One of my most dramatic cases recently started like this:  The police were called to the home for a domestic dispute between drunken parents.  When they arrived, they found a home littered with liquor bottles, trash, and pills.  They also found a three year-old girl unconscious and unresponsive on the floor.   Paramedics were called.

When the child came in the ED, she was breathing and her vital signs were stable, but she would not wake up.  We drew blood samples, put in a catheter for a urine sample, pinched her and called out her name, and not a peep.  Everyone assumed she drank from one of the liquor bottles or took a narcotic pill from the floor, but all those tests came back negative.  The police rounded up and brought in all the prescription drugs in the house- eight total- from the parents and grandparents.  I called poison control and they ran all those drugs in their database.  Four of the family’s meds could account for the girl’s stupor.  She was admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for observation.  We all wondered when and if she would wake up.

If you are a parent or grandparent of a toddler or soon-to-be-toddler, now is the time to poison-proof your house.  Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around at the toddler’s level.  Open all the drawers and cabinets to see what poisons they can get to.  Pull on all furniture to see what TVs or lamps will tumble on your (and their!) head.  Then clear all the dangers: put locks on cabinets or put all poisons out of reach, secure all falling hazards.

All of that, however, will only get you so far to keeping your toddler safe.  As all parents know, toddlers can be fast, stealthy, and wily.  How many times have I heard a parent sob: “I only turned my back for a second, and he was so fast!”  To stay ahead of a toddler, you must think like a toddler.  When your little one watches you cook and grab ingredients from the high cabinets, they learn that is where the food is.  So they will pull the kitchen stool over, climb up, and try what is up there. 

When you tell them their medicine is candy, and then they see grannie take her pill, they want grannie’s candy too.  In to the weekly pill holders they’ll go.  At parties, you drink out of a red plastic cup.  Then later, when you drain your lawn mower’s gasoline into a red plastic cup and set that down within reach, it must be something worth drinking, right?

Therefore, to beat your toddler, you must go the extra step- poisons and pills hidden and out of reach of even footstools they can use.  Toddler-proof workshops and car ports too.  Don’t tell them medicine is candy to get them to take it.  You can’t watch them every second of every day, so give yourself the biggest margin-for-error, the biggest lead time on them you can. 

Finally, if they do get into something they shouldn’t, call Poison Control first: 1-800 222-1222.  Get Poison Control stickers and put them on all phones; put the number in the contacts in your cell.  The Poison Control Tech can tell you what to do and where to go.  They will tell you NOT to give your child something to drink, NOT to make them vomit.  They will tell you if you need to flush eyes and skin with running water. 

Sometimes they will tell you to stay home, like when you call because your child drank shampoo.  They will tell you if you need to see a doctor, but can come calmly.  They will tell you if you need to call 911, and then they will talk to the paramedics and the recieving Emergency Department about what to expect. 

So get to work on that child-proofing right now!  That goes for you too, Grandma and Granddad!

The following is not an unusual situation:  The paramedics pull up on the scene of an injury.  They assess the patient, and let’s say the patient is a seven year-old girl with a broken leg. 

Mom: “Can you take her to Regional Medical Center?”

Paramedic: “Well ma’am, Regional does not typically take care of kids, and they do not have an orthopedic doctor on call for their Emergency Department today.”

Mom: “I want her to go to Regional!”

When you call 911, you are calling “help!” in an emergency.  Someone is having bad chest pain, or trouble breathing, or is hurt so bad that they cannot be moved without expert help.  Of course, you should not call 911 when the situation is clearly NOT an emergency-fever, baby who briefly gagged on mucus, fainting spells (and getting an ambulance ride to the hospital does NOT get you ahead of the line for waiting at the Emergency Department- non-emergencies go to the waiting room like everyone else).  When the paramedics show up, the question then arises, where to go?

In many towns in Louisiana, there are several choices for hospitals.  What many people don’t know is that each hospital has some capabilities, but not ALL capabilities.  Some hospitals are best for broken legs in children, but those hospitals may not be best if grandma is having a stroke.  Some people choose the hospital they want to go to by preference- they had a good experience at one hospital, they have a relative who works there, they liked the hospital’s ad on TV.

