One of the illnesses that dads ands moms worry about their kids getting is the Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV. In this episode of The Lab, Dr. JJ Levenstein joins Daddy Brad to explain what the RSV virus is and how it can affect the lungs. She also tells parents what rsv symptoms to look for in their baby, when they should take their children to a doctor, and what treatments are available. DadLabs Ep. 615 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Brad: I'm here with Dr. JJ, who's the founder of Boulevard Pediatrics in Encino, California and also one of the co-founders of MD Moms and she's gonna give us some of the lowdown about RSV. Dr. JJ, thanks for being here.
Dr. JJ Levenstein: Oh thank you. It's great to see you again.
Daddy Brad: So tell us, what is RSV?
Dr. JJ: RSV is a respiratory virus that attacks most communities from late fall until early spring. If you or I, it would look like a simple cold. But in a young person, especially a baby, or a baby at risk with prematurity or chronic disease, this respiratory virus can quickly start in the nose but move south into the lungs and cause varying degrees of respiratory problems, sometimes wheezing, and sometimes severe enough lung conditions to warrant hospitalization.
Daddy Brad: So adults get it but it doesn't really affect us much but the kids get sicker. Why is that?
Dr. JJ: Well, our lungs, as I try to explain to our parents, are kind of like a big oak tree, and I actually have a little visual here for you. So if you could imagine that your lungs, here's your trachea, your bronchi, your biggest trunk of the tree, and branching off from that are thousands and thousands of branches till you get out to the leaves of the tree, which is kind of where you air sacs or alveoli are. When RSV strikes, what happens is the virus quickly goes down the trunk and out to the outermost reaches of the oak tree or the respiratory tree and one can imagine as all these airways become clogged with mucus and with infectious products, that obstruction or blockage and some compromise of breathing may occur especially if those areas are very young.
Daddy Brad: What are the onset of symptoms that parents should look for?
Dr. JJ: Typically, RSV for the first couple days, kids will just have buckets of buckets of snot. Your little Snotsucker probably would work very well.
Daddy Brad: Right. Get the Nosefrida.
Dr. JJ: And after about the third of fourth day typically, kids may have some fever. They may also start to have a chesty cough that might sound like they've been smoking Marlboro Reds their whole short life. But if a kid starts to breathe fast or use their muscles of breathing in a harder fashion or they start to change color cause they turn blue or get very pale, those are reasons to get to their health care provider immediately.
Daddy Brad: Are there treatments for RSV? What can you do for a child that presents with the disease?
Dr. JJ: Parents should humidify the environment, so if they have a humidifier or vaporizer, it's fine. They can instill saline in the nose to liquify those secretions a little bit more and then suction the baby's noses. If they're down and out with a fever, have the parent give them fever relief medicine with the okay of their healthcare provider. And there are some kids who are so affected by this, we have to put them in the hospital to support them with IV fluids, with oxygen, and with some deeper suction. If their kid at the end of a week is not looking so great and is sounding junkier that they really should get them in to their doctor.
Daddy Brad: Now there's a shot and it's called Synagis. Is that how you pronounce it?
Dr. JJ: It's actually an antibody to RSV and it was developed for very specific use in premature babies and also for use with kids who have immune deficiencies or significant heart disease. Unfortunately it can't be given to everyone because it's extremely expensive. It's thousands of dollars for a course of therapy and the doses need to be repeated monthly for some kids.
Daddy Brad: Yeah, I heard it's pretty expensive. Daddy Clay's youngest had it because he was a preemie so he said it's a thousand dollars a shot, something like that.
Dr. JJ: Right. It sure is. But it's very lifesaving because in the old days, back in the day when I first started in my career, we would lose lots of kids every year in this country to RSV.
Daddy Brad: A lot of parents freak out when their kids are diagnoses with RSV. Is it mostly kind of the real serious complications come with kids that have some kind of immune deficiency or breathing problem that's already there?
Dr. JJ: Right. So kids with chronic lung disease or any condition are probably more at risk. Heart disease being one as well. But even the average normal child, every once in a while, can have a bad case of RSV.
Daddy Brad: So it's real important for parents to stay on top of it like you mentioned earlier if it goes on and it's not getting better?
Dr. JJ: Absolutely. But they also need to stay on top, or become comforted by the knowledge that there are good supportive measures for children who need to go into the hospital and if they have an otherwise healthy child, the outlook is almost uniformly good is they get prompt medical attention. You typically see it late fall to early spring although this year, with H1N1 sort of overtaking all germ warfare in the fall, we have not seen RSV come up until right after the New Year. This year's. So it came a bit late and I fear it might be staying late, cause our office is certainly full of it right now.
Daddy Brad: Oh wow, well yeah my little one just got over it but he's back at them. Thanks Dr. JJ. There's some great information about RSV and it'll be good for parents that are really scared about this disease.