Chapter 780: Pediatric Convulsions

Chapter 780: Chapter 780: Pediatric Convulsions

"As for your diet, aside from strictly controlling your sugar intake, you should eat nutritious, high-protein foods like carp soup and pork rib soup whenever you need to. Keep your nutrition balanced. Don’t just eat greens every day and avoid meat out of fear of high blood sugar. If you do that, where will your body get the vitality to heal the wound?" Li Xu continued.

The patient had been suffering from diabetes for over a decade and already had many dietary restrictions. Normally, he was too afraid to eat or touch almost anything, starving himself until he was sallow and emaciated. Li Xu was reminding him not to do more harm than good out of excessive caution.

"Doctor Li, then... do I still need to keep using that new medication Director Ren prescribed me, along with the anti-inflammatory IV drips? Do I still need to change my dressings?" the patient asked Li Xu cautiously.

"A nurse will come over tomorrow to clean the wound and change your dressing. It was just changed today, so we’ll leave it be for now. As for the IV drips, continue taking them according to the original doctor’s orders," Li Xu replied.

In truth, there was nothing wrong with the antibiotics and special muscle-regenerating ointments that Ren Hongbo had prescribed. According to Western medicine’s clinical protocols, this was the standard treatment plan. Diabetic patients suffered from severe microvascular complications in their lower limbs, making their wounds extremely prone to ulceration and difficult to heal. Some patients were in far more severe conditions than this middle-aged man.

Li Xu’s medical advice to "get more sun" was essentially a powerful "external traditional Chinese medicine adjunctive therapy" added on top of the standard Western treatment.

While this might seem somewhat absurd from a Western medicine perspective, in the eyes of a knowledgeable TCM practitioner, it was a stroke of genius that could yield massive results with minimal effort. Getting more sun was not to be underestimated. When it came to boosting the body’s vital energy and improving local microcirculation, the sun’s Pure Yang fire was sometimes far more effective than taking medicine or getting injections.

After explaining all of this, Li Xu led Gao Jingyun and the others out of the observation room.

They had barely taken two steps when a young woman with disheveled hair rushed through the main entrance of the emergency department. She was holding a child tightly in her arms, stumbling inward while crying out in a heart-wrenching voice, "Doctor! Help me, doctor!"

Hearing the woman’s cries, two nurses from the triage desk swiftly pushed a gurney over to meet her. Seeing this, Gao Jingyun’s expression turned serious, and he hurriedly strode forward. Li Xu and the other two closely followed behind him.

"What’s wrong? What’s the child’s condition?" Gao Jingyun shouted, rushing to the front and rapidly examining the child before the nurses could even ask.

"Doctor, please look at my child! He suddenly started convulsing and won’t respond," the woman gasped, her voice trembling with despair.

Li Xu leaned in to take a look. The child in the woman’s arms appeared to be about two and a half years old. At this moment, the little boy’s face was turning blue, and his eyes were rolling back to reveal the whites. His limbs were stiff and rigidly straight as he violently and continuously convulsed, white foam frothing at the corners of his mouth.

This was a classic case of a pediatric febrile seizure.

"Does he have a fever? What’s his temperature?" Gao Jingyun asked loudly, hastily reaching out to feel the child’s forehead.

"He does! He’s been burning up since last night. When we took his temperature at home just now, it was already up to 39.8 degrees! We just gave him some fever-reducing medicine, but before it could take effect, his eyes suddenly rolled back," the child’s mother babbled incoherently through her tears.

"It’s a febrile seizure! Quick, get the gurney and follow me to Resuscitation Room One!" Gao Jingyun instructed. He helped the nurses place the child on the gurney and sprinted toward the resuscitation room.

Upon entering the room, Gao Jingyun had the nurses lay the child flat on the bed. He furrowed his brows as he noticed the child was bundled up tightly. He immediately unfastened the thick coat and collar, saying,

"Ma’am, you absolutely cannot wrap the child up this tightly in a situation like this.

"He’s already running a high fever, so we have to loosen his clothes as much as possible to ensure proper ventilation and heat dissipation.

"The tighter you wrap him, the harder it is for his body temperature to drop. It becomes more dangerous, and his brain will sustain damage from the fever."

Just as Gao Jingyun was quickly unbuttoning the child’s clothes to cool him down and preparing to order a sedative and antispasmodic injection, he suddenly froze.

He realized that Li Xu had appeared at the head of the bed, already pulling out the acupuncture kit he carried with him everywhere.

"Nurse, prepare an alcohol cotton ball," Li Xu ordered in a deep voice.

Gao Jingyun paused for a moment but didn’t stop him. Having witnessed Li Xu’s emergency medical skills before, he knew that this expert always had a good reason for taking action.

Stepping back to give Li Xu room to operate, Gao Jingyun turned to instruct the traumatized parents, both to inform them and distract them. "Aside from cooling him down, you also need to be careful. You can find a tongue depressor or wrap a chopstick in gauze, then gently wedge it between the child’s upper and lower teeth. This prevents him from biting his tongue or lips when he convulses. At the same time, keep his head tilted to one side and check for vomit or other obstructions in his mouth and nose to prevent suffocation."

In the dozen or so seconds it took for Gao Jingyun to speak, Li Xu had already expertly sterilized a Silver Needle with an alcohol cotton ball.

SWISH! SWISH!

Moving with lightning speed, he pricked the outer side of the child’s left and right thumbs—the Shao Shang acupoint—with the Silver Needle. His technique was incredibly fast and shallow. Then, he forcefully squeezed out a drop of dark red blood from each thumb.

This was known as "Shao Shang bloodletting," the most classic emergency first-aid method for clearing heat and resuscitating a patient.

Following that, Li Xu flicked his wrist and swiftly drove a needle straight into the center of the child’s brow—the Forehead acupoint.

The Forehead acupoint belonged to the Governing Vessel and possessed the miraculous effect of stimulating the brain, restoring consciousness, calming fright, and stopping spasms.

As soon as Li Xu finished administering these three seemingly simple needles, a miracle occurred.

In less than two minutes, the child’s stiff, rigid, and violently convulsing body miraculously began to relax. The spasms ceased entirely.

His rolled-back eyes gradually lowered, his clenched jaw loosened, and a sliver of clarity slowly returned to his gaze. The little boy even furrowed his brows slightly and let out a weak WAAAH as he began to cry.

The fact that he could cry meant that his airway was clear and his consciousness had been restored.

Seeing this, the parents let out a long sigh of relief, as if all the strength had been drained from their bodies. The mother’s legs gave out, and her vision went dark. She nearly collapsed onto the cold floor of the resuscitation room, but her husband, standing right behind her, was quick enough to catch her.

"Has the child been eating a lot of random junk over the past two days?" Li Xu asked, turning his head toward the parents while pulling out the Silver Needle and pressing down with a cotton ball to stop the bleeding.

"Yes, yes, he’s eaten a lot of snacks," the mother replied, nodding repeatedly as if recalling something. "It was the weekend, so we took him to his grandmother’s house. She spoils him rotten. Chocolates, potato chips, all sorts of fruits... his mouth hasn’t stopped chewing from morning till night."

"You must be extremely careful in the future. A young child’s diet cannot be unregulated," Li Xu lectured gently.