In an emergency though, you need to take your paramedic’s advice about where to go.  The participating ambulance services in Louisiana (including Acadian and Med Express) are tied into a state system called LERN-Louisiana Emergency Response Network.  LERN is a separate system from 911.  It is a set of dispatch/call centers that keeps tabs on all participating hospitals’ available surgical services, ICU bed capacities, and CT scan services.  The purpose of LERN is to quickly tell paramedics which hospital nearest to them can handle that patient’s needs, and save the patient precious time that might be needed for survival.  Before LERN, paramedics had to sometimes make two or three time-consuming calls to find a hospital that could manage their patient.  Now, one quick call and the ambulance knows where to go and the receiving hospital knows they are coming.

So when you call 911, you need to listen to your paramedic.  He or she knows, from LERN, that maybe Lafayette General is closed to orthopedic injuries because their operating rooms are at full capacity; or that Lourdes’ ICU is full and Uncle Joe should go to the Heart Hospital for his chest pain. 

If you would like more information about the LERN system, visit them on the web at LERN.La.Gov.  And in an emergency, call 911.  If it is not an emergency, don’t.

Take it from me, the father of three teenagers: teenagers are trouble.  They whine and grump when asked to do the dishes, fold clothes, or clean up.  They beg for fast food day and night.  The good manners they practiced just a few years ago are forgotten.  Now, I say all this in fun, because my teens are essentially good kids, as are most teens.  But if you want a truly difficult and unhappy teen, with a truly miserable life, have a pregnant one.

First, there are the usual problems with pregnancy.  There is often pain, as baby grows inside, and the pain of delivery.  There is morning sickness and abnormal bleeding.  There are worries about infections and miscarriages.  Now, give all these problems to a teenager- guess how well they will handle them?  Added to that, teen pregnancies tend to be more complicated, with things like  high blood pressure and premature birth. 

Secondly, there are the emotional problems of teen pregnancy.  How will I raise baby- change diapers, feed baby, get baby to sleep (you think chores are hard now!)?  Will the father be involved?  If so, can I stand to be associated with him for the rest of my child’s life?  What will my parents think, and do?  Teens, not surprisingly, have much worse problems with depression after delivery than adult moms.

Finally, after baby is born, the life of a teen mother with baby is very hard.  Being a teen mom is a sure way to poverty- raising babies is hard enough without having to finish school or hold down a job, and babies are very expensive to clothe, feed, and entertain.   Babies of teens are more often premature, and thus sicker, and need to be brought to the doctor or the Emergency Department much more.  A depressed teen mom makes for a depressed and fussy baby.  Many teens have babies so that they will have a baby to love them, and are often disappointed that babies at first give so little love for all the hardship. 

So what is the best way to avoid the living hell of teen pregnancy?  For parents, showing your teen this blog will probably not work.  Scare tactics seldom have an effect on teens.  They are not rational decision makers, much like toddlers.  You need to talk to your child before they are in high school, or even junior high.  The age you can teach your kid about not getting pregnant is when they are in grade school.

Parents, get to work!  Have that uncomfortable conversation (it actually is pretty easy with grade-schoolers) now, so your babies don’t have babies before their time is right.

The room was suffused with pale light.  There was no noise, no breeze.  Two children lay on hospital beds, sedated.  The only sign of distress would come every few minutes when one of them would tense his whole body, breathing hitching, face clenched.  Both children were almost certain to die.  They had tetanus.

It was 1989, and I was rounding with pediatric residents in a hospital in the Philippines.  I was there for a month-long elective during medical school, and spent my mornings learning about diseases we rarely see in the United States.  We rounded on our two tetanus patients every morning, doing what little we could, and waiting.  Finally one morning when we came by, the room was empty.   

  In the Philippines, vaccinations are a luxury that many cannot afford.  One of the children was a teenage boy who stepped on a pin.  A tiny injury, but the pinhead must have held a few spores of the Claustridium Tetani bacteria.  Driven deep into his foot, where there was little of the oxygen that prevents tetanus from growing, the infection flourished.  The other child was a newborn who had had his umbilical cord painted with a dirty concoction by the village healer.

When someone gets infected with tetanus, the bacteria puts out a poison that causes all the body’s muscles to freeze up.  Some of the strongest and most obvious muscles are those one chews with- hence the slang “Lock jaw.”  In the Philippines, where they have few Intensive Care Units, the best the doctors can do is give the patients Valium in an attempt to help the muscles relax.  The room was so quiet and calm because any noise, any breeze, any stimulation triggers the muscle spasms. 

