Hi all, am desperately seeking help for my DS aged 9. He was diagnosed with asthma at our local hospital. He has struggled with dry croupy sounding cough episodes for years and years. These can be resolved with courses of high dose prednisolone tablets.
He follows the SMART regime on symbicort 100/6, which is his preventer and reliever. He is also on an INTAL inhaler (sodium cromoglicate), beconase nasal inhaler, cetirizine and is intermittently on Azithromycin. We have trialled singulair, but found it did not help.
More recently he is complaining of a tight tickly bubble-like feeling in his windpipe/ trachea. It makes him feel very uncomfortable and panicky. He also sometimes complains of chest pain, but this is a very different position and feeling to the windpipe tightness.
His peak flow is normally well above average for his age/height. It does however drop significantly when he is unwell. Following a course of prednisolone his peak flow resolves itself.
My DS does not respond to ventolin (salbutamol). He also reports that he does not get any relief from the symbicort.
We have been going through a very bad patch since easter. He completed his 4th batch of steroid tablets (since easter) on Saturday. His cough and trachea problems are now starting up again.
My gut feeling is that this is not asthma as:
He does not wheeze
His chest is ALWAYS clear.
He does not respond to reliever medication
My question is, could it be anything else? Following on from a previous mumsnet suggestion, I asked the paediatrician whether it could be GORD (gastro-oesophageal reflux disease). He said it couldn?t be, as the cough comes and go's.
Does anyone have any ideas? Can there be a physical problem with his windpipe that makes him poorly? Does anyone know what tests he would need to have done to diagnose something?
Our next hospital appointment isn?t till September, but our lovely doctor is re-referring us for a sooner appointment . We are debating whether to ask to be referred somewhere completely different to get a fresh viewpoint . We did ask to be referred to a respiratory consultant, but was told by the consultant that DS's case was suitable to be handled just by the standard paediatric team.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Jenny
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Children's health
Asthma or Trachea/windpipe problems?
19 replies
jennys79 · 28/05/2013 22:03
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