To be tearing my hair out with my 3.5 year old’s cough?

[Swashbuckler17]

I’ve tested him for covid using an LFT, negative.

He started with a runny nose on Wednesday, then he was quite bunged up and sneezing on Thursday. Then yesterday afternoon this cough started and it’s been on going ever since. There’s seemingly no break in it, the poor thing.
The only time he seems to stop coughing is when he’s eating (strangely) or when we went for a bit of a walk earlier, he only coughed a few times.
When just sitting around at home today or laying in bed last night and walking around the house it’s constant.

I’ve tried Benylin cough syrup for infants, saline nasal spray up the nose, sitting in a steamy bathroom, vics vapour rub on his feet and on his chest and back, a bowl of boiling water in the bedroom with some eucalyptus oil in it.
Today we gave him anti-histamine syrup from Boots for under 5s, but even that hasn’t helped.
Strangely it seems worse in the afternoon /evening and at night and better in the morning.

I know he hasn’t had it that long but it’s literally almost constant coughing.

Would this warrant a trip to A&E? I have no idea. He doesn’t have a fever and is eating, drinking and weeing fine. Also running around playing on and off, did go on a walk this morning as he seemed better, it’s quite a hilly walk as we live rurally and he wasn’t even out of breath, didn’t need to stop or anything.

I don’t know if he needs antibiotics, but hasn’t even had it a week yet.

He sounds very nasally and there seems to be a lot of thick mucous in the back of his throat and nose. I thought the antihistamine would have worked to dry it up a little, but it’s done nothing…gave it to him at 4pm, it’s now almost 7pm and no change.

What else can we do? It’s driving me insane, I know it’s not nice for him either 🙁

He had bronchiolitis at 8 weeks old and was hospitalised with oxygen & a feeding tube for 24 hours, so not sure if this is relevant.

He normally walks miles, up very steep hills that some adults struggle with and has never shown any issues with his breathing.

I’d love some advice if anyone has any.

My middle child has had retractions quite a few times in recent months, always got him checked out and every time they’ve said if he’s maintaining wet nappies, keeping up fluids, managing to eat a bit and not struggling desperately to breathe that we could manage at home but to bring him back if any of this were to change. That’s not to say you shouldn’t get your son checked over, but it doesn’t automatically mean a hospital admission, they’ll look at his condition as a whole and make a plan from there.

@LazyYogi You say a humid room, I’ve ordered a humidifier on Amazon due to arrive tomorrow, I guess that would be the sort of thing?

@livinthedream1995 Oh ok, that’s good to know anyway.
He’s not in nappies anymore, but he’s done plenty of wees on the toilet today. And drinking/eating fine.

If you get a inhaler for him make sure you ask for a mask to go with spacer. Means you can put the mask over his nose and mouth for him to breath it in. If it's just a mouthpiece I imagine a 3 year-old struggling to use it.

I’m afraid nothing worked for us. Just cough cough cough. For days at a time. He actually had a cough for 6 months in the end. Not constant like at the beginning but on and off.

I can't remember it all exactly but he'd been coughing since 9pm with no let up over night. I called 111 at 5am.

Out of hours assessment counted his resps which were very quick, can't remember number but I think I had counted 60pm which for a 2 year old is about double the normal rate. They also took his o2 reading on one of those finger clips. I can't remember exactly but they wanted it above 95 and I think it was 91? They had his top off and used a stethoscope to listen and to watch his chest.

They noted he was working hard to breathe and first course of action was 4 (maybe 6?) puffs of salbutomal inhaler. Then a wait of around ten minutes and checking for improvement. His o2 went to 94 or 95. He had improved but not enough to go home so we were admitted for the day and he was prescribed oral steroids and had lots of puffs on the inhaler during our day at the hospital. They sent us home with 2 more days of oral steroids and 4 puffs of salbutomal every 4-6 hours. He wasn't given oxygen. He was never what I would have deemed to be an emergency case but definitely needed seen that day.

Humidifier will do the job. If you need something tonight put a wet towel on the radiator and put the heat on high for an hour to get the steam going or if he's awake try a steamy shower room.

Have you tried any warm drinks? Hot orange is enticing enough here and sometimes helps. Can never get him to take honey but working on it!

He wont have long term damage to his airways but he will have (short term, as in a few years) increased susceptibility to having worse respiratory infections.
a poster up thread mentioned spacers and face masks. Just to say, face masks are only really for very small children - up to 2. This is because a lot of the medication gets wasted on the mask itself, and also comes into contact with the skin around the mouth which can get sore if they’re using a preventer (steroid) inhaler. Always best to wipe the face after use.
Hope he’s feeling better soon. Humidity’s sometimes helpful, more for croup than wheeze but it won’t reduce the swelling in his airways. You’ll have to either wait for that to pass or see a Dr.

I bought a cool air mist humidifier and
we are just running it now while DS is asleep but it’s making the room really cold as it’s cool air mist? Is this right? I don’t want to make him too cold either.

Just wondering how did your coughs go? My 15 month old has been coughing constantly now for 4 weeks. At first it was only during the night, then it went into some sort of chest infection and cough got wet and constant, now the infection has cleared but his cough is back. It is occasionally throughout the day, but pretty constant throughout the night.
We have been a few times at the GP, twice at A&E because he had such coughing attacks in the night that he looked as he was struggling to breathe. They gave us blue inhaler to use when cough attacks come and saidto wait it out. However, it’s 4 weeks and we are still at it, no much sleep happening in the house at all. We tried using the blue inhaler when coughing was very bad in the night, but it hasn’t made much difference.

I have cool mist humidifier running during the night, rub wix on his chest, give honey before bed, but nothing seems to help. The cough is just really bad during the night.

Any experiences or advice on what helped you? And how long did it he cough last?

Think DS had dust allergies as the main cause. Piriton before bed helped with that. Worth a try?

www.what0-18.nhs.uk/parentscarers/worried-your-child-unwell/cough-and-cold

I was thinking to try that next, I tried getting it in the pharmacy over the weekend, but they said I need prescription from Gp, so planning to ring GP again tomorrow. Do you happen to know if Zirtek should have the same effect as Piriton?

How did you find out in the end it was dust allergy for your child, if you don’t mind me asking? I am considering asking for allergies testing maybe.

Piriton says it's for over one year old so your child should be allowed it. I think you were told wrong info at pharmacy. I've bought it at several local and chain pharmacies. At least one of the times I wasn't asked anything about who it was for.

If you haven't involved the GP already then definitely do that.

I had already involved GP and I did call them also to check if I could give piriton regularly and they said that was fine.

It's really just a guess that it's dust. I just know that a nightly dose and then a half dose seemed to stop the cycle of coughing we had. So we've been able to go without his blue inhaler apart from occasional use at the end of a cold.

It was the piriton syrup on the bottle if that makes any difference.

*in the bottle

It's really good!