My boy is sick (Day 11) age 6. Everyone keeps saying he has asthma.
I really don't know what "asthma" is supposed to be like. He's been coughing since he was four weeks old. But he never wheezes.

This current episode started as croupe (sounded like a seal) and a small cold. Now he just coughs and coughs and coughs (dry)... But not during the day at school/home when he's inside. Only after he goes into the cold air or runs around. And at home all night.

Took him to get his chest checked by a nurse at medical centre on Monday (can't get into a doctor EVER in this town). She couldn't hear anything.

She said to keep giving him ventolin and flixotide.

But he coughs so much he chucks.... They always say it's "probably" asthma. BUT.... my theory is if it were flippin asthma surely a flippin inhaler would work!!!!

Last year we went through this rigmorole, Boy was sick for a week, a nurse saw him, heard nothing in his chest and sent us home. Four days later still coughing/chucking. Went to medical centre and told he could only see a nurse (again). I packed a gigantic hissy at the medical centre (made myself loook like a right noo noo), and demanded a doctor's appointment. First a nurse triaged him (AGAIN) and couldn't hear anything. Then a doctor finally saw him and found he had PNUEMONIA!!!! Xray confirmed it. Antibiotics and he was right as rain. He's been good for nine months not one episode of "asthma" until now.

This time the cough is the same. But he's not chucking as much phlegm. So I'm in a dilema. Should I pack a hissy with the medical centre and demand a doctors appointment. Or just believe it's asthma and have a boy who can't go outside for the rest of winter??? It seems completely ridiculous that they have labelled him with asthma but asthma treatment doesn't work.

Poor wee man loves his bike riding, rugby and swimming and he just can't do it at the moment.

Thoughts, advice please

I would want to get him into a dr again. Is it more likely he can get pnuemonia again because of the last time? I can't believe you haven't seen anyone about it being asthma or not. Demand to be referred to a specialist or asthma educator. If it is asthma its not well controlled and this needs to change. Poor kid will only get worse over winter months if not controlled.
My son does the cough til vomits thing too and asthma is not only diagnoised with a wheeze present. My son hardly ever gets a wheeze...he is more a dry cough, cough, cough vomit boy! And his allergies make it worse. Is it possible he needs tested for enivro allergies etc????? Could be worth looking into more. And dr's should be more onto it since his history in this cough is there too.
Hugs

Thanks gutz_cmum2.
I needed some encouragement to do my prunes again.
Where we live there is only one doctor. The rest are locums. So very very stinky medical system.

There is a very complex timewasting system where you phone a nurse, she phones you back, then she makes an appointment with You. Then she decides if you see a doctor or not. Then you go back for the doctor's appointment at some other time if you're lucky enough. Can take days to get sorted.

And as he never ever coughs when we go in they just think I'm being neurotic I think.

Last year a locum put in his notes that he is suseptible to infections and shouldn't be left.

But here we are again.

Last year I videoed him so the doctor could hear it. He immediately said it wasn't an asthma cough and had him xrayed.

How do you control your son's asthma? It sounds like a very similar scenario. Cough cough vomit.

We're doing ventolin 4x4 each coughing fit. Flixotide x2 a day.
But it does nothing for him... so here we are 11 days later still coughing his guts out.

PM's my dribble to you :P Thought it was too long to bore every one else LOL.
Hope your son improves fast..hugs
Have they looked at upping his flixotide? One fab dr gave my son the dark orange flixotide (its stronger) and its really helping to control his coughing periods.

Hey...My DS1 is exactly the same. He does not have a wheeze at all - once he gets a cold it turns to non stop coughing fits to the point of spewing sometimes.

He is on flixitide every morning 2 x puffs per day. The minute he gets a runny nose or signs of a cold we up it to 2 x puffs twice a day and start the ventolin as well.

This year we have had heat pumps installed and so far this winter we have not had ONE single dose of the coughing fits it has been a godsend... Just having the house at a constant warm temperature has been fantastic. He has had colds but none have gone onto the coughing episodes so far.

