Toddler with brown inhaler - how long should I take to work?

[Reesewithafork]

He’s had a cough for months but has also picked up loads of infections due to starting nursery so we pretty much have one week on and one week off with illness.
recently was given ventolin which helped but then he picked up another infection and the cough got worse again so he’s been given a brown inhaler.

my question is how long does it take to work? The gp said two weeks, the asthma nurse said six weeks, and when I looked online it said 3-4 days.

the reason I ask is because the cough seemed to get better for a couple of days then today has got bad again. He won’t even take the brown inhaler this morning because it makes him cough so he yanks it off his face before he’s done the ten breaths.

I’m so tired and broken and just praying something takes this bloody cough away so we can all get some rest

@MrsSkylerWhite did you see a gradual improvement or was it quite suddenly after the full week? I’m just trying to get a measure of what to expect.

I’m wondering if because he has a viral infection and constantly running nose at the same time the inhalers aren’t being as effective as they otherwise would be? It’s a very congested sounding cough at the moment

How much of the blue are you using and does he seem to.be having difficulty breathing? If I were you I would call your surgery and get an urgent appointment with the asthma nurse, who can come up with a management plan for you.

No trouble breathing. He’s having the blue one four times a day, two puffs each time. The brown one twice a day.

I spoke to the asthma nurse earlier this week who said to continue as we are and see how we are after three weeks and six weeks.

I think I’m just so fed up of the cough and the lack of sleep we are all getting I’m desperate for it to work and suddenly improve!

Long time ago but seem to remember that one day he was bad, the next he just wasn’t. It was suddenly very obvious.

Okay thank you hopefully the same will happen with us as it hasn’t been a week yet.

he’s breathing is noisier than normal but it’s because his nose is blocked up/snotty so he’s breathing through his mouth

Have you got a saline nasal spray to clear him out before bed?

Yep I’ve been using one when I can get near him to do it, he hates it unfortunately

He’s still coughing on and off today but I think it might be a little bit less frequent than it was and the coughs aren’t as bad as they were. Fingers crossed this is the start of proper improvement

Fingers crossed for you, I do feel your pain, I've been up every night with my DS after he had an asthma attack on Wednesday last week. We're exhausted. Frustratingly, he had been maintaining well then the paediatrician told us to taper his meds right down about 4ish weeks ago, then the first virus that hits and we're straight back in a&e.

Hope he’s better soon.

Get Well Soon on CBeebies (Dr Ranj Singh) has an episode about inhalers and asthma. I think it helped to normalise & role model inhaler use for my toddler.

Thanks!

we had slightly better nights where he barely coughed until 2am ish but then coughed loads which is a bit baffling, but the cough is starting to sound a bit drier so hopefully the inhalers will have more of an effect.

My lb is on similar to yours (22 months). Even with rinsing, and brushing teeth after the brown inhaler can cause thrush, as we found this week. His symptom was a persistent cough until suddenly he had a white spot on his inner lip. I would advise keeping some daktarin oral gel in your medicine cupboard just in case of this.

He started clenil in March, we saw a real difference within about 2 weeks, and then after that (barring one which turned into tonsillitis and a hospital stay) generally we’ve noticed he has coped with cough and cold bugs much better x

Thanks for the tip @Littlegoth how frustrating that the main symptom is a cough as well. When you say you saw a real difference after two weeks, did your little one still have a cough during those two weeks then it suddenly stopped?

Thought I’d keep updating incase anyone else comes across this and finds it useful.

the cough is still lingering but coughing episodes do seem to be fewer at the moment. However he’s taken against his inhalers making it really tricky to get a full dose into him. Hoping this is a temporary blip as he’s so tired from broken sleep due to coughing at night.

we’ve gone from pretty constant coughing fits overnight to probably one coughing fit every few hours and then he’s quite bad in the early morning still. Running about also seems to trigger it.

I’m hoping we are starting to see a bit of an improvement as it’s been a full week
of using the brown inhaler (although the last day or two as I say I’m not sure if he’s getting the full dose he should because it’s such a fight to get him to keep it on his face).

he’s still very mucuousy and when he gets worked up or coughs a lot, he retches and can be sick/bring up the mucuous although this isn’t happening often.

fingers crossed in another week I’ll be posting to say he’s vastly improved - well if we can manage to get him to take the inhalers properly anyway!

