I'm starting to get more questions about measles, so I figured I'm a glutton for punishment. I'll go ahead and do a blog post on measles and see who complains about it, see what we hear. But let me give you the facts as I know them and what I would recommend, I'm not going to get into where we are in this outbreak and where it is because depending on when you're watching this video, that's all going to change. So that's not what this is about. But if you have a child and you want to make sure that that child is best prepared to encounter measles successfully or get through it smoothly or maybe without even knowing, I'm going to give you the advice that I'm giving my patients, right? I'm getting lots of phone calls on this. People are concerned, some people's kids are vaccinated or partially vaccinated and are not vaccinated for measles.

(00:48)
It's fine. This is applicable to all of those. Alright, so first thing is I want to handle the vitamin A discussion and then we'll get into the rest of this. If you go back in time, kind of like pre covid, vitamin A was the treatment for measles, and I say pre covid because the information that's coming out to doctors has vastly changed since Covid on everything, anything immune, anything that has a vaccine for it all, it's all getting weird now. But if you go back to older information, vitamin A was the treatment for measles. Basically you had to keep your kid healthy and ready to immune respond to something, and then if they got measles, if they were between I think it was six months to 12 months, you would give them a hundred thousand international units of vitamin A and then if they were between 12 months and two years, I think you would give 'em 200,000 units of vitamin A and above two years, I don't think they even messed with it, but you could just continue that 200,000 IU dose of vitamin A and it was a single dose.

(01:53)
They got sick as soon as you realized it was measles, give 'em the dose and it shortened the course and lessened the severity significantly. Now from a functional medicine standpoint, we look at that and say, okay, well lemme tell you one other thing. If your child had other signs of vitamin A deficiency like night blindness or there are some little gray spots they can get in their cornea, things like that, then what you would do is you would repeat the dose on day two and then you would repeat it again at about the four week point. So you'd give 'em a bunch of vitamin A to build up that level because they're deficient. They already had signs of vitamin A deficiency. So that being said, from a functional medicine perspective, why wouldn't you just give them a little bit of vitamin A every day so that if they get exposed to measles, they aren't starting out vitamin A deficient or vitamin A insufficient, right?

(02:53)
Maybe they don't have a low enough level to really be considered a deficiency medically, but do they have enough to really do the job the way you want them to, right? So that's where I am on vitamin A. Let's give them a moderate daily dose of vitamin A throughout this season where we have concerns and then once we're past this, let it go, right? Maybe you don't do it all the time or you do it once or twice a week, you give them a dose of vitamin A because they don't get a lot of it other places unless they're eating liver, that kind of stuff. So vitamin A is important. We have, and this is not the only one out there, so don't misunderstand me, we have a little bottle. I thought I had it here but I left it at home. We have a little bottle called, I think it's Bio a emulsion.

(03:40)
It's liquid vitamin A and one drop is 2000 international units or 2000 iu. So if you gave them a couple of drops a day, they're getting two, four, maybe 6,000 IU a day. Sounds like a lot, but compare that to a hundred thousand or 200,000 units. When they get measles, it's a drop in the bucket. The whole bottle contains about 250 drops. So if you take 2000 units times a hundred drops, you've got 200,000 units. So you could easily treat a child with a bottle like that, a couple of children, but more importantly to me, let's just give them a low daily dose of vitamin A. It's more than they're getting now and it's a safe dose. You're not going to overload them at all with this. And then if they get sick, you can hit them with 50,000, a hundred thousand units, give them a burst and hopefully get them through it without much trouble. Alright? So that's the vitamin A story. Feel free to talk to your pediatrician.

(04:42)
You're going to be told like vaccine's the only answer, I get it. If they work the way everyone wants them to work, yes, they're a great answer to this. If you are not in a position to vaccinate your child because they've had a reaction before or for whatever reason, then I would dose them with some vitamin A. What else would I do? Vitamin D. We know that vitamin D in when you have certain blood levels, vitamin D does a great job of helping your immune system fight off things like viruses. So vitamin D, you're not going to find me. Well, I mean I guess I kind of am. There's not just one dose I can give you for everybody. Everybody needs to take 2000 units a day of vitamin D. That's probably a safe dose for kids and it's probably meaningful. That's what we're looking for is can we be a low enough dose that it's safe and we're not going to overload them, but a high enough dose that it's meaningful and likely to make a difference in whether or not they have enough vitamin D in their body.

