How do you know if your toddler has asthma

[lifeistooshort]

I am wondering if DS 2.5 yo might have asthma. He seem to have a chronic dry cough at night that wakes him up. Could it be asthma?

[lifeistooshort]

Pixie I have never noticed him wheezing but he is quite allergic. He does have both eczema and allergies (recently he had an allergic reaction to pampers nappies). We did go to the GP who prescribed a brown inhaler but my DH is reluctant to use it if we don't know for sure he has asthma, whereas I think he might benefit from it. Altough like you say it could be a post viral cold...arghh I am so confused!

[Sirzy]

I would try the inhaler. As Pixie said it is rare to get an asthma diagnosis so young but that doesn't mean the treatment won't work.

It won't do any harm to try it for a month and see if there is any difference.

[skydance]

Definately try the brown inhaler for a month and see what happens.

With my eldest, his only asthma sypmtom was a cough at night, he was given a brown inhaler and within 2 weeks the cough had disapeared, it honestly won't do him any harm and may well stop the cough altogether, as I say though it might take up to a month to work.

[lifeistooshort]

Thank you ladies for your advice, I have decided to try the inhaler tonight. Now the next problem is my DS won't accept me putting it on his nose. I tried to read him a story, I tried watching TV, I tried cajeoling, reasoning, bullying, bribing, to no avail. What do I do now?

[lifeistooshort]

Thanks Pixie, I will tried that. We did try it on teddy and on mummy but that didn't work. We went back to the doctor yesterday and DS has a chest infection. The doctor did say to DH that we had to try the inhaler

[Rhian82]

According to DH (medical degree), an asthmatic cough will sound a certain way - has your GP listened to your DS coughing to get an idea of whether it sounds like an asthmatic cough?

Have a similar thing at the moment with our DS (2.3). He has eczema and has had a cough for months. GP thinks it is probably post-viral but given the eczema we need to be aware of asthma, so if it continues we'll get an inhaler. However DS didn't cough once in the consultation, and when I got home and told DH, he said that DS's cough didn't have the hallmarks of an asthmatic one.