However, such treatment is a fool’s errand.  The muscles spasm anyway, most concerning the muscles of the ribcage.  When they spasm, the patient can’t breathe.  Tetanus is a slow death of oxygen starvation.  Even with more high-tech intensive medicine in the US, tetanus still kills up to a third of its victims. 

In the days before vaccines such infections terrified people.  Diseases like tetanus and diphtheria killed individually.  Other epidemic infections, like polio and influenza, killed in waves.  In 1919, 1 to 3% of the world’s population died of Spanish Influenza; one out of every four persons on the planet was sick with fever and cough.  In some places, there were not enough well people to bury the dead.  In 1952 the polio epidemic had every parent in the United States worried that their child would end up a leg-braced cripple, or dead.

But these days, such terrors of the past have been forgotten (except in movies like Contagion, which was all the more scary because it was so scientifically accurate).  Vaccinations that prevent such diseases have made us feel safe from deadly infection.  And now, in such an atmosphere of comfort, people forget why we vaccinate.  Some even question the safety and use of vaccination.  Myths about vaccination dangers have become mainstream “knowledge.”

Here are some more commonplace vaccine myths- all NOT true:  If you take too many vaccines at once, they don’t all “take.”  Fortunately, this is not how the immune system works- it does not have limited “energy” to take on new tasks.  Another myth is that you can’t take a vaccination when you are sick with a cold or on an antibiotic.  Again, the vaccine will “take” and not make you any sicker, except a few vaccines that might give you a small fever.

The bigger myths are more scary: vaccines cause brain injury, vaccines poison.  These side effects, if true , are very rare.  Concerned doctors and scientists have been trying for decades to find a connection between these alleged bad side effects and the vaccines, and have been unsuccessful.  Thus this wisdom still holds true: your chance of being harmed by a disease is gigantic compared to your chances of being harmed by the disease’s vaccine.  In other words, getting the vaccines is safe; getting the diseases is not. 

So make sure your kids get their shots on time.  Get your shots too- tetanus and flu.  That is the best way to avoid…..CONTAGION!

When I was in college, I volunteered at the local homeless shelter.  Back then you were allowed to smoke indoors, and the morning after a night shift I would leave with my hair stiff with the smell of cigarettes (I had a lot more hair back then).  The next time I caught a cold, I was left with a cough that did not go away.  I hacked all day and woke up through the night coughing.  After a month of misery, I went to the college infirmary.  The PA there said I had a cold, and sent me on my way with a paper packet of cheap and gritty cough drops. 

Weeks later, still hacking,  I went back.  The PA said and did the same things, again to no effect.  Weeks after that I went back yet again, this time insisting on seeing the doctor.  The doctor listened carefully to my story, said I had mild asthma from the combination of the cold and the cigarette smoke, and gave me an inhaler.  Within days, my cough was gone.

Many people find asthma confusing and complex.  It is sometimes hard to diagnose, like my episode above.  It can be triggered by so many things and all the medicines can be confusing- what do I take when I am sick, and what medicines do I take when I am well?  Hopefully the next few paragraphs will give you a better understanding.

Asthma, simply put, is wheezing that can be reversed by medicines.  In asthma, airways in your lungs are extra-sensitive to irritants, and close up to keep out those irritants- cold viruses,  pollen and other allergens, and cigarette smoke.  When the airways narrow and close, the wheezing you hear and feel is your breath whistling through those skinnier passages. 

To reverse that airway narrowing, we use two classes of medicines.  The first are called bronchodilators, that open up (”dilate”) your airways (”bronchioles”).  These medicines are breathed in through inhalers and nebulizers.  The second medicines are steroids, which take away the swelling in inflamed airways.  Prednisone, taken as pills or syrup, is the most commonly used steroid.  Prednisone is very different from the steroid athletes abuse.  For the short five-to-seven day courses we use for asthma, it does not cause weight gain, hair growth, or rage attacks. 

The most important treatment for asthma is to avoid the things that irritate.  If dogs make your kid wheeze, don’t get a dog!  Teach your asthmatic kids good hand-washing so they don’t get so many cold viruses at school.  If you smoke and your kid has asthma, quit!  At the very least, smoke outside the house and car where your kids breath.  

Finally, for bad cases of asthma, there are medicines to take when you are well, all the time.  There are pills and inhaled steroids (again, perfectly safe)  that keep your airways from being so sensitive.  If exercise makes your kid wheeze, there are inhalers to take before exercise to help that.  All asthmatic kids should get a flu shot in the fall, since the influenza virus is particularly hard on airways.

