The curse of the cough

[RonaTheMoaner]

Changed my username for this because I am complaining in real life about this and don’t want people to reverse search me!

I have a 4 year old who is at nursery. The nursery is full of mould and because of this, my daughter has a cough roughly every 3 weeks (they usually last a week). During lockdown she wasn’t ill at all but since being back at nursery (just under 2 months now) she is onto her second cough Illness. I will no doubt have to keep her off nursery again as she has the cough. She doesn’t have any other symptoms of covid, her temp is normal, not aching, no sore throat or anything else. It’s simply the cough.
I’m so annoyed that now I have to take another week off work or until the cough shifts.
How is this going to be workable in the long run? I’m hoping that once she goes to school, and out of the mouldy nursery that she’ll no longer get so many coughs, but if she was a year younger, i would be looking at having a week off every month whilst she’s at nursery.

Not really sure what my AIBU is, I’m just really annoyed that she’s ill yet again.

Can you Get her tested? Results come back within 24 hours.

If the mould is that bad tbh I'd report to environmental health and change nursery.

Mouldy nursery??! What else are they not keeping on top of? I'd be looking for a different one.

You need to report the mould at nursery!

The fact it’s mouldy is grim, but how do you know it’s the mould causing the cough?

Have you raised the mould with the nursery? A dehumidifier or decent extractor fan might sort it out.

I didn’t realise how bad the mould was until recently and with school starting in September there isn’t much point in changing nursery now.

I’m not sure environmental health would see anything as I think they was the walls down quite often.

Can you get a covid test on a bank holiday? I’m reluctant to do one as she will kick up a right fuss and I’m not sure we could do it correctly and would have to re-test. It’s following her usual cough that she has had for the last 3 years and we are in a very low risk/low infection rate area so I would be surprised if it came back as covid.
I’m not saying I won’t get one done, it’s just frustrating that one needs to be done particularly as we (assume) the cause is the same is what it’s always been.
She had at minimum, 14 different coughing colds last year (from when I started noting them down in Feb or March)

Have you considered getting her checked out for asthma?

A cough would warrant a test and a centre near you might be open today. Results come back quickly and are better than you all isolating for 14 days which is the alternative to not testing.

@minipie I’m not 100% sure but mould can cause coughs I believe. She didn’t have any coughs during lockdown (which I suppose you could put down to not being around other kids) but it can be coincidence that she goes back and within a couple of weeks she’s ill again

@SunbathingDragon yes, we went to the drs a few times last year and they don’t like to diagnose asthma until 5 from memory

The test is a faff but I took my son for one yesterday (he has a cough/cold) and I’ve already had the text saying he’s negative this morning. So although it’s a pain it is pretty easy to do and worth it to have the result. Then even if she’s still coughing she can go into nursery (the text says as long as you don’t have a fever you can go back to school/work).

I don't know how it's all going to work. I'm similar, my 6 year old has a bunged up nose and very slight cough. She is supposed to go back to school on Wednesday!!

My DD at that age got a bad cough every time she had a cold, and she had a lot of colds during nursery. Turned out she had enormous tonsils and adenoids (so all the snot went to her chest rather than out of her nose iyswim) and for various reasons she ended up having them taken out.

If you find she keeps getting lots of coughs at school, then it might be worth looking into this, and also the asthma suggestion made above.

I’d remove my dc from a nursery so mouldy it’s making her ill!

Why are you sending her there at all????

People can die from black mould poisoning. Someone form my school had it and developed lung cancer and died.

Please never send your child back there.

A negative test result means she can go back to nursery. I'd give it a go.

Done the test, as I thought, it was pretty horrible to do on DD. We all did one, hopefully they’ll all come back negative and not either inconclusive or positive.

@ChikiTIKI I only just found out about it. If I had known before then we would have looked for a new nursery a long time ago. She leaves in a couple of weeks anyway so saves me looking round for a new one. If she wasn’t going to school then we would move her.