Interested in this also, we’ve seen no improvement with a brown inhaler and blue inhaler after a week and two days. In fact I think the cough is getting a bit worse at night - he seems to be coughing more frequently.

He probably is worse after sleeping because the mucous settles on his chest and then he has to cough up hours worth at once.

Same with running about. He dehydrates from exertion and the mucous thickens. Get him to drink loads of water, should help with that.

That’s interesting @Notanotherwindow as mine is the same but really bad at drinking.

we’ve just been out and it felt like he was coughing constantly and everyone kept looking at us 🙈 I find it really stressful in these post Covid times and also feel very sorry for him because it can’t be nice to have a cough for so long! Hopefully his inhalers will make a difference, was just reading on this thread that people have said two weeks and we haven’t got that far yet. He isn’t brilliant at raking them though, he will only take them with the chamber over his
mouth, gets hysterical with the mask over his face so I’ve just been doing that for now and
hoping he takes in as much as possible.

I know every child is different but my DS was similar to how yours sounds. Used to get terrible cough with viral infections and very blocked nose. He was on salbutamol and beclomethasone inhalers via spacer which I never felt made much difference to the cough. GP eventually tried montelukast tablets which seemed to really help and he now rarely coughs. I think he probably has cough variant asthma as he never wheezes, just coughs and his peak flows can drop with some viral infections. Definitely got better as he has got older too although he had a nasty virus recently and coughed for about a week, reminded me of how he used to be as a toddler and also made me realise how much better he's been in recent years. Hope your DS settles soon, I remember how exhausting it is

@Notnowbarnaby It's why they tell you to drink loads when you have a cold. Thins out the mucous and makes it easier to shift.

If he won't use the mask he probably isn't getting enough to make a difference and you'd be better to try him the regular way by putting the inhaler itself in his mouth and spraying as he inhales. He'd get a full dose then. I wouldn't use a spacer as a child either for the same reason. I hated it over my face. I had an auto one that dispensed itself when I inhaled through it.

@LakeFlyPie sorry I’m hijacking the thread a bit here but just wondering if your son had coughs that lasted for ages?

My toddler has started inhalers this past three weeks after constant coughs pretty much since he was born, and we've had an improvement within a week BUT...
I also have asthma and if you're struggling to get the brown one in, it's usually recommended to use the blue one first to open the airways up (this is only when the asthma is uncontrolled), then use the brown one after the blue one. Once it's under control you can control it with just a brown one. I was told this by the GP for my son with his inhalers too. They said they didn't expect it to be controllable with brown one alone in the early days.
If he's really snotty I also give Piriton as he has known allergies and that clears up the snot in about 30 mins to an hour.
If still no luck he might need to go back to GP for steroid tablets or stronger inhalers (or he might not have asthma, as the other possibility, and the symptoms might have another cause). Blue and brown inhalers are a starting point. I've also cycled through a pink inhaler last year and am now on a weird yellow one which is finally keeping my asthma in check.
Hope you get an improvement soon.

@Notanotherwindow thanks for this. At the moment he is keeping his mouth within the chamber and taking deep breaths if that makes sense (I’ve just removed the mask so I can press the end of the chamber against his face) so I think he’s actually getting more than he was with the mask when he would hold his breath and try to tip it off, but he’s probably not getting as much as he should. I feel
so worn down by it all. Anyway sorry OP didn’t mean to take over the thread, we are just going through the exact same thing and I feel
like it’s our entire life at the moment, just trying to shift this cough.

With each viral infection he could cough for 1-2 weeks so felt like it was most of winter when he was little! Always felt like it took weeks to settle down. Then in Spring / summer it was hayfever season (although we probably didn't realise that was such a factor when he was a toddler- only now he can tell us his eyes are itchy etc)

It's very unlikely children are able to coordinate their breath to use inhalers without a spacer, would he be better with a mouthpiece spacer (blue aerochamber) rather than the mask? If he can seal his lips around the mouthpiece and breathe in and out properly it would be much more effective. It's less claustrophobic than the mask and he might feel more in control of it

It’s not fun is it! That’s what’s thrown me I think because it’s summer I wasn’t expecting it. Anyway hope your little one gets better soon OP.