Does my 5 year old need to see a Dr ASAP?

Thank you, I happen to be seeing my GP on Tuesday for an unrelated issue (damn pap smear surely they can figure out a blood test instead , but I digress) so I will raise that. We do have Telfast here and Zytec, don't seem to do much for me so I'll ask her about the prescribed one. Than you for being such a help.Sorry for hijack OP

Not trying to be dramatic but I would just worry that it might get to a point where the reliever won't be enough like your poor friend. I'm no perfect asthmatic patient either, not great at ensuring I have a reliever on me at all times which is incredibly stupid, though I'm a lot better than I used to be. I up my preventative to 2 puffs a day from February and take a daily 180mg fexofenadine antihistamine (same as Telfast which is sold OTC but that's a 120mg dose) to get ahead of the effect hay-fever has on my asthma

No, just use the same all year. Every GPis horrified but don't do anything different. They just try a different preventer.Probably a trip to a respiratory specialist is in order.Thank you for your concern ( not being sarky). I'm just so used to it as I've been like this for years it's kind of my normal. I'll try an anti-histamine as I get hayfever as well. I just go through a whole box of tissues every second day and lots of eye drops. I'm not sounding super smart here 😂

Not weird, it's sensible to be sure you have an inhaler particularly as yours isn't under control.
OK so pollen season is a trigger, do you change your use or your preventative and use antihisatimes (you probably need a prescribed dose rather than OTC dose)

Half pollen/plants / dust/ extreme cold etc . Half nerves. I panic if I can't find my ventolin. I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice. My poor DP knows to keep at least one spare or I will ransack the house/car looking for one. If I can't find one I will drive to the 24 hour chemist about half an hour away or I can't sleep. Ignore me I'm a weirdo,

So what you need to do is speak to the GP but ultimately an appointment with the asthma nurse would be preferable. They are much more knowledgeable than a GP as they're specially trained in asthma.
I would then ask for more education on the disease as the fact you're stopping medication without any insight into how dangerous this can potentially be shows you haven't been told the seriousness.
Never just stop a brown inhaler. If someone is using a blue inhaler more than 2/3 times a week that I classed as uncontrolled asthma and needs reviewing. These are 2 very important pieces of information you need to know.

If you are needing your reliever that often that's a sign your asthma is not under control, you need to see a specialist. Do you know what your triggers are?

Agree , have already admitted my mistake. Ventolin should be with the asthmatic person at all times, but a I sadly pointed out in my pp sometimes it's not enough. People treat it very blase, but my friend lying dead on the floor of a petrol station shows its reallly not.It took too long to get her nebuliser from her boot and plug it in and put it on her.
I don't think we have Clenil, it may just be name changes between countries.
I'm not one to criticise as they say you should have 3-4 puffs of Ventolin a week maximum ( the blue one as you all call it). I use it 4-5 times a day.
It seems a problem that is not well managed by many doctors. One told me not to eat bananas or ice-cream. I'm not certain that it is a subject that is well explained in university or some doctors just don't have a clue.

I would actually ask to be referred to cardiology, could be fast heart rate / arrhythmia / palpitations giving her that feeling of she can’t breathe, it can take your breath away.

Oh yes oximeter best things ever

Yes definitely keep your ventolin ( the blue one) with your child at all times. I was wrong about leaving i at the office as that could go horribly wrong. You said you had a spacer ?. I don't know what the"brown" one is if it's not flixotide or serotide, but could be different names in different countries. As I said I do not leave my house without my ventolin and if your child is asthmatic they should do the same. A specialist is really required though. Good luck. Not being able to breathe is horrendous, and weirdly it's more that you can't breathe out. Which means you can't breathe in.
Worst thing that ever happened to me was running to a uni lecture at night in the cold. I thought I was going to die. Definitely get a specialist.Sorry I don't know what your "brown" one is. Breo is a circle and you turn the top and breathe it in. Marvellous but you have to rinse your mouth afterwards , but you do with all of them.
Go see a specialist I have never heard of a child being too young to be diagnosed with asthma, although it may be unusual it still needs to be treated. . Your GP sounds like a moron.

Longer term u need to get a referral to get a proper diagnosis. I've found the local GPs don't really know much about asthma.

