Need hope for outgrowing asthma/RAD

[Santan]

My 4 year old has developed cough variant asthma since starting school and it can get quite serious at times. She uses salbutamol and pulmicort for the ongoing cough almost 8 months now. We have tried montelukast too. Her ped once told me that many children outgrow this form of asthma later in life. I am feeling very down seeing her suffer and have to take medication on an ongoing basis. Can anyone offer some hope by sharing incidences of their loved ones outgrowing this diagnosis? I would love to hear them.

The severity of attacks for my son reduced significantly as he got older, we didn't have a hospital admission past the age of 9. He's 16 now and still takes daily preventer medication, he's very much used to it.
If your preventer is not foing the job ask about trying another, we went through a few. Also have you worked out any triggers? Some of his are allergy related so daily antihistamines helped too.

Dd could go from a slightly sniffy nose to blue light ambulance in 4 hours. Only ever had asthma attacks when she had a cough or a cold. We were so well known at A&E we didn't have to give our address as they'd just ask if it was the same as last week But she's 13 now and hasn't had a hospital visit for 2 years and only a couple of attacks which have required our asthma plan of 4 hourly inhalers through the night. Consultant says it is very positive.

At the same time she outgrew a severe peanut allergy which we were told was extremely unlikely.

Hope that gives you a ray of hope, I know I needed similar stories a few years back.

I out grew it op. Was apparently quite bad as a pre schooler but by secondary school only needed an inhaler occasionally for PE especially in winter. As an adult I'm fine other than getting slightly wheezy of I have hay fever or a cold. My own dd who is now 8 seems to be flowing the same pattern as in we have had about 18 months with no emergencies touch wood!

Both my boys used to suffer terribly. It was little short of miraculous if we got as far as October half term without at least one hospital admission every new school year. Then they'd improve for a bit until the weather got colder towards the end of the year when they'd deteriorate again. We might get a bit of relief in March/April before the pollen season hit. Late Summer would be a bit better but then it would be back to school and the whole cycle would begin again. It was relentless. We had just about every kind of inhaler on the market at some point, monteleukast and a worrying number of courses of oral steroids.
Now they are both in their late teens and I can't remember when either last needed steroids. They do both still take their preventers but tend to only need relievers if they have a cold, on really high pollen days or occasionally my younger son who plays 2 sports to quite a high standard needs his inhaler on strenuous exercise. A decade ago he couldn't even run around the playground.
There's no guarantees of course, but don't give up hope - our story isn't that unusual.

Yes, my son would be in A&E twice a year at least, but it's now been 3 years since his last attack. We were also told that as his lungs got bigger we'd see an improvement, and that's been true. He was 7 when he had his last attack and hospitalisation.

My son had salbutamol, clenil and montelukast (why have you stopped montelukast, incidentally?) but now hasn't had medication for about a year, other than blue/salbutamol inhaler on a couple of occasions.

We were referred to a paed consultant and he had allergy tests. Identifying an allergen was pretty key in reducing the attacks, so I'd advise that if you haven't already. I'd also advice making sure the medication is controlling attacks to the point you don't need to use the blue inhaler often - that's the advice our consultant gave, to allow the lungs to grow.

I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart. Your experience has made me excited about her healing. Her dr has stopped montelukast to see how she fares without it in summer. We don't have inhalers. Just have been asked to nebulize with ventolin and pulmicort with each cold. We take daily antihistamine to deal with the ongoing allergic cough.l will make it a point to ask for inhalers (both) and allergy testing too in the next appointment as I feel we require these. Was there anything that you eliminated from the diet? Any natural remedies/supplements that helped?

For us, the allergen was dust mites, not food. So we got rid of anything that harboured dust or couldn't be cleaned easily. Carpets went, hard wood flooring instead. Teddies had to go, though we kept 1 which goes in the wash or freezer once a week, bedding has to be washed once a week minimum, wet dusting done daily.

Some other things we were told, incidentally: take vit D supplements if you aren't already. There was a link between low vit d and frequency of asthma. Also probiotics - gut health also linked to asthma. Both what consultant said, I don't have any research links or anything, but like I said, my son hasn't had an attack for 3 years. Could be coincidental, but I'm not taking anything for granted!

I outgrew my asthma. I used to have a concoction of inhalers every few hours in primary school but by high school I was only on salbutamol and even then I just played on it to get out of PE. I remember milk aggravating it massively.

