AIBU to think I'm going to start losing work over this?

[Reesewithafork]

I've posted about this before but since DS (2.5 years) got covid earlier this year, then started nursery, he's had a nightmare run of infections, both bacterial and viral, plus colds and a bonus UTI thrown in for good measure, and he seems to get a cough with EVERYTHING.

We've got inhalers and they have helped because I know the cough would be worse without them, and we've definitely had a bit of a break where the cough was so occasional it was barely noticeable. We're trying to identify what triggers it as well - unfortunately it seems to be any kind of upper respiratory tract infection, hay fever, air con or fans...dust...

Anyway, we had a bit of a result in that after literal every other week sickness, we had three weeks off. THREE WEEKS OF HEALTH. I got cocky, thought we were through the worst of it, took some work on (I work for myself) and bang - viral throat infection for a week that turned immediately into a viral ear infection with crazy high fevers, had two days of him being back to normal and THEN HE STARTED COUGHING AGAIN.

I'm sitting, trying to work as I'm already so behind after the last couple of weeks, listening to him cough cough cough on the monitor despite the Vicks, humidifier, his cot being propped up, extra Ventolin given before bed....knowing that I'm not going to get much sleep tonight and have a deadline Tuesday. And another one Friday. I've got more coming up and I've had to push them for an extension because I was behind with the work Im doing now. I know it's my own fault for taking it on but I'm going to start losing clients aren't I? I'm not delivering on time, I'm having to take time off so I'm not available when I usually would be, I can't deliver my usual fast turn around....

I just feel beaten down by it. Earlier in the year when we were in the thick of the every other week I started thinking I was going to have to take a work break for a bit but then thought things were getting better (idiotically I now realise) and I was so happy to be getting back to having something for me, that usually fits in really nicely around DS.

Sorry, I know the answer is probably just yes and it sucks but I'm just feeling a bit worn down by it all. I seem to have an almost visceral reaction to the sound of a cough these days....

I’m not a doctor but sounds to me like my cough - I have allergy asthma - has he been allergy tested.

im on inhalers etc but have to take a daily antihistamine too.

also one of my allergies is dust so mattress is hoovered ( yes hoovered!) regularly and double sheeted.

I also find when I’m coughing a warm drink ( in my case yea - in your toddlers case maybe milk) just sipped helps. Not a cold drink as this doesn’t ease the airway.

I also find Vicks rubbed on my top back between shoulder blades helps!

thus is works for me - I’m hoping it might for you.

big hugs x

@AtLeastPretendToCare thank you, he never wheezes and it’s literally just the cough so I wasn’t sure what to look out for. I’ll give them a call again this week and explain that the cough is back and I’m worried that it is asthma and it’s not being controlled.

it’s so frustrating!

we have seen lots of different GPS and he ended up at a&e and we asked them if this amount of illness is normal (it was fever related not cough related) and every one of them had just kind of said yes it’s one of those things at this age with nursery see how it goes.

Huge sympathy from me - DS2 was like this too. He coughed horrifically every time he got a cold and it lasted for weeks with hardly any respite for 3-4 years. He'd throw up too because he coughed so much. Nothing really helped - although we tried everything we could. He ended up in hospital a few times too. Childcare was tricky although we used a lovely childminder who would almost always take him anyway...but it did get better gradually. His first term at preschool at 3 years old was absolutely terrible - he only managed about 40% attendance but he only missed a few days of his first term of school the following year. Now aged 11 he's absolutely fine, although now he has eczema and reacts to the heat badly with heat rash but that's much easier to deal with than the viral wheeze/asthma he did have. So awful though it is now, it will most likely get better relatively soon. Keep going and vent here when needed...

I could have written this post about my daughter. Eczema and asthma. Colds leading to coughing and her inhalers not working. Small illnesses triggering weeks of coughing leading to hospital admissions. A vicious circle! Then she was prescribed Montelukast tablets and it was liking flicking a switch. The coughing stopped over night, and her inhalers could control her asthma. I hope this info helps you and your child. The tablets were life savers for us.

Thank you for the tips @dcadmamagain we live in an incredibly dusty house and I try my best to stay on top of keeping it dust free but it’s a losing battle! Tonight I hoovered out his room, cot, mattress and changed the bedding. Tomorrow I’m going to wash his comforter and all his pjs and wipe down the walls again. It’s so hard!

