Sunscreen use in Southern California is a must, but an investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreen products by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that sunscreens are not always doing what they claim. They found that 4 out of 5 contain chemicals that may pose health hazards or don't adequately protect the skin.

Unfortunately, the FDA still has not finalized sunscreen standards and so companies can make claims, but their sunscreens may not be providing broad spectrum protection. If you want to tell the FDA that you are concerned about this topic, you can link to the EWG website here to send an email.

The EWG website, Skin Deep will give you information on safety of many personal care products other than sunscreen - everything from make up to shampoos.

Headaches are one of the most common patient complaints. Around 20% of outpatient visits to pediatricians are due to headaches. Early on, an important consideration is to rule out serious brain pathology. Headaches due to a problem with the brain are called secondary headaches. Fortunately, primary headache syndromes are much more common. These include migraine, tension-type and cluster headaches. Musculoskeletal headaches (either from traumatic or non-traumatic causes) may also be classified as a primary headache syndrome.

Once an adequate assessment and diagnostic testing is performed, treatment can be directed toward the headache type. There are some general treatment principles that apply to most primary headache types such as lifestyle changes and trigger identification. A headache diary is useful to identify triggers and response to treatment. I've put together a list of common triggers and a headache diary.

When adequate lifestyle changes fail to control headaches, medications should be considered. Serendipity describes our pharmacologic treatment options for childhood headache. Most medications used for headache treatment and prevention come from vastly different (and unexpected) classes such as cardiac, anti-seizure or psychiatric drugs.

Finally, I have had success in the use of complimentary and alternative medicine treatments. For properly screened patients, the medical literature supports acupuncture as a good treatment option. Biofeedback and relaxation techniques are other treatment options.

Kids today are very knowledgeable about computers and the internet. But with internet use, there comes some safety issues that parents should review with their children. There needs to be clear guidelines on usage of the internet and frequent checking in with children and supervision when children are online.

Consider getting parental control blockers. If you have Windows Vista installed, Vista has a parental control block or there are stand alone programs such as Safe Eyes, CyberPatrol and Net Nanny. These will block questionable websites and monitor kids' time online. They have different features, so you will need to figure out what your needs are for your family.

There is a national shortage of the Hemophilus influenza vaccine (Hib). This vaccine is usually given at 2, 4 and 6 months (although with certain manufacturers on the Hib only 2 and 4 months are needed to start the primary series). Then the next booster is at 15 months. We are complying with national guidelines to hold off on giving the Hib at 15 months if they have received the primary series in the first year of life. Our office supply of Hib has been very sporadic due to shipment from the manufacturers of only a small amount of Hib at a time. We will do our best to see that our 2 month olds get the vaccine when it is available.

A second chickenpox vaccine is now being recommended for children 4 years and older. We are currently getting children caught up with this at their well child visits (you do not need to come in for this before scheduled visits). However, due to some supply issues with this vaccine, we are primarily targeting our patients who are 10 years and older.