical school and Then I had one in residency and fellowship and as an attending. So I've had kids, like, I feel like forever. So I think it's possible, you know, I. I think that we all have certain skills and, you know, you could go your whole life and not realize that you have this skill related to it. Maybe you would be an excellent oboe player, and you never, you know, got the chance to play oboe. And I think that this. The communication that I am able to do on social media is unlike a skill that I have in real life. And I think it's just something that it clicked and it worked, and it brought these pieces of a puzzle together, and it works. And I don't know if it's having kids or not because I have had them forever, but whatever it is, it works. And people are learning and getting educated, and we're kind of breaking through some of these barriers of the communication issues that we have between the medicine and the people that don't have that background.
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Maybe part of it even is the fact that, you know, you are. You're a mom of four. You know, what moms need to hear, you know, what information they should have. You know, that parents are being inundated with all this stuff in the algorithm and how to kind of push back against it. And I think that's really important in times like this. You know, whether it's the COVID 19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, when you started really speaking to people on social media, which I would call a public health service, whether it's, you know, helping parents understand what to do in an emergency. I. I saw one video you did about, like, oh, a kid swallowed, you know, one of those crazy, like, brush scrubber things. And you were like, this is what to do. And I was like, I would never have known this. You know, you. You give great advice on all sorts of things. Like you said, from medication to. To allergic reactions in kids, what to look for, you know, what might be a reaction to an ointment versus actual eczema? Like, I've learned so much just from watching you. How do you decide what you're going to talk about when you do decide to communicate about something? Is it because you get an influx of questions, or is it because there's some sort of news? Like this week, despite all scientific research having shown that there is no correlation between acid acetaminophen and autism, and, you know, we've got a guy with no medical degree saying from the White House pulpit that there is, like, how do you help parents and especially Pregnant women not feel afraid.
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Yeah. I think as for like how do I decide about content, it's very, very random and it's usually last minute.
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B
Yeah.
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And a lot of times it'll be like a question or maybe like a case that I had or an idea that came across. But a lot of times it is, you know, news or a press conference or something that came up that, you know, I said, oh, you know, there's going to be a lot of questions about this or I see how this could be easily misunderstood. So let's talk about it, let's clarify it. And there's a lot of things out there. And I, like you said, I am a mom. And just because I'm a doctor, it doesn't mean that I don't have like the fears and anxiety of momming. I have all of those fears and anxiety. And so, you know, if I see something and I go, oh, that makes me a little, I caught some feelings there. I want to make a video and I want to talk about it because I want to bring it down to a level where we don't need to be scared. These are the things that we need to be watching out for and these are the things that we can do to help protect ourselves or something like that.
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B
Right.
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You know, with all of the things that have happened in the last, you know, months, years, I, I've done my best to be very open about my life and my feelings and try to address the things that have happened in a way that I'm providing facts and evidence based information and data to back up what I'm saying. Things are very politically charged and I really, I think we really just need to be focused on the science and the data and where the evidence is pointing us for our kids and for our families and for our health in general.
- [17:24]
B
I think that's so smart. You know, one of the things that I, that I saw this week that, to your point, helped me bring it down where I was like, wait, what do you mean? And I've read the Sweden study and I've like, hold on, you know, because I, I did think I was going to go to medical school, I weirdly like to read the AMA papers. Like it, it, it helps me feel grounded when there's so much information and so much noise. And when I read about actually the risk to pregnant women, especially in their first trimester of fever, I was like, oh, okay. This is the thing that, that expectant moms need to know. They need to know the risks of running a fever for the fetus for their unborn child, like, okay. And then I went down the rabbit hole of that and went, all right, I feel better armed to understand where the most important weight needs to be placed in this larger conversation. And something that I really got excited to talk to you about because you do such great videos and such great communications. Anytime there's an issue, I'm like, what's Dr. Beach saying? One of the things that I am running into in my family and extended family, you know, with all the littles around and my godson and everyone is trying to figure out, especially with kids that have sensitivities and eczema and like, you know, I'm the asthmatic eczema baby of my family, so I know how it is. Is trying to figure out what is a body having a little reaction to something new, maybe a histamine reaction, and then what is a body, especially a little body, experiencing if this is really an allergy. And there's a lot of news out there today, but the thing I really wanted to ask you about was that if you don't mind me asking my most personal question, you know, how do you identify a childhood allergy versus a sensitivity? How do you know? And you probably see them in the ER all the time. Like, what are, what even are the allergies that bring kids into the ER the most? I feel a little rudderless on this and I'm nervous. So I want to ask Dr. Mom.