My daughter had brown inhaler since she was 18 months old but they wouldn't diagnose asthma until at least 5 they said. The blue one was only to be used when she was having flare ups or an attack as they call it. When she was about 5 1/2 I decided to stop giving the brown one as she hadn't had blue inhaler for over a year and I thought she'd grown out of it.

She also then had episodes of coughing a lot, mainly at night and I had to give it back and make an appointment with the doc. He just referred us and told us to go back to the previous routine with medication.

I think it was about 4 months before we got an appointment at the hospital. The doctor we saw said he wld have done what I had already done to see how she was with no medication. So the fact I had already done that and she became unwell again he was happy to confirm an official diagnosis.

Your daughter sounds very similar to mine, my daughter is never out of breath or wheezy, her asthma presents only as a cough. It's well controlled with just the brown inhaler and only occasionally needs the blue one. She's had a few bouts of croup too more so in the last 2 yrs (8yrs old now) and needed steroids so she def seems more prone to that.

My niece has asthma too but no official diagnosis as she's under 5 but hers is much worse and not controlled very well. She is very wheezy and gets out of breath just playing. She also has a constant cough.

I hope you get a diagnosis and a plan in place for her.

Last year my dd who was 6 at the time had a severe asthma attack. She wasn't previously diagnosed with asthma, it came completely out of the blue, I could tell her breathing wasn't quite right, called 111, and within the hour we were blue lighted to hospital, where she crashed and ended up in resuscitation on a ventilator. Then she had a 10 day stay on icu. It was singlehandedly, the most terrifying experience of my life. As an asthmatic myself, and having had asthma attacks in the past, I still was quite naive about the "asthma kills" stuff you always hear. I think because asthma is quite common, it's easy to dismiss what a life threatening condition it can be. Until you see first hand how quickly your child can go from being fine, to turning blue and unresponsive, it's easy to be quite blasé about the condition, as so many people have asthma. She now religiously takes her brown inhaler morning and evening, and carries her blue one everywhere with her. Definitely not a condition to take lightly, if there are any concerns for her breathing, take her straight to hospital. Seeing how quickly my dd went downhill, it's never worth the risk to ignore laboured breathing no matter how insignificant it may seem. Also, as others have mentioned, get an oximeter. So cheap and reliable and this was the reason I called 111, as her o2 levels were in the mid 80s and I knew that wasn't ok. I think having an oximeter saved her life, as without that I wouldn't have known how badly she was struggling to breathe. She wasn't complaining, just coughing and taking deep breaths now and again, as if to try and get more air in.

Ok just saw you have been to an and e.

My dc was also diagnosed with asthma at 5. She has been on the brown inhaler ever since. They will wean her off at 7.5years old.

That sounds like so much use of a blue inhaler! Get that child to a dr asap. Or even a and e

I highly doubt whoever that plonker is, is actually a doctor. But in any event, what an embarrassing comment for them to make. Of course it's not safeguarding and social services have absolutely nothing to do with this. sanctimonious nonsense.

You sound like a very caring, very diligent and kind parent - so sorry stupid people with nothing better to do make such ridiculous comments and add to your worry. I hope your little girl is okay 🩷

Has she had her heart checked?

@Dabrat21 did they give any indication of what it could be?
I'm mindful that the responses of this thread have made me feel like I should have done something differently when I took my DC to the Dr for the same thing!

Pleased to hear all is well OP.

Try not to let the nasty posts on here get to you. I had a similar experience a couple years ago where I wasn’t sure whether to take my child to A&E. Most of my thread was about how I’m a terrible mother and will be reported to social services. As it happened, all that followed was a courtesy phone call from the health visitor and that was it. Posters don’t appreciate that there is a worried parent behind the screen and enjoy joining the pile on to kick you when you’re down, so don’t take it personally.

Does she have anxiety?

I suppose that @MammTorr could be a doctor. They come in all shapes and forms. I’m glad my GP is kind and empathetic and doesn’t patronise me, threaten me or rebuke me when I’m feeling frightened.

In my child’s case, their brown inhaler was neither of those. It was a Clenil one, the active ingredient of which is beclometasone. That’s a fairly standard first step preventer inhaler for children to my knowledge.

As an aside blue reliever inhalers/ventolin should never be in a school office, they should be wherever the child is - classroom, sports hall or wherever. The office might be unmanned or locked or several minutes away from where the child is and they don’t necessarily have time to wait for keys to be found or someone to run the length of the site to get it. Ditto epi pens.