(05:41)
Ideally there would be a blood test involved. If you do a blood test, you're going to be told the normal range is anywhere between 30 and 100, and I believe that's nanograms per deciliter. But 30 to a hundred is roughly going to be the normal range that the lab gives you. Anything above 30, you've got enough vitamin D to help you absorb minerals out of your intestinal tract and according to the medical community, that's basically all vitamin D is good for, right? So anything above 30, they're going to say you're fine. Great. But as far as what it does to help your immune system react more efficiently to things like viruses, you're going to want to have a blood level over 55. I normally have people aim between 70 and 90 or maybe between 70 and a hundred because now you've got enough of a buffer that if for whatever reason you dip a little bit low, you can't get it for a few days or whatever, you're not going to likely get below that 55 range.

(06:35)
So that's what I aim for. A sweet spot. If you don't get a blood test, and I understand with kids, if you have a two-year-old baby, are you going to want to go take them to the pediatrician and force a blood test to see what their vitamin D level is? That's a lot to put your kid through. But if they're doing a blood test for something else and you want to ask them, Hey, can you throw in a vitamin D test? I think it would be great to know what their vitamin D levels were. For most kids, a couple of thousand IUs a day is not going to come anywhere close to a dose that's going to hurt them and then it's going to be a meaningful enough dose. If you put them on 50 IUs a day, you're not going to change a thing with that.

(07:19)
I don't want to say you're wasting your time, but you're probably coming pretty close to it. You get up to a thousand or 2000 IUs, you're likely going to raise their blood levels a little bit, but you're not likely to drive them over a hundred by doing that. In an adult, that's kind of what I consider a 5,000 IU dose. It's likely going to move them in the right direction. It's not likely to make them too high so it it's kind of a safe and likely to be effective dose. Now can I guarantee it's going to get them up into the range we want them to be? No, but it's probably going to at least go in that direction. So if you're flying blind and you don't have a blood test, I would say one to 2000 IUs a day or whatever you're comfortable with, check with your pediatrician.

(08:03)
That's what I would aim for kind of in a season like this where you are concerned that they're going to be challenged by some invader. And I'm not being specific to measles with this one because really it could be the flu, it could be covid, it could be all kinds of things. Get their vitamin D level up and their immune system is going to be better able to handle that insult. Okay, so vitamin D, we already talked about vitamin A. The other two are kind of lifestyle things. One of them is get good quality sleep. If your kids are up all night and playing video games or whatever, or if they're really young kids and they have broken sleep at night, that's not going to do well for them as far as how their immune system functions. If you are not schedule people and your kids are up till nine or 10 o'clock at night and they're infants, maybe try to get them to bed a little earlier.

(08:52)
When we're dealing with a situation like this, if you live in an area where measles is starting to show up, get them to bed at an earlier time, make sure they get plenty of good sleep, it will definitely help their immune system work better. Also, refined sugars tend to impact the efficiency of white blood cells when they're trying to fight things. And so when you get a couple of good doses of refined sugar, it slows down the rate at which white blood cells can respond. Think of it like flattening the tires on the fire trucks. When you call 9 1 1, they may still get to you, but it's going to take them longer because driving around on flat tires, so you don't want to hamper them like that. So plenty of meat and fruits and vegetables, but just try to watch out for some of the refined sugars and processed foods when we're in a time where you're concerned about how well their immune system is going to function.

(09:44)
So that would be my advice to a family who is concerned and potentially living in an area where we know that there have been a couple of cases of measles and they feel like their kids may be exposed and they want to give their kids the best chance to just kind of breeze through this without much trouble. Measles didn't use to be that big of a deal from most kids. There were always kids who were immunocompromised or had other issues or another illness at the same time or something like that. But in general, for a healthy child, measles was typically more of a nuisance than anything else. And so if you want that to be the experience for your child, try to get them set up for success by dealing with their vitamin D, their vitamin A, get them some good sleep and try to get them off the refined sugars and the crappy processed foods and you'll have a kid that's set up to hopefully navigate measles without any major issues. Alright, if you have any other questions, give me a shout at the office. Otherwise, I'll see you next time.