@aracena so sorry you suffered too! Eczema can be really nasty as well - luckily his is okay at the moment only in the creases but he does get heat rash too. He flushes in the heart and looks quite alarmingly tomato sometimes - think he gets it from
me! Did they ever find a root cause or did you just have to grin and bear the coughing?

@Keeponkeepigon thank you last time I asked this medicine was mentioned but they said the risks outweighed the benefits for how bad he was ie they didn’t think it warranted a stronger medicine. I might go back now it’s been a few more weeks though and the cough is back again. We did have a few weeks where it wasn’t as bad but it never truly went.

If you have hard floors try to get if you can afford it an automatic hoover robot - I got 360 c5 robot for £140 off Amazon. Unbelievable how much it collects when a floor looks clean!!! Not good on carpets

Montelucast is the medicine I take ( it’s an antihistamine). If they don’t want to prescribe that ask if you could do something like child piriton - nb don’t give this daily without medical advice.

@Reesewithafork

Frustratingly no firm cause was ever found. He was a tiny although full term baby (4lbs 11) so maybe that was something to do with it. DH has a bad chest sometimes too and there is asthma in my extended family although I don't have it. Inhalers did help a bit in the short term but he did just grow out of it. I know that's not much compensation when you're listening to him cough all night though. I will never forget the sleepless nights / very early mornings sitting him upright on the sofa, giving him puffs on the inhaler or nebuliser and getting him to sip water (not milk which helps produce phlegm I read), watching Octonauts on a loop to try to distract him from the coughing. Work was tricky after a night like that - but we did come out the other side so I'm sure you will too.

We didn’t witness any adverse side effects in our daughter. She’s 13 now. But the tablets gave her so much more energy as she could finally get some undisturbed sleep!

Oh I remember when my daughter was that age - it was a nightmare. Constant illness. I remember being very heavily pregnant with twins and sitting in my hairdressers crying my eyes out as I was convinced because of my daughter’s constant chest infections and coughs that she had some chronic illness - I’d decided cystic fibrosis in fact. Thankfully she hadn’t - just normal toddler illnesses. My GP told me that on average a child that age gets 13 viruses a year and each could last 3 weeks so it means they could be ill most of the year. My girl had inhalers for asthma and all and then suddenly since around about 3/4 yrs she has never looked back. Even starting school didn’t bother her. She hasn’t seen a doctor or had an antibiotic in years and hasn’t needed an inhaler from about 3/4. A very knowledgeable woman told me to give her pure apple juice and cup of homemade chicken broth daily ( we used to freeze portions) as apparently they are very good for congestion/asthma. Myself and my sister followed her advice with our kids and we think there was something in it. For some reason her younger brothers didn5 seem to get as I’ll as often when they were toddlers or maybe I was more relaxed so didn’t notice it as bad.

Poor you, what a nightmare. Is it worth seeing if you can find a sympathetic childminder instead of nursery? Ours will have the DC if they’re not 100% (she only has ours and one other…so all the parents are ok with it).

Thank you, I’m going to have to soldier through I know. I’ve woken up feeling terrible with a swollen, gunky eye so I’m guessing we’ve now got conjunctivitis in the house on top of everything else!

My dd has asthma and vcd. For the longest time every little cold meant a week of non-stop coughing so bad she couldn’t go to nursery or school. Sometimes it meant trips to a&e. Honestly, I don’t think it would have been possible for both DH and I to have worked full time even though we both wfh. My company allowed reduced, extremely flexible schedules so I stayed part-time. Sometimes I had to work nights and weekends, but we managed to muddle through with the reduced schedule. It’s surprisingly common with bad asthma in kids. They miss so much school.

the asthma and vcd are still just as bad, but after several years we finally got a good medication regime in place. More importantly for the coughing which was really linked to the vcd, she did speech therapy to learn to control her throat muscles to mitigate the attacks. She has to do the exercises daily and also use them whenever she feels the spasms starting. It’s more common in girls, but if the coughing persists you might ask your doctor about it.

@Reesewithafork I think there could be, but I am not a doctor. My mum has asthma but it really only shows up as a cough. Every cold goes to her chest. It just sounded so familiar to me, and I remember she had issues for a while before it was eventually diagnosed.

@NerdyBird ah thank you they do think he has asthma (cough variant) but he’s too young to properly diagnose