asthma / always gets sick....please

[haven]

ds now 23 months had been diagnosed with asthma since about 5-6 months old...allergies (all environmental) trouble is this...everytime he gets a simple little cold or runny nose he ends up very very sick...i am sooooo upset about it..
ds had a runny congested nose for about 1 week...a cough for about 1.5 days and i trying to let baby grow up a lil a have faith decided to wait to see if he could swing this...it was bad...just a runny nose...well yesturday i notice the cough getting worse soooo i made a doc...apoitment....could get in till today...soooo we had to bring him to the e.r. he couldn't wait...his chest was sooo tight and full of crap....PNEUMONIA...second time in the last 12 months..he has had RSV...FLU...MONO...the last three in the last 5 months....is this o.k...i know that children with asthma or more prone to sickness but when does it get better

[beki]

Hi haven,
My ds has got asthma and has had it since a simalir age and is now 3yrs old.
They do say that if it is detected before they are 5yrs old and it doesn't run in the family that there is a good chance they will grow out of it.
My ds has to have two puffs of ventolin and qvar three times a day, he coughs all night and heavily snores, so sometimes has extra in the night.
I haven't experienced pneumonia, but he gets bronculitus and croup very easily and ends up in hospital on steroids and nebulliser.
It doesn't run in my family so hoping he will eventually grow out of it.
does asthma or exthma run in either side of the family?
I would say it is starting to get better, but each child reacts to certain things differently.
You must feel exhausted from the whole experience.
Hope it gets better for you and your ds.
I find when my ds has a asthma attack, put taps shower and bath on hot water and close the door and the steam really helps.

[haven]

i was told the same about growing out of it, but i also was told that if a child w/asthma get pneumonia they are more likely to keep the asthma....?

my lil sis has asthma, very very mild though..i think hers is not a problem anymore....
now my uncle has asthma and always has...

[lavenderrr]

he is so young...children with asthma have much more sensitivity to colds and stuff as they have a weaker bronchial system...I sympathise....my ds is an asthmatic, when he gets a cold he is really weezy...he is 9 and takes an inhaler everyday and can do normal things now, like 1 hour bike rides because of this...I think it does get better as they get older as they can use inhalers and that DEFINETELY makes their life easier...am sorry to hear of this and know that once your ds can have an inhaler (maybe too young at nearly 2 I'm not sure) it makes it one hell of a lot easier...but asthma is an inherited thing and I don't think you can get rid of it but can do an awful lot to alleviate it...such as keeping dust free zones, limiting use of aerosols and trying to keep away the dust mite in bed linen which can be a huge factor...btw my sister is 37 and is wheezy still and she recommends just breathing really really slowly if you get a case of wheeziness and concentrating on being calm and not wheezy, it doesn't get rid of it but it helps get rid of feeling anxious about it (for the child) which definetely stops the wheeziness a little...hope of some help

[haven]

we pulled all carpet out except mb and sis room...hepa filters on ac...dust mite covers..you name it and we have did it..allergy meds...asthma meds...(hell i even tried chirpratic therepy, but that doesn't seem to work)

i know that when he gets bigger and can help it will be easier but right now i can't get a brake..no one is capable of taking care of him when he needs..it is so depressing sometimes..i am thankful for the advice...no one that i have tried to leave him with seems to understand the seriousness of it...they all say, "oh i know a child with asthma" or "it's not that bad"...sometime the signs or soooooo subtle that unless you are around him you won't notice until it is tooo late...hell even the daycare i tried didn't take me serious until one day he was crying and he started to have an attack and they thought he was just having a fit...he ended up in the hospital..with asthma exasperations....and they thought it was "o.k." and not to worry....how do you get people to understand that you are not just a worry wart and that you really have to pay attention...i can't leave my house without stethascope(?) meds, and battery operated neb...and just when i think oooh he is growing out of it we get sick.....sorry to gooo on and on just a bad day didn't get any sleep. every two hours last night and today to keep the pneumonia from getting out of control

[lavenderrr]

sorry to be so complacent

[magnolia1]

Katie is 23 months and Atshma runs quite badly in my family, she also gets quite bad as soon as she gets a cold. Nothing else triggers it!! We have a dog and 2 cats and she is fine around them and dust etc....
Also wanted to tell you what our consultant said: pneumonia is just a big word for bad chest infection!!! It is their way of having a difference between the kind of chest infection we would get and the kind young kiddies and the elderly often get because their immune system is lower.
Has your son had an immune test? Katie had blood tests that showed her immune system was quite low compared to the average 18 month old and they are going to re test every 6 months.
I know how hard it is and just wanted to say keep your chin up :-) xxxxx

[Louise1980]

My ds2 has had asthma since about 3mths. We were livingnin a house with servere damp and as soon as we moved he has improved 100%. Hes gone from having a heavy cold/chesat infection every 6-8 weeks to 1 in last 6 months.

