Asthma diagnosis in under 2?

[SandraMunchkin]

Hi I wondered whether anyone has experience with possible asthma in a very young child, like under 2? And getting an allergy test?
My 19 months old has been struggling with coughing, especially at night since she’s 11 months old. It probably got triggered by her starting nursery and picking up all the germs, but basically hasn’t stopped since. She’s had bad infections and got antibiotics several times this winter and sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t, what always stays is the cough. We have a blue reliever inhaler for about 2 months now and recently we use it daily before bedtime just to get some chance for a decent nights sleep. Some nights she’ll wake up coughing, 1-2 hours at the time and only calms down with inhaler. During the day, she’ll also cough especially after a run around (she loves to run!!).
I have a suspicion it might be dust mites allergy involved as well (she has cows milk protein allergy), but don’t want to start buying special bedding and ripping out carpets without a proper diagnosis. And in general I feel just the blue inhaler is not enough anymore. I know she could potentially have the brown inhaler, but she’s also tiny (below 5th percentile) and those steroids impact growth…
The GP said it’ll be hard to get those tests and diagnosis in such a young child, as they can’t do the breathing test and then just say that young children don’t have asthma! Same with allergy test, it is really hard to get a referral approved. He said let’s wait until April and I should gather evidence, like a journal and videos when she’s struggling. His words were „it’s like you are going to court and have to make your case“. It all feels exhausting, I just want her to feel better and us all get some less interrupted night sleep. I don’t want to be fobbed off with „she’s in nursery, she just gets ill a lot“, as it’s been months non-stop now!

DD always had a bad cough between November - March. Doctors gave her a blue inhaler which worked.

She is only being assessed for asthma now at 13, she still gets the bad cough but she also gets chest tightness and breathlessness when she exercises, particularly in cold weather - she plays rugby now which is a winter sport so it's flared up recently. She also gets hay-fever in Spring and Autumn from tree pollen and rapeseed - I never made the connection before but apparently they are linked although her hay-fever doesn't tend to effect her chest.

When I asked the nurse at the asthma clinic why it hadn't been picked up for proper assessment before and why we had just been given blue inhalers and sent on our way she said it was because as soon as the diagnosis is on an individuals file it can prevent entry into certain jobs ie military so they only diagnose children when it is essential. Crucially DD never had any big asthma attacks which required hospitalisation or anything as then they would have taken a different approach.

A family member was diagnosed with asthma as a child, which he supposedly outgrew, but was left with terrible congestion on his chest every morning. Tried allsorts to fix it.
Only recently, decades later, he tried cutting out wheat and this instantly stopped it.