It is so horrible to hear them cough like that and feel so helpless to not be able to help them or stop it...

EWOK thanks for your ditto story.
Yep it is horrible to hear them like that.
I think our management of the whole thing hasn't been good enough. I just need to get someone in the medical profession to support us through it I think, and get it sorted.

gutz_cmum2
I've pm'd you too

Thanks for your help it's been very informative and I'm armed and ready to tackle the medical centre about this now!!!

Hey, wonderful thread (for me). My boy is the same. Really tight cough adn you can kind of hear a wheeze in the cough but he rarely wheezes with breathing. He has ventolin and flixotide which seems to be of limited help. Very frustrating!

Hi Sparkle. Yes very frustrating when the inhalers don't work isn't it!! Grrrr
DS's cough is exactly the same as your boy. Wheeze with a cough but no wheeze with breathing.

I had great appointment yesterday with an asthma nurse and a GP.

They said he's not an asthmatic as such.
But he does have an asthma cough triggered through croupe/cold.
He has an irritation in his airway that's easily triggered.

They changed his dosage and I saw a great improvement last night.

6 puffs ventolin with 6 breaths each puff. Carrying on Flixotide as before 2 puffs but with 6 breaths.

We were only doing 4x4 ventolin previously. I didn't know how much I could give him or how often. Every two hours apparently.

So we'll give this a try.
Want to get him into a specialist so going to investigate that myself today. GP didn't go down that track. But I think at the age of 6 with a 6 year history of it, he should see someone.

gutz_cmum2 gave me some great advice and I was prepared for the medical centre yesterday with heaps of notes and questions. I asked about allergy testing and they said waste of time. But I'm going to explore that one further (thanks gutz_cmum2).

I videoed him and took that to the appointment too. Cause he never ever coughs at the appointments and the nurses always think I'm making it up. So the saw the violent coughing and then called the GP in.

Good luck with your boy sparkle.
I think we get fobbed off to much. It's not acceptable that kids have to cough like that for days on end. They need to listen to us, we're their parents and know when they're coping or not.

My son was diagnosed as asthmatic at about 8 months of age by a paed, as at that stage he was definately wheezy with breathing several times per week.

However, he seems to have grown out of that a bit, and now its mainly when he gets a cold that he gets this tight cough, but no wheeze as such. The doc we saw last week said that he probably isnt asthmatic per se' but has a 'tendency to wheeze'. Im a bit unclear of the difference?

So you found that increasing his ventolin dose helped? We are prescribed 2 puffs 2 hourly (as necessary). And flixotide - 2 puffs twice daily. Dont use the flix anymore though as his episodes are not occuring so often. Perhaps I should restart it? Im loathe to increase his ventolin without a doctors say so (so wont) but it might give me something to chat to the docs about.

Interesting Sparkle that you don't use the flixotide anymore when asthma not ocuring so often. This med is the preventative and that is the one normally suggested to carry one (just dropping doses) when it is working well and asthma is under control. Its normally the ventolin that gets dropped and added as required. The flixotide can take up to 3 weeks to show signs of helping and once it's built up in the system then it controls the asthma quite well. Our asthma educator says if you stop/start this med then you are back to square one when you get hit with an asthma flare up. We use to do same as you til we couldn't figure out why Cam's asthma would get out of control easily.
During Cam's swimming times and winter we start the upped dose 2 weeks prior to prevent anything nasty from occurring and this has helped majorly too.
Nicknac.... Is that your normal required amount of ventolin to give your DS or just while he is recovering from this illness? I would check that out too, as to what you are required to do when he recovers. Its amazing just having an educator show you/DS how to take the puffers properly. My DS was stubborn and wouldn't listen to me so it was great having the educator tell him again and explain why he had to use spacer and how to take it well.

So happy you got a good night sleep and so did DS. I hope this is the road to his recovery and winter is kind to him.
Just yell if need a sounding board and with any more questions. I find getting help from others that have experienced what you are to be so helpful and gives you more questions to go back and ask...So empowering when you feel like they are actually listening and you have known others out there have got thru it too!