- [19:32]
A
The thing that we as ER doctors get concerned about is anaphylaxis. And anaphylaxis is a life threatening emergency allergic reaction. And if you have anaphylaxis, the treatment that needs to be administered to save a life is epinephrine. And we have a couple different ways to administer it now. You know, most notably is the EpiPen, which is kind of slam it into the thigh and it injects the epinephrine. There's also a little nose spray now and potentially down the road, even things that dissolve in the mouth. So, you know, I think people do get nervous with EpiPens because it is a needle. They haven't used it before. And so there's a lot of people that are hesitant to use that EpiPen. And I would just so encourage people, if you are concerned that the patient, your child, someone in your community has an anaphylactic reaction, just administer the medication. There's more harm for not administering it than actually for administering it. And the definition for anaphylaxis is a little. It's. There's Not a real good definition.
- [20:35]
B
Yeah. How do you identify it?
- [20:37]
A
We usually say if you are exposed to something that you potentially could be having a reaction to and you have two systems that are involved, two body systems. So like respiratory system, skin, you know, mucous membranes. And so if you have hives and you're wheezing and you might have been exposed to something, that's two systems. You've got respiratory and skin anaphylaxis. Go ahead and give the EPI and get into the emergency department. A lot of people will say, well I'm just going to try the Benadryl first. And we honestly don't recommend it. We don't want to hide those symptoms, we want to treat them with the epinephrine. Even vomiting like GI is a symptom. So if you had hives and vomiting that could, that could potentially be anaphylaxis. Now there are times that you could have hives and wheezing and it's a viral infection. So there's that, you know, potential of like you have to pay attention to. Is there a potential for an interaction that could be allergic? So anaphylaxis, a little complicated but again lean more toward the epinephrine. That's the life saving treatment.
- [21:39]
B
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- [21:45]
A
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- [21:46]
B
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- [21:53]
A
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- [21:57]
B
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- [23:26]
A
Yeah. So again, the potential for a new exposure. You ate somewhere new and these symptoms started pretty close together. I think the kind of asterisk for me is, you know, is it a viral infection? Generally you're going to have like cough, runny nose for a couple days and then you're wheezing a little bit, and then maybe you develop hives. But, you know, things have been going on for a couple days and there's pretty obviously something else going on. Whereas, you know, you walked into a basketball game and somebody had a cologne on, and then you ate something you haven't eaten before, and all of a sudden you, you know, you start feeling some throat tightness, you're wheezing and you have hives. Okay. Maybe that, that is more likely to be anaphylaxis than acute onset of a viral infection. And the epinephrine would be indicated.
- [24:06]
B
Okay, so the. Even though acute for me sounds pretty quick when you say acute onset of a viral infection, to your point, hypothetical, your kid's been sick for five days and the symptoms are increasing as their body is working harder and harder to fight the infection. You know, they're sick. The anaphylaxis is alarming in, in the rapidness of its onset from zero.
- [24:32]
A
Right. Usually anaphylaxis symptoms are going to happen within about, often, maybe 15 minutes. Wow. I mean, they can be seconds from exposure, but usually it's going to be within a 15 minute or so time period from whatever exposure it is. So if all of a sudden you're good and then you're not good and you have two systems involved, that would be something that would be concerning.
