DS has been ill for a week

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My DS, 6, has been ill for a week now and no signs of getting better. He has a dry cough and is honestly coughing constantly. He wakes up at night and will have 20 minute coughing fits. As in coughing non stop. He has a sore throat and a temperature. Calpol brings it down but it comes back as soon as the medication wears off. He doesn't have any cold symptoms and isn't bringing up any phlegm.

Dd has had a bit of a sore throat but is fine. Everyone else in the house is fine.

Not sure how long to leave it until taking him to the gp. I don't want to waste their time, plus I probably wouldn't even get an appointment for at least a week anyway.

Paramedic here.

Go back to a&e

Sustained fever
Low o2 sats

He needs a chest x ray and some bloods done.

My money is on pneumonia

Ps - you can listen to a chest with pneumonia and it sounds clear and fine.

95 is low, isn't it?

I think you need to go back.

We've all had terrible cold/ viruses this last week and dh is on week 2 of it, temperature and the cough is terrible. With a child I'd want them seen by a GP.

They should have at the very least listened to his chest. That would be the first thing to do with anyone who hasn't shifted a cough,surely. How infuriating for you. See how he gets on today and then insist on gp appointment tomorrow. X

DD is just out of hospital with pneumonia she is a lot younger as well but it used to be 94/95 cut off for oxygen Sats (we have regular hospital attendances !) But for some reason this seems to have changed and it's now 92 and above when awake and 90 and above when sleeping and we were discharged in line with this otherwise we would probably have been there for forever even getting to maintain at 90 without oxygen was a challenge !
However despite all that it has gone on for quite a while now and if be inclined to keep a very close eye for any changes especially with the fever lasting so long and if nothing changes in his condition today to warrant a&e then get him into the GP tomorrow regardless
DD went from being just unwell to incredibly unwell working extremely hard to breathe and resps 3 times over the normal in under an hour despite already being on antibiotics from the GP

DS3 was ill for weeks in January last year with constant fever, coughing & no appetite - GP said wasn't getting better cos he wasn't eating .
Waited til the weekend and went to out of hours who sent him to Children's Ward. They declared his chest clear and the same for his urine sample (which took over 2 hours to get cos he wasn't drinking anything either) and wanted to send him home...consultant then said x-ray needed cos there had to be a reason for constant fever and they found a chest infection and sent us home with antibiotics.
Three days later I get a phonecall telling me I had to bring him straight back in cos he actually had pneumonia AND a lung abscess!
I think he needs to be seen again OP - hope he feels better soon.

@LittleSwede I know it's not flu season but we've had loads of positives already in our unit for both flu a and b. I suspect more cars with similar symptoms earlier that weren't swabbed too. It's literally just a nose swab test. Wether it's hitting worse in some areas I don't know but I know it was expected to be bad flu season this year.

That is worrying chasingrainbows, it seems so early. Next year I will just take DD to the nurse at the surgery in October for her flu spray. Late November seems cutting it too close.

Hope things are ok OP?

It's not too early for flu.

We've had kids dropping like flies for the last three weeks with it.

At some point, I will actually be able to the rest of my job in my working hours, rather than having to come in two hours before the site officially opens and staying for two hours after my finish time - but at the moment, I am literally dealing with ten kids an hour who have 40C fevers, very sore throats, vomiting, tummy aches, headaches that are making them sensitive to light, uncontrollable shivers, feeling freezing when they're so hot, I'm literally making them change into PE kit and sit on a cold floor with cold packs to try and keep their temperature down until their parents turn up to collect them.

I'm really hoping that my September flu jab is working to prevent this, combined with so much washing and sanitising that my hands are like parchment.

You know your child. You know whats normal and what's not. If you're feeling like things aren't right, listen to that. And override the nags that youre being over anxious, or whatever and follow your gut. After all, you can't do any harm by getting him checked.

Any news OP

Sorry for taking so long to get back. So by Monday ds had improved so I didn't take him back to the gp. He was back to school Tuesday as he was feeling a lot better. I would say he got about 90% better but over this weekend he got a lot worse so took him back to the gp. Gp heard a crackle when listening to his chest and prescribed antibiotics.

His o2 levels were at 92/93 again but the gp said this was because they were using an adult monitor on him and he showed no other signs of low oxygen levels so it was probably wrong.

I feel so guilty about not taking him to the gp last week but as he got better, and the temperature went away completely for a few days, I assumed it must have been viral.