To think this could be whooping cough

[MyDogsPaws]

My ds is 10 and asthmatic, he was unwell with a virus type thing a couple of weeks ago which flared his asthma. He had a course of steroids and antibiotics for a possible chest infection and was better. Over the last 4 days he has developed a very intermittent cough without any noticeable wheeze which sounds unlike anything I have ever heard him do before. In the night he has been waking up just a once or twice with a really bad coughing fit and then sucking in air noisily like a ‘whoop’ and retching. During the day he is having a less intense coughing fits which are leaving him short of breath but he is managing not to make the whoop noise by breathing very deeply though his nose instead. He isn’t going blue or anything and otherwise okay in himself not 100% but not seeming unwell either.

Someone suggested he might actually have whooping cough, which I then googled and found the symptoms kind of fit but he was vaccinated as a baby, I know it’s not 100% effective but still. ..I have been trying to find out how long the baby vaccine actually lasts but nothing I’ve read is very clear.

I will aim to get him seen tomorrow as it’s a possible asthma exacerbation anyway but not been able to get a recording of the cough and feel like I won’t be taken seriously suggesting he might have whooping cough instead of just an asthma/chest infection cough! Had anyone had an older child with whooping cough and what were their symptoms like?

Yanbu. I know people who have been vaccinated and got it anyway. Worth getting checked

Ps at the age he is, the efficacy of the childhood vaccines can have reduced quite a bit.

It went through our school this spring and I assume everyone was vaccinated. Teachers and some children got it.

My DS caught it and he had had a booster 18mo earlier in a London polio top up campaign. His was not that bad but it lasted ages.

Probably but I think docs have been told to let it run thru.

Ie not check or give anti biotic. My dd had fits of up to 5 mins and I asked if we should go to the main waiting room and they said yes, definitely.

not a medical person, but as far as I’m aware vaccines only work if a certain % of the population have had it. My friend recently had it, and it sounds similar so definitely not wasting anyone’s time to get it checked out. It’s a pretty horrible thing to get, even after antibiotics she still had weeks of horrible sleep. Lots of pillows at night to prop him up might help before you get more advice from gp. Honey really helps my dd when she has a cough, but not sure if it works with whooping cough.

My family have all had it. We've been coughing since before Easter.

Drs refusing to diagnose anything other than 'a cough'. I had one round of antibiotics at the start of May which improved but didn't cure it. I've gone downhill again since then, but 3 week wait for another appt because it is an 'existing condition'.

I'm not usually a conspiracy type, but I think it's been massively underreported (pretty much everyone I know has been coughing for months) and I'm a bit worried there is something going on 'they' don't want us to know

My teenage son, who was vaccinated as a child had whooping cough at Easter. Coughing fits as you describe, with the awful sounding whoop and vomiting.

Dr agreed sounded just like typical whooping cough, gave the required antibiotics and sent him for a blood test for confirmation.

As I understand it the antibiotics won’t help with the cough, they are to reduce the possibility of you passing it on.

Thanks everyone sounds like it could be then, i would be happy to just let it run it’s course with any of my other dc but ds asthma is very hard to control he has been admitted to hospital 5 times in the past year and only just felt like we were getting things back under control again the last couple of months. I’m sure whooping cough would be an absolute disaster for him so would really like him to get antibiotics if there a chance it will help!

I think you have to get the antibiotics at the beginning stages so it’s worth acting now. A couple of the children at school did get quite unwell for a couple of weeks and were given antibiotics.

I was worried about it affecting my son’s asthma but luckily it didn’t seem to affect it the way some viruses do. His was more like the cough was in his throat rather than his chest if that makes sense. It did stick around though.

It is strange there is not more awareness being raised about it.

Hi. I'm 44, vaccinated and am on day 11 of whooping cough now. Antibiotics are required promptly as he'll be infectious for much longer otherwise. In addition to taking around 3w to get rid of the infection itself. It's been awful. And apparently the cough can last about 3m.

My ds who is nearly 10 got whooping cough over Christmas as he also asthmatic and under respiratory consultant he ended up with 2 courses of steroids and a course of different antibiotics before it was diagnosed it went on for about 3 months but definitely less severe after the right course of antibiotics was prescribed. He was vaccinated but we were told it was very common at the time. On the plus side his lung function tests showed his lung function recovered quickly which we were surprised by! Good luck

I’m fairly sure I read that this recent 100 day cough was related to whooping cough. I had it before Xmas and I can’t say I had a whoop, but the nightime coughing was unlike anything I’ve had before.

Hi OP,

My three year old son was recently diagnosed with whooping cough, there is an outbreak in our area currently and cases are higher than usual in a lot of counties.

You should be prescribed a course of antibiotics if the cough has developed within the last 14 days, if it started any earlier than that then antibiotics won’t be effective. The antibiotics won’t actually help your child get better any quicker unfortunately, they are to stop the spread of it to others. If antibiotics are started within the first 14 days of the cough, you are no longer infectious after taking antibiotics for 48 hours.

You should be sent a swab through the post by Public Health England to confirm the infection but antibiotics should be commenced prior to this if whooping cough is suspected and it’s within the “treatable” timeframe. They are busy at the moment with lots of suspected cases, it took us a week to receive the swab and another fortnight to get the result.

The GP explained to me that the purpose of vaccinations against whooping cough isn’t to prevent infection for a lifetime but to prevent the likelihood of serious infection in infancy/early childhood as this is when the most complications arise.

My son still has the cough now, six weeks on, although it is markedly less severe now and coughing bouts are reducing in frequency.

Please avoid any contact with young children or pregnant women until your child has been treated with antibiotics as it can be fatal to unvaccinated infants.