- [24:52]
B
Okay. And the two system indicator is really nice. I like a specific instruction. You talked skin and respiratory. You mentioned mucosal. That's three. What are the other systems that could be affected by an allergic reaction that parents should know.
- [25:10]
A
So GI would be the other big one, you know, vomiting, diarrhea.
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B
Got it.
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A
Would be the other one in addition to the respiratory.
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B
So two of those four are really strong indicators when a kid comes in to the ER with a severe Allergic reaction. What are the first steps that you take? Because, sure, if it happens at a school, at a basketball game, you know, someone might have an EpiPen, but if it happens and a family doesn't have access to that and they bring their kid into the error, is that the very first thing you do is the. Is the EpiPen?
- [25:48]
A
Absolutely still. Okay, Absolutely. And we, you know, we have. We're able to draw up EPI from a vial. That takes time. We actually have epipens in our department that we can go, all right, you know, I'm concerned about anaphylaxis. Let's. Let's go. And, you know, we can get that very quickly to bedside to start the treatment for anaphylaxis.
- [26:07]
B
That's amazing, because in my brain, I was like, oh, maybe you guys, you know, get a sick kid, check them in, run an IV line, put the EPI in the IV. You're like, no, I'm using an EpiPen, too, because it's the quickest and most efficient. Okay, absolutely. Person question. But when you were saying people get nervous about doing the shot in the thigh. Can it go anywhere in a thigh? Is it supposed to be the top, the side, closer to the butt, closer to the knee? Like, I've never had to give one to somebody, so I realize I would be nervous to do this also.
- [26:39]
A
Yeah, you generally kind of toward the outside of the thigh, and you can even give it through pants or clothing if it's an emergency, if you can't really. That spot. Yeah, that needle will go all the way through. Obviously, if you can get the pants down, and it's reasonable to do that. But, you know, if in an emergency, you can go right through clothing, kind of on the outside of the thigh.
- [26:59]
B
Right.
- [26:59]
A
And like I said, there are other modalities now. So there's like a nose spray that you can do. There is an automated one as well. So you can. You kind of put that one right up against the thigh, and you press a button and it kind of talks you through it. So there's some other ones now, but the most important thing is just to get the epinephrine in the patient. There are some trainers. If you have a child that has anaphylaxis or if you have it, you can ask your doctor for a trainer and it'll. You can literally just kind of play with it. There's no needle in it, so it's not going to hurt you. And it shows you, you know, what this is, what it feels like when it releases you know, you can feel the mechanism on the inside. You can also like the one that talks to you, it talks you through what you're doing. So it's really cool. There's a lot of really neat technology that's in the future coming, which is exciting. But most important thing for anaphylaxis, the life saving treatment is just to do the epinephrine.
- [27:53]
B
Yeah. Wow, okay. That's really cool that there's options to teach your kids what to expect. And if I went through this recently, my, my partner's little one, one of her kids has asthma and I have asthma. And the, the terror about the nebulizer on the first couple of times it had to be used absolutely shattered my heart. And I was like, oh, let me get mine out. Like I got a nebulizer, let's go. And we, we started during this asthma flare having like a nebulizer tea party at the little kids table. And now she's not scared of it. And it was, you know, just luck of the draw that I could do that for and with her and that I've done this my whole life. You know, I think I was diagnosed with asthma when I was five or six. I'd have to ask my mom, but it really, I think as adults we can forget how scary some of this stuff is for kids. And I didn't know that they had those. So that's really, really cool. What a cool thing. And I, I almost wonder too if that's something that, you know, parents could talk to their kids, schools about even saying, hey, can you get some of these in classrooms so that they know if their friend has to get an EpiPen injection or if they have to get an EpiPen injection, they don't have to be afraid.
- [29:12]
A
I try to bring the trainers with me, like when I do like the great American teach in and stuff like that, just to give the kids, this is what it is, this is how you can use it and the kids can do it on each other and on themselves. So it's a great opportunity to kind of teach them this is what it is, this is why we use it. And this is what it feels like to actually use one, which is neat.
