1 year old constantly coughing until sick

[TheWeatherGirl1]

Hi
As the title says, my 17mth old has had a cough since Feb. We've been back and forth to the doc a million times and finally have a referral to a specialist at the end of Jan, which we've had to push for.

He coughs at night until he retches and recently this has turned into vomiting.
Three nights ago saw us in a&e as he'd thrown up blood, it seems his tonsils are torn from coughing.
I was up with him again all night last night and he was sick 3 times.

I have his cot propped up, we use a humidifier and have some cough medicine that doesn't do a thing.
Other than the coughing he is mostly fairly chipper.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for me?
I'm feeling a little broken and gutted that I can't seem to help him.

Thanks for reading

Have they looked into asthma?

One of mine used to go through periods of non-stop coughing at night and retching. We removed her bedroom carpets, put laminate flooring down, we removed soft toys from her bed and took her up water for the night. She used to sleep propped up. She did grow out of it though. Maybe an allergy to dust mites?

I'd also suggest talking to the gp about asthma.

Yeah, we've been through an asthma inhaler, made absolutely no difference.
The dust mites is an interesting thought, he coughs through the day too

Did he have his whooping cough vaccination?

Which inhaler was it?

This might be helpful if you want to rule out dust mites. www.thh.nhs.uk/documents/_Patients/PatientLeaflets/paediatrics/allergies/PI018-Dust_Mite_Allergy_A4_May13.pdf

I would also be asking about asthma. This is how my DS presented. Ask to try salbutamol syrup?

post nasal drip? I've had it nearly all my life, baffled doctors, had xrays tried various asthma stuff. My DC has it it's taken a long time and lot's of pushing for them to even look into it. DC now has strong anithimines and steroid nasal spray. We are now waiting for a referral to do tests for allergies.

My dd did this from the age of 18 months to 3 1/2.

She would get a cold in October, and coughed every night until April.

In the end, we were prescribed phenerghan for her. She would often fall asleep and then wake up 10 minutes later and cough for 2 hours.

We were told to give the phenerghan about an hour before she went to bed. It helped a lot.

She would cough until she was sick 6 out of 7 nights until we had the medicine.

It was a combination of immature stomach muscles failing to hold the stomach contents in place which led to the vomiting. Also the cough reflex becomes irritated.

Hth

Thank you everyone.
We had the non steroids inhaler, only one they'll prescribe at his age.

I've never heard of phrenerghan, I'm off to google it.

The post natal drip has been bandied around in the doc's office but just as a phrase, not as something they can do anything about. I'll push again for a response.

And yes, up to date on all his jabs.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond, it's so blooming awful feeling so helpless so it's good to get some input.

if it is post nasal drip it's probably linked to allergens such as dust mites that Bigkingdom mentioned.

Yes my son was exactly as you describe and the only thing that helped was steroid pump and montilucust think spelt wrong, his still on them now, hospital did allergy tests and dust mites was his biggest allergy with grass, trees and mould, push for allergy testing as this makes a massive difference when on the right meds

I feel for you! DS1 had similar for almost a year before it was diagnosed. He was also losing weight and hardly ate - turned out to he sleep apnea caused by huge tonsils. Is he very bunged up and does he ever stop breathing for a few seconds in his sleep? Hope you can get to the bottom of it soon!

Glad he's had his jabs - the sort of cough you describe is typical of whooping cough.

It is grim to watch this persistent phlegmy cough and feel powerless to help.

We went through all this.

Asthma inhaler made no difference
Post nasal drip suggested but it really wasn’t this.
There was no phlegmy cough
It sounded like croup but wasn’t.

It was just an immature cough reflex combined with an immature valve at entrance to the stomach.

She grew out of it. We tried everything. Elevating bed head did help a bit.

But the only thing to nail it was the phenergan. This was prescribed by a very experienced wise doctor and it kicked it right into touch.