to wonder if NHS doctors overdo it a bit when they write off almost every childhood illness as a "self-limiting virus" which needs nothing more than Calpol, rest and fluids? (long, sorry)

[quesadilla]

Genuinely not having a go at the NHS of which I am a supporter, but starting to feel really frustrated at the difficulty of getting my daughter's condition taken seriously and wondering if anyone else from a medical background or otherwise has any useful perspective on this.
I feel like almost every time my dd has gone to see a GP with any condition at all since she was born this diagnosis has been waved under my face within seconds without any proper attempt at investigation. My dd has had a chronic cough for over 3 weeks (and the background to this is that she has asthma symptoms), I've seen 3 GPs about it and they keep pulling this one out of the hat. I've read recently that whooping cough has come back and is being misdiagnosed or under diagnosed because a lot of GPs assume that all children are immune because of vaccinations.
I also realize that GPs are very busy people and have to deal with a lot of neurotic mums whose kids probably don't need to go to the doctor in the first place. But at no time has any of the GPs I've seen suggested any further investigation, taken a swab, done an x-ray or anything. Its just "virus, calpol, off you go..."
My DH and all of my dd's childminders (all of whom are from relatively poor countries where you wouldn't expect the health service to be better than ours) have all said they are shocked by how quick GPs here are to put everything down to viruses and wave you off.
Any GPs out there who have a view on this? Anyone had this experience? Are they generally right to assume that most childhood illnesses will clear themselves up? Or are they under so much pressure to hit targets etc that they are just desperate to get patients out of the door? Because its starting to feel like they avoid any further investigation because they don't want the surgery/health authority to get charged for something which may turn out to be a false alarm and that scares me...

rogersmelly I had that too, early '80s; told I had d and v and it was actually peritonitis and I nearly died!

Last Xmas, ds had a cough for about 3 weeks, then developed a temperature of 41 which only came down to about 40 with calpol/nurofen, he was off his food, tired and clearly unwell. I took him to the GP, OOH twice, and also children's A&E, all to be fobbed off with it being a virus. One Monday morning he went blue and started shaking, I called the GP for an appointment and basically told them I was coming in whether they liked it or not. The GP took one look at him and called an ambulance who blue lighted him to hospital. It turned out he had pneumonia. I'd been advised for the last fortnight to give him calpol and rub vicks on his chest.

Mine cough from October til May.

GP acted swiftly when DD1 was having breathing difficulties ( we walked over to thevdrs and she couldn't walk and talk at the same time ) put get on a nebuliser and sent her home with a steroid and inhaler.

They do recognise when things are a bit more sinister...

A lot of things are caused by a virus, so unless there are signs that it is more than treating as a virus is the sensible route rather than over medicating.

what DOES annoy me is when people assume virus implies that it is something minor. It does, it simply means there is nothing medically that can be done to treat it which can make things even harder for parents to stand by knowing nothing can be done.

All those people sick of getting 'fobbed off with a virus' - have you not considered that it might be, er, a virus, rather than you getting fobbed off?

Agree with Sirzy. DS had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and was blue-lighted to hospital and on an NG tube for a week. A virus doesn't mean it's not serious, it just means that it can't be 'cured'.

DS1 had whooping cough, confirmed by a blood test in September (still not 100%). I took him to the GP after he had been coughing for nearly 3 weeks, she gave him antibiotics, just incase it was whooping cough, while we waited for the blood test results. He was really poorly though and was coughing up copious amounts of phlegm and vomiting after coughing fits.

When DS2 was just shy of his first birthday the GP told me he had a virus. His temp was 41, he was shivering, his hands and feet were blue and freezing and he was vomiting. The GP actually told me to put him in a cold bath to bring his temp down! I took him to OOH later that evening, he was sent straight to hospital as he had a severe case of pneumonia! I changed GP surgeries after that!

Dowager - that was what i was thinking off to. DS ended up in HDU with it and it was horrible having to watch and wait for him to fight it himself whereas an infection could have been helped with antibiotics. He was given antibiotics but only because they were worried about pnumonia developing (it didn't that time, but it has 5 times since then!)

But that's my point, we got 'fobbed off' with a virus, but in our case he had pneumonia which was left untreated and undiagnosed for weeks. By the time he finally got a chest X-ray, about 50% of one of his lungs was white on the x-ray. The ambulance crew the doctor called asked me why I hadn't called them myself, when I said because I thought ambulances were for life threatening situations, they told me whilst they didn't want to frighten me, this was exactly the sort of situation I should be calling an ambulance for. And 4 separate doctors had 'fobbed us off with a virus'. They aren't always right.

Since September my 2 year old has had about 5 days of normal good health.He seems to be in a permanent state of either having a cough,cold or a virus.I would love to know how he keeps catching all these things.I can never get in my GP's when any of my children are ill and was that concerned that I went to the drop in centre.He was given a very thorough examination and put on a nebuliser and given an inhaler, she told me to go straight to A & E if his condition worsened.I am so grateful for these drop in services.

I agree that most of the time it is a virus, almost always in fact. It is hard to hear as a parent because you feel so powerless but unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it. I have to say though, that if it is bacterial then the doctors treat it as such, like when my DSs have had tonsillitis - sometimes it is viral sometimes not. I am not fobbed off everytime with the virus diagnosis just for the sake of it imo.

The difficulty comes when you get a secondary infection and it become bacterial but then you know something is up and you need treatment because the symptoms change. For example, 3 years ago I had a persistent cough. It was annoying but I wasn't really ill with it and it went on for at least 3 weeks, possibly a bit more. However, it started to change and I got a temperature, the cough got very chesty and it was at that point I went to the doctors who diagnosed pneumonia. I didn't have pnemonia all the time I had the cough though, and if I had gone to the drs they would have told me it was viral and I had to sit it out which is why I didn't go. But in the end, having the virus made me susceptible to the bacterial condition. So, sometimes you will get stories about people who were told it was viral, who then get more and more ill and end up with a serious condition which needs antibiotics and they think they have been misdiagnosed but in reality they haven't, it is just that things have changed.

So I suppose yes I think YABU but I can understand the frustration of not being able to do anything to help.

YABU.

I am very lucky in that my three children have never been seriously ill, but ultimately I trust that any doctor I see knows more about illnesses than I do. A cough is unpleasant, granted, but really, what are you expecting? As an adult, have you ever had antibiotics for a cough? Or are you saying you would prefer some sort of invasive diagnostic tests to prove to yourself that the doc knows less than you obviously give credit for?

My ds had strep pneumonia and I was told his chest was clear and not to worry and sent away twice before the gp agreed to do a nasal swab. God knows what would have happened if I'd let myself be fobbed off.

Both my dc get ill a lot though. Breast milk is evidently not as magical as I have been led to believe.