What Im saying is one you find what is irritating him its easier to control. It theres nothing I can only advise you do as I do now and as soon as you see the signs of a chest infection or other starting you se you GP and demand something be done before its got a good hold.

[haven]

immune test? no his doctor didn't even want to do allergy test...i have to pretty much make it happen. he didn't think it could possibly be allergies...(excuse me but) what a dumb ass!!!

i mean if you have a child constantly ill, wouldn't any smart person do whatever it took to help?

hell, i mentioned another problem of his to his ped. one day and all he told me was, "finding everything wrong with him"....or something like that...

soooo to answer the question i really don't think anything other than collecting when we leave has crossed his mind....oh! i mean collecting from medicaid....which means the sooner we get out his office the sooner he get someone else in and make more money..

[nutcracker]

Haven - I had the same prob with my Dd2. She had asthma from about 4mths old (i believe) but my doc refused to diagnose saying she was too young to have it.
She would cough and cough until sick, almost every night and was constantly ill with chest infections etc. I lost count of the amount of antibiotics we had for her.
Eventually at 14mths, I could stand it no longer as she was only sleeping a couple of hours each night because of the coughing and so we took her to a larger a&e department at a childrens hospital and basically refused to move until someone told us what the hell was wrong with her.
Thankfully the doc there agreed with us and she was diagnosed as asthmatic and given a blue inhaler.
For a couple of mths after that she was alot better and the blue inhaler did seem to help but then then if she got a cold we would be back to square one and she would end up on steroids.
At 22mths old she got a cold and was struggling with her breathing a bit and 10 puffs of her inhaler didn't help and so we went back to the hospitals a&e department (on their advice).
I actually felt guilty when we got there cos dd was running around as happy as anything and i even thought maybe we should just take her home. I am so glad i didn't because she suddenly became very ill. As soon as they attatched a moniter to her to check her oxygen levels all the alarms went off as her oxygen level was much too low.
A chest x-ray revealed pneumonia and she was addmitted and given iv antibiotics and a drip. She basically slept for a week because the effort of breathing so fast and hard tired her out.
Since then she has needed a steroid inhaler too which does tend to work and prevent any bad attacks. She still gets quite poorly with colds though and we have had some steroid courses too, but thankfully no pneumonia.
We have a new g.p now and she always gives dd antibiotics if she suspects a cold is going to her chest, so that we hopefully head of any chest infection.

The only thing i can say to you is that in our case it has got better as dd has got older. She is 5 now and her main triggers are extremes of temperatures and colds, but on the whole her asthma is under control so long she she has 2/4 puffs of her preventer inhaler every day.

Hopefully in the next year or so your Ds may start to outgrow it a bit and things will become more manageable.

[nutcracker]

Sorry that was a bit long

[Podmog]

Message withdrawn

[Ameriscot2005]

Haven, I sympathise and empathise with you. DD is in a similar situation. She first developed a wheeze at about 15 months, and has been in hospital six or seven times now. She doesn't seem to have any triggers other than a cold.

I don't know if these children are more prone to coughs and colds, but anecdotally, my DD seems to be (her 4 siblings are rarely bothered by colds, and she's the only one that doesn't mix with a lot of other children).

The major step forward in the last year was when DD was given a steroid inhaler (Becotide - the brown one). She has had a cold this last week with no wheezing, which is quite amazing for her.

I think you just have to accept their condition as a fact of life for at least the next few years and hope that they grow out of it. Asthma seems all about how well you manage it, and if you are strict with the medication, then the quality of life should be very good.

Pneumonia is very scary - DD had this last year (she was 22 months at the time) and it brought on the asthma attack so suddenly that she was unconcious by the time I got her to A&E.

I used to think that asthma was no big deal, but having a child with it changes everything. It is a very life-threatening condition. DD's asthma attacks are fairly predictable as they always accompany a cold, but it has still affected us quite dramatically: I was planning ot return to work this year as a part-time teacher, but realised that I couldn't - it wouldn't be fair to the school, and I'd hate to be in a position to delay any trips to A&E.

[haven]

ds is pretty controllable until illness now that he has gotten older....i have been giving xopenex every two hrs. since friday night and it is sunday ( except for last night, he managed every four) today though he his sooo wired out from the meds....i have accepted that it as part of our lives, sometimes it is just soooo tiring and depressing...the moms with children like this i am sure can relate...

i have a question though...do your children's o2 levels drop at night when they sleep? ds do...atleast last time he was in the hospital and the time before as well....even when stats are at >95...they were supposed to do a sleep study but never did...and when i brought it up again ped. said it was probably because he was ill...but ds wakes up sometimes grabbing for air...high palate and his tongue rest up high sometimes when he sleeps....

[tiny01]

I know this sound a bit trite but have have you tried a dairy free diet. our ds got all these things inhaler, infections, pneumonia, constant colds, constant anti-biotics the lot. But now he is on dairy free and has been well for two years from a month after we changed his diet. No inhaher any more.