If all this is still confusing, ask your doctor for a written asthma plan to help you keep it straight.  Your child with asthma should be able to go to school, to run and play, without having asthma attacks.  If he can’t, see your doctor to improve the asthma plan.  And for heaven’s sake, if you smoke, see your doctor about ways to quit!

When I was a kid, I remember my parents getting a call from my older brother Pat’s teacher.  He was falling asleep in class.  Perhaps, the teacher suggested, he should get to bed sooner?  You would think, both my parents being teachers themselves, that they would have known that 11pm was too late a bedtime for a sixth grader!  But they took the advice with good humor, walked Pat’s bedtime back to 8pm, and he started to perform better in school.  In fact he grew up to go to college at MIT, so on the whole he and my parents did pretty good with the school thing.

Kids getting enough sleep is a problem.  A toddler needs about 12 hours of sleep per night, a school age kid needs 10-11 hours, and a teenager needs a good 8 to 9 hours.  Do your kids get that much sleep on a school night?  Experts are saying that more and more kids are going to school as walking zombies, as their sleep is cut short by more demands from in-home media, sports, activities, homework, and waking up early for school. 

If kids don’t get enough sleep, they have trouble doing well in school.  No one can concentrate on lessons or hear about homework assignments when they are drousy.   These kids also have problems getting along with their classmates- who isn’t grumpy after a poor night’s sleep?  Persistent sleepiness and the effects of school and friend trouble can lead to worse symptoms of depression.  Kids that don’t get enough sleep also get sick more easily, and then they come to see me.

How to fix a sleep problem?  First, of course, get them to bed earlier!  However, getting them to sleep requires some other things.  Make sure they don’t have any caffeinated drinks for dinner- no sodas or tea.  Don’t allow any scary or violent TV before bedtime (heck, no kid should be watching TV on a school night anyway!). 

When it is time for lights out in the bedroom- that means all lights, including those from TVs, computers, and cellphones.  These media should not be allowed in the bedroom anyway, ever!  Finally, kids should get to bed early enough so they can wake up to have time for breakfast.  Besides enough sleep, kids need a healthy breakfast, big or small, to do their best at school.

So get these kids to bed on time now, before school starts.  Walk those bedtimes back an hour a night so they can learn to fall asleep sooner and not be lying in bed awake for too long.   Encourage reading before bedtime instead of TV- science shows that brains calm down better with reading.  With a little attention to sleep, maybe your kids will end up going to MIT too!

Every so often a parent brings their teenager to the Emergency Department for a drug test.  The parent is suspicious that their teen is using drugs, even if the teenager denies it.  There is obvious tension in the air between the two.  We politely tell the parents that we can not legally or ethically make teens take drug tests (or pregnancy tests either).  If the teen doesn’t want the test, we can’t make them do it.  What would the parent have us do- hold their adult-sized kid down and catheterize him or her for their urine sample? 

Communication break-downs between parents and teens lead to a lot of miserable ED visits.  Problems with honestly discussing drug use, and trusting each other, lead to the trouble above.  Even worse, mistrust and anger between kids and parents can lead to depression, violence between parents and kids, and teen suicide.  Teen years are tough enough, and it is even tougher when the teen can’t rely on his folks for sympathy.

We all know teenage years are difficult.  New hormones lead to mood swings, love sickness, feelings of awkwardness as the body grows and changes and breaks out in sweat and zits.  Inside that big, lumbering body is a brain swinging from wisdom to toddler tantrum, and back.  Stresses of school, the meaning of life, sleep deprivation, fitting in, all take a toll.  Little problems to an experienced adult are new, huge problems to a teenager.

Parents respond to their stressed teenager in two ways.  Parents at their best are understanding, forgiving, and patient.  The other response is anger; anger at the teen’s whining, misbehavior, and snappishness.  We condemn our teens for bad grades, slowness to do chores or find a job, and inappropriate clothes.  Parents often show both understanding and anger in the same day, or the same hour.  I sure do with my three teenagers.

The trick is to be more of the first, less of the second.  If you are angry, walk away and cool off before you say hurtful things.  Pick your battles- having it out with them over drugs and alcohol is much more important than dogging them about their clothes, or manners, or speech. 

