OK someone tell me I'm over reacting

[moodlumthehoodlum]

dd (3.4) has had a persistent chesty cough for about 6 weeks now, and antibiotics just doesn't shift it.

What could it be? I keep reading terrible stories about how childhood cancers start as coughs and colds that just don't settle, and imagining the worst (prone as I am to think the extreme worst in most situations).

Come on someone, slap me and tell me not to over react, these happen all the time

thanks..

[fransmom]

i am not going to slap you and i am not going to tell you that you are over-reacting. i think that your mother's instinct is telling you that something isn't quite right. go back to the doc and insist that he does some tests to find out what it was.

btw, i has to see 3 different docs before one would agree with me when dd had reflux so go and fight if your instinct is tellin gyou that the doc doesn't believe you

[moodlumthehoodlum]

Thanks I think I have to go in on Tuesday and refuse to leave until more tests are promised. Scary thought though.

[potoftea]

I also thought asthma.
You're not wrong to want to follow up on this, you know there is something wrong - but you are wrong to be thinking the worst at this stage. Easy for me to say of course.

[fransmom]

antibiotics will only shift bacterial infections not viral ones (which is why dics won't prescribe them for colds etc now)
i really think you should take her back as asoon as you can (monday morning?) but if she gets any worse over weekend, wheezy, blue-tinged or grey looking round the mouth any difficulyt breathing take her to see emergency doc or call 999.

[fransmom]

[coppertop]

I thought asthma too. Ds1 used to have coughs and colds that lasted for weeks at a time. When he started using asthma inhalers the endless coughs and colds seemed to just stop.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

Strangely enough I have just googled symptoms of asthma in children.. It only happens when she's been laughing or particularly energetic, but it is really chesty. The dr can't hear anything in her chest, which is frustrating in a funny way. Tuesday morning I will be straight in to GP.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

Thanks everyone. Always helpful to hear that I am not being paranoid!

[Tigi]

yes asthma. ds had a night cough from when tiny. It stopped when he got an inhgaler

[moodlumthehoodlum]

So when the internet describes a "rattly" cough as a symptom of asthma, is that like a chesty cough that brings up nothing?

[coppertop]

My 2 boys varied between dry tickly coughs that seemed to go on for hours and a cough that sounded as though they were trying to cough something up.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

dd cough deffo in the latter. Rarely at night though.

DH thinks I am over reacting and its nothing, but I know better!

[McEdam]

Rarely at night is a good sign - coughing at night is a key sign of possible asthma. Lots of reasons for persistent coughs, most of them really not worrying, but worth pushing on this to make sure.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

Thanks, hopefully we can get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later.

[Tigi]

How old is your son?
Mine always had this night cough, and then he started getting breathless when running about - nursery told me about it. he would also have a lack of energy, such as too tired to walk home from nursery. He then had an asthma attack out of the blue, say about 6 months after the breathlessness. thankfully it wasn't bad enough for him to be hospitalised, but it prompted me into action. Now he has a preventer inhaler morn and night, and the energy has returned and the cough gone. Still gets breathless though. My son is 5 now, this started when he was just over 4.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

DD is 3.4 and I was thinking about it last night - sometimes when she is running around, whilst she doesn't wheeze exactly sometimes its almost as if she is pretending to wheeze. I'm sure she's not pretending,it might just be her way of finding the breath and maybe I should have picked up on it earlier but if I put the two together, it might be helpful for the doctor. When they test for asthma in little ones, do they do a blood test? Although I don't want to miss out on anything important I honestly think they would have to sedate her before taking any bloods...!

[madmommy6]

Please don't take it lightly.My ds had a persistent chesty cough.When i look back it started from afew weeks old.GP kept saying he was fine,i knew he wasn't.At 10mths old i took ds to GP 3 days in a row,kept being told he was fine just a cold.Then we rushed him to a&e at 1 in the morning.Just 10mins later and i would be telling a different story.Ds spent a week in icu.Never found out what it was,we got sent home with inhalers.A year on and he is a 'normal'2yr old and doesn't need the inhales.I think maybe he had one infection on top of another,till it got to much for him.Mothers always know their children better then anybody.
More than a year on,i still can't say out loud what would have happened if we didn't act quickly that night.
I'm sorry i don't want to worry you but if you think something is wrong then make sure they listen.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

Thanks. we've been there already when she was two weeks old, had a chest infection and stopped breathing, and like you, had a week in ICU, so with her I do always worry much more but I think I am right to push the doctor on Tuesday for something more than cough linctus...

[Tigi]

no blood test, a general decision made on symptoms, and listened to chest. I keep a note on calendar when wheezy.

[moodlumthehoodlum]

I think over the next few days I'm going to take a note of when she coughs and see if there's a pattern.

thanks all..

[Hurlyburly]

SLAP

[moodlumthehoodlum]

I think over the next few days I'm going to take a note of when she coughs and see if there's a pattern.

thanks all..