Does my 5 year old need to see a Dr ASAP?

[Dabrat21]

Hi all,

I need some advice please on what I should do with my DD. Who has ‘difficulty’ breathing ‘episodes’.

my DD is 5. She had been in nursery since she was about 17 months old. Since starting nursery she had cough after cough, illness after illness. She has had really bad chest infections and also had bronchitis when she was about 3, which she had an X-ray for but did not have to be admitted to hospital. I was very worried at the time.

our GP then suggested she have an inhaler - a blue one, and if her coughs got really bad to try a few pumps to see if this helped. We use the blue inhaler for about 10 months but honestly I didn’t feel it made a difference. When she would have coughs sometimes it would be with a temperature, sometimes it wouldn’t. Coughing was worse at night and she would vomit from coughing so much.

since starting school, her coughs have got so much better. The first year she only had about 6-8 coughs/infections. Compared to previously a cough every few weeks. Then towards the end of term, she started doing this thing where she takes a deep breath, and look like she’s catching her breathe, but not necessarily after exercise. This could happen when she was just sitting down watching tv. I filmed her doing this and showed the dr, who prescribed a brown inhaler to be taken once in the morning and once at night ongoing. At this time my DD was 4 and the Dr said that she was too young for an asthma test to confirm. I read up about asthma (as no one in my family has it) and I decided to cut out nuts, she would often eat these whole as a snack. Since cutting them out, the breathing ‘episodes’ stopped. So we cut out using the brown inhaler and I had hoped she had grown out of it.

However this past week, the last three days she has complained to her teacher that she is finding it difficult to breathe but doesn’t look like she is struggling, no signs of wheezing or going red etc. but the teacher has of course given her the blue inhaler. I’ve contacted the doctor for an appointment but could only get one on the 20th March.

tonight the same thing has happened. Whilst she was going up for her bath, she wasn’t running or anything like that. She said her chest hurts and feels like ‘someone is stabbing her heart’ and that it feels tight. I gave her the inhaler and I believe it helped but only after administering it twice.

she hasn’t had any nuts and there’s nothing I can think that might have caused this to flare up.

she is otherwise well but has a dairy intolerance. Her chest bone does ‘indent’ a bit, I would say a little more than ‘normal’ but many doctors have seen this and never said it look abnormal.

what I’m asking here, is if I should get her to a doctor/a&e or a walk in centre over the weekend? I’m worried it’s getting worse and could lead to a full on asthma attack.

Does anyone have children with asthma? Does this sound like that? Any advice would be great appreciated.

thanks

Has she had her heart checked?

I highly doubt whoever that plonker is, is actually a doctor. But in any event, what an embarrassing comment for them to make. Of course it's not safeguarding and social services have absolutely nothing to do with this. sanctimonious nonsense.

You sound like a very caring, very diligent and kind parent - so sorry stupid people with nothing better to do make such ridiculous comments and add to your worry. I hope your little girl is okay 🩷

i did ask at the hospital if it could be related to her heart and was told no, as she wasn’t born with a heart condition.. I will also mention to my GP as I have wondered if it could be heart related.

That sounds like so much use of a blue inhaler! Get that child to a dr asap. Or even a and e

Ok just saw you have been to an and e.

My dc was also diagnosed with asthma at 5. She has been on the brown inhaler ever since. They will wean her off at 7.5years old.

Last year my dd who was 6 at the time had a severe asthma attack. She wasn't previously diagnosed with asthma, it came completely out of the blue, I could tell her breathing wasn't quite right, called 111, and within the hour we were blue lighted to hospital, where she crashed and ended up in resuscitation on a ventilator. Then she had a 10 day stay on icu. It was singlehandedly, the most terrifying experience of my life. As an asthmatic myself, and having had asthma attacks in the past, I still was quite naive about the "asthma kills" stuff you always hear. I think because asthma is quite common, it's easy to dismiss what a life threatening condition it can be. Until you see first hand how quickly your child can go from being fine, to turning blue and unresponsive, it's easy to be quite blasé about the condition, as so many people have asthma. She now religiously takes her brown inhaler morning and evening, and carries her blue one everywhere with her. Definitely not a condition to take lightly, if there are any concerns for her breathing, take her straight to hospital. Seeing how quickly my dd went downhill, it's never worth the risk to ignore laboured breathing no matter how insignificant it may seem. Also, as others have mentioned, get an oximeter. So cheap and reliable and this was the reason I called 111, as her o2 levels were in the mid 80s and I knew that wasn't ok. I think having an oximeter saved her life, as without that I wouldn't have known how badly she was struggling to breathe. She wasn't complaining, just coughing and taking deep breaths now and again, as if to try and get more air in.

Longer term u need to get a referral to get a proper diagnosis. I've found the local GPs don't really know much about asthma.

My daughter had brown inhaler since she was 18 months old but they wouldn't diagnose asthma until at least 5 they said. The blue one was only to be used when she was having flare ups or an attack as they call it. When she was about 5 1/2 I decided to stop giving the brown one as she hadn't had blue inhaler for over a year and I thought she'd grown out of it.