Where you live can have a massive impact. Do you live on a main road? City centre or very rural? The difference in pollution between a main road and side street can be massive. Have you considered an air filter if living in a city centre or on a main road? We bought a Swiss branded one called IQ Air. Expensive, but the difference in the air quality in our flat at the time was massive.

It may be a pure coincidence but DD started to get better when we started using a salt lamp in her room. I'd reached the "fuck it, I'll try anything" stage and had read about them helping.

One of my sons has multiple food allergies too, the other one just dairy, but I wouldn't eliminate any major food groups without some evidence that it is needed personally.
But like the poster above,they're sensitive to house dust mite and we did the same things. Getting rid of carpets made a big difference, we used anti allergy mattress covers and so on. I think that all helped.

We didn't test for allergies but as a precaution I do frequent clean ups, switched to anti allergy bedding and we always had stone tiling on floors. We live in the Uae. Dry and dusty weather. Haven't tried Air purifier and salt lamps. I will get the salt lamp right away and save up for the purifier. Anything to get rid of allergies and asthma!
@Thestoppedfan so lovely to hear that! Makes me excited about the possibility of going from many to none!
My daughter doesn't do well with gluten. Milk aggravates the cough but cheese doesn't. So qierd

Wierd*

@KarmaComma which probiotic brand did you get for your son? I will look for the same or atleast similar strains.

Dc1 was bad till about 12 and slowly improved to the point now has stopped all treatment and if OK next year will be taken off the asthma register.
I was similar although ended up with asthma diagnosis again as an adult (however well controlled and not like when I was a child).
Dc2 has several diagnosis linked to lungs and developed asthma aged 12 we've been told less likely to 'grow out of it' than Dc1.

For some more responses and advice..

I’m one of three children, one sibling still takes daily low dose salbutimol type inhaler, the rest of us - having had a couple of daily inhalerss from age c. 5-18 dont need anything on an ongoing basis. I got a prescription of 3x ventolin pre covid lockdown and still have 2.5 left. The improvement for my brother is even better - from hospitalisations every few years to no daily meds. Tbh, having been prescribed inhalers from age 5 asthma was just a given in our lives and not something we found limiting. My brother even played sport at international level in his teens.

My son was really bad with this. He has regular hospital admissions and once spent 5 days in HDU he was that bad. He’s 16 now and hasn’t so much as used an inhaler since he was 11.
Hang in there. It’s really scary when it’s happening but a lot of children do outgrow it.

My son’s asthma was exacerbated by dairy but now is ok. We went dairy free when he was 3 and saw a massive change. Milk was re introduced at 8 and he started having some issues but by 11 it had almost disappeared. He still needs to use his inhaler from time to time but he is no longer depending on the purple inhaler or steroids.

Yes, I suffered asthma badly as a dc, haven't had an attack since I was about 15. Coincidentally I started horseriding a lot less then, we now wonder if it was an allergy.

By the way… Try to use a humidifier, if the environment is too dry it makes the coughing worse.

I was hospitalised with asthma a couple of times under age 5 and remember the out of hours doctor often having to come out in childhood with nebulisers and steroid tablets when it was bad. Used to get pretty wheezy doing PE/in autumn and winter etc and had to have my inhaler on me at school.

My triggers were dust, feathers, (could never have a feather pillow as a child but I can now), animals like cat and dog hair, cigarette smoke, fungus/spores in the air around autumn time.

I improved into adulthood and saw an even bigger improvement after starting psychotherapy. Recommend Dr Gabor Maté on the mind/body link and effects of stress - drgabormate.com/healing-force-within/
Obviously psychotherapy not for a 4yr old, but might be worth considering your household’s stress and emotional well-being as she will respond to whatever you have going on and it might be a factor.

@1frenchfoodie @fabicelolly @Toughtimesagain @ladygindiva @GetThatHelmetOn Thank you for sharing your experiences! I read them with interest and purpose.@GetThatHelmetOn we use air humidifier but I also got suggestions for using an air purifier on this thread. I have been saving up for an air purifier plus humidifier (2 in 1)for convenience's sake. @fabicelolly I too believe that improper stress response and internalizing emotions could lead to chronic inflammation in the body.

Sorry I didn't see this message, @Santan.

I use an amazing brand called just for tummies. It's a very small company, local to me, and the woman who owns/runs it (think her name is Linda) is very knowledgeable about it and was so generous with her time when I was talking to her about my son. Send her a message: justfortummies.co.uk

We got a very very expensive air purifier… I cannot say it made a difference at all. By understand it may work for other people. For us, the big breakthrough was the purple inhaler, until then it was hell.