DS1 has had an awful cough for ages...........should I see GP?

[Mumbojumbo]

DS1 (aged 4) seems to have had a really bad cough for ages. No other symptoms, just a cough. Seems worse in the evening and sometimes it wakes him up at night. It doesn't seem to bother him at all, it bothers me - particularly as I've had a number of comments from other adults on the lines of "what a dreadful cough!".

Don't want to make a fuss but wonder if I should take him to see doctor. Not sure what they would do to be honest.....

Any advice?

[bundle]

has he got a runny nose too?

[Mercy]

My GP told me that if a child has a cough that lasts more than 2/3 weeks after a cold then you should consult a doctor.

Is it a dry cough?

[Mumbojumbo]

Yeah I would say it was a dry cough rather than phlemy (is that a word?!). No runny nose though.

[zubin]

My DS has a permenant cough (he's 2) I have taken him to the doctors and the health visitor what seems like a million times and they listen to his chest, tell me it's clear and that coughing is a 'good sign it means it won't settle on his chest', tell me to come back if it gets much worse and generally make me feel like an over anxious mum! they told me to prop his matress up at the pillow end to help him breath and put a steaming bowl of water/kettle or whatever in his room just as he was going to bed. But other than that they said don't worry unless he seems ill in himself!

[Mercy]

Could it be asthma? Does he sound wheezy at all?

[bubblerock]

Mine had a persistant cough when he was about the same age, medicine did nothing to get rid of it, his chest was also clear. My GP prescribed an asthma inhaler and it cleared up within a week - he hasn't got asthma but it seemed to do the trick!

[Mumbojumbo]

No, not wheezy.

[bundle]

cough (without runny nose) at night time can be a sign of asthma, i would take him to the gp. also dd's both had awful chest infections (went off food, unheard of in our house) which were only detected after several trips to gp/a&e/out of hrs dr.

[LeahE]

Almost certainly not probably he's been vaccinated, and it doesn't sound quite right but I am going to mention whooping cough just because I know from painful personal experience that it's very hard to get it diagnosed (it also tends to present with a clear chest). If he'd been vaccinated and caught it anyway it's possible he'd have a very mild case (full-blown whooping cough you would be in no doubt that you'd better take him to the GP, not that they'd do anything about it once you got there ).

Anyway, as I said almost certainly not but it's now what I immediately think of whenever I hear the term "bad cough". And yes, I'd take him to the doctor -- try to get an appointment as late in the day as possible so that you increase the chances of his coughing in front of the doctor.

[expatinscotland]

My guess was going to be whopping cough, too, Leah. There is a strain of it which is different from the one they vaccinate for here.

My mother actually had whopping cough as a child - there being no vaccine for anything when she was young.

She developed symptoms similar to the one you describe, Mumbo, in her late 50s.

She thought she might have TB. But nope.

Her GP was stumped, b/c he had several other patients w/the exact same thing and no TB, ashthma, chest infection, etc.

They all had whooping cough, but since they'd either had it or been vaccinated for it, their cases were just a cough that stuck and stuck - very mild.

Go and don't let them fob you off! It took ages for them to twig that that's what my mum had.

[Mumbojumbo]

I've made an appointment for Friday afternoon for ds1 to see the docs, so hopefully we'll get some answers!

Thanks for all your posts.
mj

[LeahE]

Yes, DS and I both had whooping cough when he was 2 weeks old (by the way, not to be recommended just following a c-section...). My only reticence is that in our case DS was turning blue when he had a coughing fit and throwing up every single feed while I was often on all fours trying to breathe (while simultaneously trying to clasp a pillow to my c-section incision). My concern wasn't so much about bothering the doctor as why they kept reassuring me that it was nothing to worry about (DS finally turned blue in front of the health visitor, which got it taken seriously and us a referral to the paediatrician). But I guessed that there must be mild cases (or it could be peripertussis, which I gather tends to be a bit milder) and that they might look similar to what Mumbojumbo described -- from what you say about your mother clearly I have remarkable powers of clinical intuition .

Mumbojumbo -- does he have trouble catching his breath again after a coughing fit, even if not wheezy? Whooping cough doesn't always have a "whoop" attached, especially in small children.

Trouble with whooping cough, if that is what it is, is that once it's settled in nicely there's nothing they can do except give you antibiotics to stop you being infectious (or once you've had it for about three weeks you stop being infectious anyway) and check your blood saturation levels so that they can give you supplementary ocygen if necessary. Other than that you just have to wait it out. [Leah fails to resist the temptation to point out that if the GPs had diagnosed her, or even recognised the possibility of whooping cough, when she first went to the doctor and had given DS the antibiotics then, then he would never have developed the full-blown disease and he wouldn't still have a persistent cough over a year later, but does at least manage to put Mr Rant away now]