She also then had episodes of coughing a lot, mainly at night and I had to give it back and make an appointment with the doc. He just referred us and told us to go back to the previous routine with medication.

I think it was about 4 months before we got an appointment at the hospital. The doctor we saw said he wld have done what I had already done to see how she was with no medication. So the fact I had already done that and she became unwell again he was happy to confirm an official diagnosis.

Your daughter sounds very similar to mine, my daughter is never out of breath or wheezy, her asthma presents only as a cough. It's well controlled with just the brown inhaler and only occasionally needs the blue one. She's had a few bouts of croup too more so in the last 2 yrs (8yrs old now) and needed steroids so she def seems more prone to that.

My niece has asthma too but no official diagnosis as she's under 5 but hers is much worse and not controlled very well. She is very wheezy and gets out of breath just playing. She also has a constant cough.

I hope you get a diagnosis and a plan in place for her.

Yes definitely keep your ventolin ( the blue one) with your child at all times. I was wrong about leaving i at the office as that could go horribly wrong. You said you had a spacer ?. I don't know what the"brown" one is if it's not flixotide or serotide, but could be different names in different countries. As I said I do not leave my house without my ventolin and if your child is asthmatic they should do the same. A specialist is really required though. Good luck. Not being able to breathe is horrendous, and weirdly it's more that you can't breathe out. Which means you can't breathe in.
Worst thing that ever happened to me was running to a uni lecture at night in the cold. I thought I was going to die. Definitely get a specialist.Sorry I don't know what your "brown" one is. Breo is a circle and you turn the top and breathe it in. Marvellous but you have to rinse your mouth afterwards , but you do with all of them.
Go see a specialist I have never heard of a child being too young to be diagnosed with asthma, although it may be unusual it still needs to be treated. . Your GP sounds like a moron.

Oh yes oximeter best things ever

I would actually ask to be referred to cardiology, could be fast heart rate / arrhythmia / palpitations giving her that feeling of she can’t breathe, it can take your breath away.

Agree , have already admitted my mistake. Ventolin should be with the asthmatic person at all times, but a I sadly pointed out in my pp sometimes it's not enough. People treat it very blase, but my friend lying dead on the floor of a petrol station shows its reallly not.It took too long to get her nebuliser from her boot and plug it in and put it on her.
I don't think we have Clenil, it may just be name changes between countries.
I'm not one to criticise as they say you should have 3-4 puffs of Ventolin a week maximum ( the blue one as you all call it). I use it 4-5 times a day.
It seems a problem that is not well managed by many doctors. One told me not to eat bananas or ice-cream. I'm not certain that it is a subject that is well explained in university or some doctors just don't have a clue.

If you are needing your reliever that often that's a sign your asthma is not under control, you need to see a specialist. Do you know what your triggers are?

So what you need to do is speak to the GP but ultimately an appointment with the asthma nurse would be preferable. They are much more knowledgeable than a GP as they're specially trained in asthma.
I would then ask for more education on the disease as the fact you're stopping medication without any insight into how dangerous this can potentially be shows you haven't been told the seriousness.
Never just stop a brown inhaler. If someone is using a blue inhaler more than 2/3 times a week that I classed as uncontrolled asthma and needs reviewing. These are 2 very important pieces of information you need to know.

Half pollen/plants / dust/ extreme cold etc . Half nerves. I panic if I can't find my ventolin. I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice. My poor DP knows to keep at least one spare or I will ransack the house/car looking for one. If I can't find one I will drive to the 24 hour chemist about half an hour away or I can't sleep. Ignore me I'm a weirdo,

Not weird, it's sensible to be sure you have an inhaler particularly as yours isn't under control.
OK so pollen season is a trigger, do you change your use or your preventative and use antihisatimes (you probably need a prescribed dose rather than OTC dose)

No, just use the same all year. Every GPis horrified but don't do anything different. They just try a different preventer.Probably a trip to a respiratory specialist is in order.Thank you for your concern ( not being sarky). I'm just so used to it as I've been like this for years it's kind of my normal. I'll try an anti-histamine as I get hayfever as well. I just go through a whole box of tissues every second day and lots of eye drops. I'm not sounding super smart here 😂

Not trying to be dramatic but I would just worry that it might get to a point where the reliever won't be enough like your poor friend. I'm no perfect asthmatic patient either, not great at ensuring I have a reliever on me at all times which is incredibly stupid, though I'm a lot better than I used to be. I up my preventative to 2 puffs a day from February and take a daily 180mg fexofenadine antihistamine (same as Telfast which is sold OTC but that's a 120mg dose) to get ahead of the effect hay-fever has on my asthma

Thank you, I happen to be seeing my GP on Tuesday for an unrelated issue (damn pap smear surely they can figure out a blood test instead , but I digress) so I will raise that. We do have Telfast here and Zytec, don't seem to do much for me so I'll ask her about the prescribed one. Than you for being such a help.Sorry for hijack OP