Gutz, it was me that initiated stopping the flixotide rather than a doctor. But I did mention to the doc when we saw her last that we had stopped it and she said that was OK as they normally suggest using it when the child has asthma symptoms more than once a week? At the moment we can easily go 4 - 6 weeks between symptoms. So you think its worth restarting even though he is not symptomatic most of the time? Would love to hear your idea on this since it sounds like you have more experience in this than me. I guess I didnt like giving it to him for a few reasons A) it was such a battle - a case of pinning his arms and legs down while someone else holds his head still to get him to take it (via spacer), and B) I didnt like giving him drugs 'unnecessarily'.

I do, definately. It is a 'preventer' so is used to prevent the asthma. If the child doesn't take it then the asthma isn't being prevented, no matter how frequently the symptoms.

If you don't like the idea of giving him drugs or the asthma isn't very frequent, then maybe start with a low dose like one puff morning, one puff night (instead of two puffs each time). Or if he resists taking it then maybe try two puffs once a day (so you don't have to go through the rigmarole more than once a day). Just bear in mind that it takes about 21 days (3 weeks) to have the full effect.

Sparkle - considering winter is *generally* the time more kids present with Asthma type problems ... I may consider keeping the flixotide up during winter - then easing again in Summer .... viruses are terrible at flaring up asthma ... and of course more of them in winter !!

My son never *used* to wheeze ... its generally the last thing he gets - and by which stage we are in real trouble, and dialling as ambulance Ive learnt to read his symptons alot better now - and he gets the wheeze earlier .... so often we make it ourselves to the hosp, before an ambo is needed !

Agree....its a preventor and you can't prevent if you don't use. Esp when its a build up drug. We use to cut out all together in summer too but this didn't help at all so continue the flixotide all year round but at a lower dose. Only if swimming heaps at pool do we increase 2 weeks prior.
I think (after our own experiences) that any one using puffers/with asthma or expected asthma should make appointments with local asthma educators/specialist. We had been to many dr's and got such conflicting info. It wasn't until we seen educator that we even understand how the meds worked, and why a plan is needed for good/bad times of asthma.
Highly recommend it. I am no expert but have dealt with bad info for many years.

Agree with Kamox to- It's all about understanding your child's reactions and path to illness. Working with this and having your plan in place to use when needed. We have at least 4 steps to work thru before I even have to see a dr now....so much easy than seeing a dr every step of the way when you could poss fix it at step 2.

Morning....
better nights sleep here again. Not quite as good as the night before. But I didn't get 6 puffs into him before he fell asleep and then he wouldn't wake up. I had to hold it near his face because he wouldn't let me anywhere near his mouth. Mr fighter!!

Yes the 6 puffs is just for when he's getting over the illness.

Spoke to my aunt yesterday who is a pharmacy technician and she was quite shocked at the 6 doses.

She also said how the flixotide should be taken all the time (perhaps not in the heart of summer), because it needs to build up (as said by others already here LOL). I usually stop over the summer. But I should probably start up again in Autumn when the nights get colder.

Then I spoke to a nurse friend who lives here and her child has asthma also. She was told to do 6 doses of ventolin. But she only does that when he is ill also.

Better go.... hubby nagging me to get off the computer!!

Nickaz- How is it all going now? Hope things have settled down.
We are going thru this coughing all night and some of the day atm with DS now. He has had it since Thursday. We gone back onto stronger flixotide for the time being. Fingers crossed it improves.

HI gutz-cmum2
sorry to hear your DS is unwell.
My lad has been really good since we upped the ventolin dosage. He hasn't had to have any for a week now. Just the flixotide twice a day.
It's so horrible when it goes on and on for days. I hope your DS gets better soon

Woohoo....so pleased your son has improved. The hard times seem never ending. I am pleased my son is on school holidays now so I can monitor his inhalers more, as at school DS seems too busy to remember

Yay for the school holidays!! Hopefully you should have him sorted soon with him being home. DS woke up this morning with a cold again so I'll have to be onto it!! We're having awesome weather the past few days and that seems to help. Roll on summer!!