Could this be athsma?

[zebedee1]

Every time DS (15 months) has a cold, even a mild one, he immediately starts coughing. He coughs all night and barely gets more than an hours sleep at a time with incessant coughing for the duration of the cold. He does cough during the day too but not as much.
I took him to the emergency Dr once as he coughed so much one night he vomitted and I've tried all his suggestions eg propping up the mattress, Ds sleeping on his front or side, glycerin syrup, towels on radiator etc, nothing seemed to work.
Do you think he could have a bit of athsma? DP and my sister have it and I think it runs in families? I'm not sure if children can get it this young? Have any of your LO's had similar symptoms?

[flack]

It does sounds like asthma. I know that asthma is very hard to diagnose accurately at this age, yes it does run in families.

Thing is, what benefit would there be if your child was diagnosed now -- would it help? The steroid treatments they use have drawbacks, too. I think you might want to just monitor and research carefully before approaching your GP with the idea.

I'm sure I've heard of children under 6 months being diagnosed with asthma.

[zebedee1]

Thankyou Flack, that is interesting. Not sure what treatment would be available for a 15 month old, if any? I'd like for him to be able to sleep at night as he is so knackered and upset very time he has a cold, would be interested to hear if any other MNer has had such a little one diagnosed?

[misdee]

what benefit can it have to be dx this early?

well for one, asthma kills!

arrrrgh.

if it is asthma, then he does need treatment.

but it could just be a post nasel drip where the snot and other gunk drips to the back of the throat, irrattaes it and causes the coughing.

next time he gets a cold, ask the Gp to listen to his chest and check its clear.

fwiw dd1 was dx at under a year old, the inhalers helped tremendously.

[coppertop]

When I suspected that my ds2 had asthma when he was a toddler (his older brother is asthmatic and so am I) the GP wouldn't give a diagnosis outright but he prescribed a reliever inhaler to see if it made a difference to the coughing and asked us to keep a diary of when it was used.

Our asthma nurse always says that if the reliever inhaler makes a difference to the coughing then the chances are that it is asthma.

Your ds wouldn't necessarily need steroids straight away. They would usually only prescribe those if the reliever inhalers alone were not enough. If a child is given steroids then they are usually monitored fairly closely. Ds1 (then 3yrs) used to have hospital appointments where he would be weighed and measured to check that the steroids weren't affecting his growth. Once the consultant was satisfied ds1 was then allowed to just see the asthma nurse at our GPs surgery instead for check-ups.

There's a lot that can be done. They even have special spacer devices designed to be used for babies.

[zebedee1]

Thankyou for sharing your experiences, I'll definitely take DS to our GP next time he has another cold (seems to get one evry time a new tooth is on the way!). It's good to hear that steroids aren't the only treatment. Would be interesting to see if a reliever makes a difference.