- [29:28]
B
That's really cool. I know it's pretty difficult to prevent exposure to allergens, right? Whether a kid has a food allergy or something that they don't even know about yet. But are there things you recommend to parents, especially in that early developmental stage where we're figuring out whether or not a kid has allergies whether or not a kid has asthma. Are there recommendations you give them about reducing risk and mitigating risk?
- [29:56]
A
I think we have a lot of really newish data that shows that introducing things that are potential allergens early in life, like some of the first introductions to foods, actually help reduce the risk that they're going to continue to have issues with those in the future. So we actually recommend early exposure to peanut butter and regular exposure to peanut butter as soon as babies are starting solids from, you know, that five to six month time, starting with a small amount and just giving it every day, especially for families, every day, just a small amount. And then you can even up to like a teaspoon or something like that. The patients that have, the families that have allergies running in the family, these can reduce the risk that the child will have reactions to it in the future. And having wide variety of diet and regular use of things that are potential allergens, like fish and meats and vegetables and fruits that are common allergens, introducing those early so that the body just gets used to them is less likely to have a reaction in the future. So we're getting, you know, science has kind of gone both ways. We used to say avoid it until they're older, but now early introduction seems to reduce the risk of having those allergies in the future.
- [31:07]
B
That's really cool. I mean, I understand that with, you know, the, the kind of genetic lottery that exists when, when kids are created, there's a high likelihood that a lot of things are genetically inherited. Will the switch turn on or off? We don't know, like with allergies. So, so is the idea, because again, you know, I'm the allergic to everything asthmatic over here, is the idea that like the more exposure they have to these things, you actually increase the likelihood that that switch won't turn on. They could have a capacity to have allergies to foods, but should they be exposed early and regularly, that might not turn into something that is a reaction.
- [31:53]
A
Yeah. So it's important to know like what the allergies are. And the allergy that we're talking about is an antibody, an IgE antibody that's reacting to a substance that our body ceases foreign or really it is a foreign substance, but our body is creating this IGE reaction. And so if we're introducing them early and regular, the body is not seeing them as the same type of foreign and their IGE reaction isn't happening. So again, the data is always changing, but I think it's right now, the data really shows that early introduction and regular exposure to some of these allergens reduces the risk in the future. So I. I think that getting families, especially those that are more at risk for allergies, we've got this kind of triangle, right? So you've got asthma, allergies, and eczema in this little triangle that these. These things tend to run together. So in families that we have asthma and eczema and maybe some allergies, consider, you know, talking to your doctor about making sure that you're introducing things like peanut butter and maybe certain fruits early in their. The food journey as babies.
- [33:03]
B
That's really cool. When you were talking about the ige response, I was like, oh, I get what you're saying. It's sort of like having a terribly behaved dog at the dog park that attacks the other dogs versus a dog that can, like, chill and look at another dog and be like, whatever, and go back to what it's doing. It's like the exposure actually helps your body not attack. Attack the thing that's moving through your system.
- [33:27]
A
Yep, absolutely.
- [33:29]
B
Okay. I like it. So when you talk about options like this, you know what the data says? The cool thing about science is it's always evolving, right? We're always learning more. We get to perfect our recommendations. We get to tinker with our plans based on new information, but based on what we know now, if. If a child has complex allergies, would you recommend parents focus on this sort of exposure therapy? Or do you think they should also seek out an allergist to. To create a plan like, what is. What does a plan like that look like? And I ask, because When I was 7, I was on allergy shots for a while. My parents are always like, hey, we got a bubble boy over here. And I. It was really helpful for me then, but obviously I was too young to read, really know what was going on, and to feel like I'm armed with that information now. So how. How does a parent know whether they need to have a plan from an allergist or they can just kind of manage at home symptoms and exposures?