Most importantly, rewards are more important than punishment.  Finding something (anything!) to compliment your teen about will get you much farther with them than grounding them for a month for denting the car.  I’m not saying don’t discipline your teen- only that the punishment should be fair and the compliments kind.  Everyone likes to have nice things said to them like “Good job cleaning the kitchen,” or “your hair looks great.”  Everyone feels wronged when having privileges taken away for mistakes, especially when the mistake was an accident and not intentional. 

So parents, next time you get really angry at your teen, back off.  Don’t let anger and a loose tongue wound your relationship with your kid.  Cool off, be calm, and remember that your love for your child is more important than your own righteousness. 

Got that, Scott?

Very few rashes belong in the Emergency Department.  Just about all rashes can wait until the next day to see the doctor.  Parents bring their kids in anyway, often because they are afraid: afraid of infection, allergy, contagiousness, or the rash just plain looks weird.   As we often say here in this blog, it is not an emergency if the child is breathing well, drinking well, alert, and smiling. 

This time of year we are seeing a lot of eczema, and the moms bring in the kids because of the ferocious itching.  Eczema is a medical term for very sensitive, dry skin.  It is often called the itch that rashes, because that sensitive dry skin itches first, then the kid scratches the heck out of it until it gets red, cracked, bleeding, and weepy. 

What makes sensitive skin so bad this time of year?  First, the  air conditioning we all live in now is drying, because A/C extracts water from the air when it cools the air.  The colder it is, the dryer it is.  When you see water dripping out of the bottom of an A/C unit, that is the water that should be in the air moisturizing your skin. 

Secondly, kids get dirtier now that they are out playing more.  Then the soaps they wash with are often too strong, and can wash out the natural oils their skin makes to protect itself.  Examples of drying soaps are Zest, Ivory, Irish Spring, or Dial.  Scrubbing skin with washcloths, and scrubbing dry with towels can damage skin too.

Finally, much of eczema is genetic.  Some people are born with sensitive skin, some more sensitive than others.  Some have eczema so bad that even dermatologists and strong medicines barely control the cracking and scarring.  Here is what you can do to make your kid with dry, itchy skin happier until you see their doctor.

Turn your A/C unit to 75 degrees.  That should be comfortable for you in shorts and t shirts in the house and a sheet only in bed at night.  Switch to moisturizing soaps like Dove, Caress, or Lever 2000.  Apply moisturizing lotion three times daily, especially after the bath.  Use your hand instead of a wash cloth when bathing your child, and pat dry with the towel instead of scrubbing dry.  Keep your kid’s fingernails trimmed- long, sharp fingernails are better at tearing skin and making itching and infection worse.

Finally, for bad dry patches that just won’t heal with this care, see your doctor about medium-strength steroid ointments.  You only need a small ball of ointment (a little bigger than the size of a BB) for each bad patch.  Ibuprofen or acetaminophen (Tylenol) take the edge off itching, just like they take away pain.  High strength steroid creams, steroid pills or liquids, or other medications should be prescribed only by dermatologists for severe cases.  

 So next time you or your child get a bad itchy rash, try the above things to make skin better.  Before you go to the Emergency Department for a rash, call your doctor.  Unless your doctor says otherwise, rashes can wait for the next appointment.   And find those fingernail clippers!

Sometimes when a parent is talking about her sick child, I hear about things they have already tried to make the kid better.   Usually these are the regular things like pain medicines or hot compresses.  Sometimes parents try things that sound wacky- blowing cigarette smoke in the child’s ear for ear pain, taking the child to a traiteur, or rolling hot coins on the child’s back (for chest congestion).  Many parents are afraid to tell their doctors about such “alternative medicine” practices, for fear that the doctors will fuss at them for not sticking to “traditional,” science-based medicine.

I try not to be judgemental when parents tell me such things (except for the cigarette smoke- c’mon!).  First, I want parents to feel safe that they can tell me everything I could use to figure out what’s wrong.  Some experts say that as many as one third of all patients use some alternative medicine along with traditional medicine, and I want to hear about it. 

Secondly, I can’t be too judgemental because much of traditional medicine has not actually been tested in a scientific way.  Science examines medicines and therapies by “blinding” the people being treated and the doctors giving the treatment.  In other words, neither doctor nor patient know who is getting the true medicine, or a placebo (fake medicine).  Thus their biases and feelings about whether something will work or not will not sway the results.  Experts figure that only about one third of traditional treatments, medicines, and surgeries have been tested scientifically!