- [34:38]
A
So I think starting with your pediatrician is always the right answer. Pediatricians, you know, we. Infant nutrition is, you know, we are specialists in that. So starting with your pediatrician, working through a nutrition exposure plan as little babies, and as they get older, if they're having allergies and eczema and asthma, I think getting into an allergist is a great idea. There are so many, like I said, new technologies and new Data and research out there and allergists are very specially specifically trained to deal with this. So I think getting into an allergist like Ruben Allergy, who's one of my favorite people, would be a great place to start.
- [35:15]
B
Okay, cool. Is there anything that those of us you know who follow you and support your work but don't, you know, live where you live in Florida? I asked this question because my partner's from Florida and we do really love home and I know it can be a scary place to practice medicine right now with all this hoopla about vaccine mandates, you know, potentially being eradicated. Like whether it's sort of rallying cry stuff or petitions to sign or even just like saying hi, we, we're supporting you from afar. Like can we do anything from out of state to support the work you're doing in state to try to keep kids and families healthy?
- [35:54]
A
You know, I, I think it's tough. I think talking with our congress people, representatives, senators, to talk about what's really important on a national level and making sure that science and data and evidence are prioritized on a national level is really important. So I think advocating through our means, our representatives is the great place to start. And I would always appreciate the social media support and all of the other creators out there also pushing science and data, making sure that we're supporting them as well.
- [36:31]
B
Yeah, I mean I really try with folks like you and other friends in scientific fields. I'm like, let me just engage with these posts all the time so they're getting some positivity and some love all of our whip smarties at home. I'm so proud that my audience is very like very wise and also they love data like I do. Please go engage and leave kindness for our medical heroes because they deal with a lot of other stuff too. I really want to respect your time. I'm going to ask you my last question, even though I want to ask you 100 more. For you. You do a lot of big work for the world. You do a lot of big work in a hospital. A lot of it is for community, but like just for you, for Dr. Beach, for Megan, what's bringing you joy and, and, and what is your work in progress right now? And maybe it is for everyone, but maybe it's like something you're working on for yourself.
- [37:27]
A
I would say that social media for me is, it really is a coping mechanism, the ability to connect with like minded people, you know, and I, I do post a lot of like educational, sciencey stuff, but I post Some fun stuff too and obviously enjoy myself in that respect. I am working on a non profit that will benefit kids in the emergency department and then also kids in outside emergency departments to make sure that those emergency departments are able to take care of kids that are sick. Not every emergency department is the same. And the care that kids get in an adult or community emergency department is not often the same as they're going to get in a pediatric er. And I want to kind of expand that care, that good quality evidence based care out to these outside emergency departments, using this nonprofit, getting the supplies and the knowledge out to those facilities and then when they get to the emergency department, keeping them comfortable, taking away the stress and the trauma in the emergency department. So those are, those are kind of my passion projects right now. But I'll be on a social media really is the way that I cope with all of the stuff that's happening in the world.
- [38:36]
B
Yeah, well, I think especially when you are by nature a helper, which you are, it can be a space that you can step into to offer help. And sometimes we feel a little boxed in by the world around us and, and this digital world for all of its flaws, I mean, you know, sometimes it's sort of a cesspool. Can also be a space where you can like drop a life raft out for people. And I really admire that you continue to show up not just in your hospital every day, but in these digital spaces every day. Because I know it's not an easy time to be an evidentiary and science based medical professional. But I, I so appreciate what you do and I just appreciate you taking the time. I always want to talk to folks who do what you do. But in, in moments like this when parents are so scared, the fact that you take time out of your day to come speak to our audience really means a lot to me.
- [39:34]
A
Thank you.
- [39:51]
B
Does friendly have a taste? I think it does. And if it does, it probably is like hellos Peppermint flavored anti plaque and whitening toothpaste. Brush away plaque, show tartar who's boss and remove surface stains to naturally whiten. Hello's thoughtful and flavor forward products make brushing your teeth feel like a confetti filled bathroom dance party. So say hello to hello with the always cruelty free never tested on animals toothpaste that's made to spread smiles. Visit helloproducts.com and let hello add some everyday yay into your life.
- [40:24]
A
This is an I heart podcast.