Fortunately, nowadays modern medicine is cleaning house.  A movement  called “evidence-based medicine” is testing all current practices, tossing out those that truly don’t help, and promoting those that do.  Some traditional medicines are being thrown out, like cold medicines.  Other medicine’s uses are being modified, like careful use of antibiotics.  Surgical techniques are being discarded or improved with a more scientific knowledge of their usefulness.

Scientific medicine is also starting to test alternative medicines and practices  like herbs, acupuncture, and chiropracty.  (By the way, many modern medicines are herb-derived, like digoxin (foxglove) and aspirin (willow bark), so what is really traditional versus alternative?)  There is now some evidence that treatments like acupuncture and probiotics may have value.  Other treatments, like St. John’s wort, have been shown to have bad side effects.   Good studies of alternative medicine are just getting started, so stay tuned.

In the mean time, don’t be afraid to talk to your doctor about all treatments you have tried.  Your doctor should be up on the latest about alternative medicine, and be able to guide you about what is safe and effective, what is not, and what we don’t know yet.  One thing is absolutely for certain- cigarette smoke is really, really bad.  Please leave that off your child’s treatment plan!

5/16 Addendum: Red Lerille cornered me today at the gym and asked jokingly, “Hey, what’s wrong with traiteurs?”  I answered, “Absolutely nothing, they can only help!”   I believe in the power of prayer.  In fact, scientists have actually done studies to see if prayer helps make people get better.  The answer: they can’t be certain yet, but maybe!

My wife tells the story of how two of her nephews screamed non-stop for their whole first year of life.  Her sister and her husband were getting so crazy that she offered to watch the kids for a weekend so they could get a break.  My wife only half-believed that babies could cry that much but sure enough, the only time those babies didn’t cry all weekend was when they took a bottle, or were in the swing.  And in those days of wind-up swings, the spring only kept them rocking for twenty minutes before needing rewinding.  Thus at night no one got more than twenty minutes of sleep at a time!

All babies cry.  Occasionally a baby is brought to us in Emergency because the baby is crying too much and parents want to know why.  More importantly, they want it to stop.  They are ready to tear their hair out with frustration because they have been to their pediatrician several times, have tried several treatments, and baby still cries all night.  Often that means baby has colic.

Colic is a common baby problem- almost one-fifth of all babies have it.  These are babies who cry for more than 3 hours per day for more than 3 weeks, in the first 3 months of life.  Often they cry most in the evening.  That much crying can make parents crazy with worry and frustration, listening to the screaming and not being able to comfort baby.  Sometimes parents get so worked up that they are afraid they might hurt baby to stop the crying.

Pediatricians try some easy fixes early on.  They may advise that formula-fed babies change formulas, in case of milk intolerance.  They may give medicines for gastric reflux, if they think that heart burn from reflux is the reason for pain.  Sometimes these things work, but for colic they don’t. 

One of the most frustrating things about colic is that in this day and age of cancer cures and antibiotics and MRIs, science still is not sure what colic is or what to do about it.  It seems like a gas problem when babies cry and cramp up, pull up their legs, grunt, and pass gas.  However, anti-gas medicines don’t help much.  There is some research in intestinal bacteria and probiotic treatment, but this is very preliminary.  People try all sorts of alternative medicines like fennel tea, chiropractic manipulation, herbal medicines, but none of that seems to help much either.

Here is what we do know to help.  Breast feeding makes colic less common.  Swaddling baby in a blanket, rocking them, and pacifiers seems to help.  The ultimate way to calm a fussy baby is still a car ride in the car seat.  Swings and white-noise makers (like fans, clothes dryers, and purpose-made white noise makers) also often calm colicky babies. 

If baby is really driving you nuts and you think you might hurt baby- get help!  Get a neighbor or relative to watch baby for a while so you can calm down.  If you can’t do that, put baby in a safe place (baby bed, buckled into a car seat or swing) and get out of hearing range to calm down.  Letting baby cry won’t hurt them or give them a “complex.”  Heck, you haven’t been able to stop the crying anyway, so why not give yourself a break?  As my mom said, she had no baby-crying problem that wasn’t fixed by two closed doors between me and her.  And me and my brothers seemed to have turned out okay (but that is just our own opinion- others may differ). 

As always, call your pediatrician before going to Emergency for crying.  Most crying is not an emergency and your doctor can help you decide if it is.  Do you have a colic story or cure?  If so, send me a comment.  You might know something about colic that science doesn’t!