Child’s cough lasting 4 weeks

[queenofthenorth3]

Dd4 has had a cough for about 4 weeks now. At no point has she been unwell with it - she has played, eaten and started school with no issues throughout. I saw a pharmacist at the start who said it was viral but because it’s lasted so long I took her to the GP last week to get checked again. Her chest, ears and throat are clear and oxygen was good. But she’s still got this persistent chesty cough.

She has a brown inhaler and a blue inhaler although rarely needs that one. I really don’t know what else to do. Is it normal for a cough to last this long?

Bump

Yeah, it can be normal. My daughter had one last Autumn for about six weeks. Doctor also said likely viral but on the second visit they issued antibiotics as they weren't totally sure. It did knock off after that, either because of the antibiotics or coincidentally.

I asked the GP if she needed antibiotics and he said since her chest was clear and no other sign of infection then probably not bacterial so no. It’s just odd that’s it’s lingering for so long. I’m wondering if it’s an asthma issue but she’s been having her brown inhaler daily and there’s no wheezing so unsure what else can be done there either. She is completely fine within her behaviour but it’s not nice to hear the chesty cough.

You can have a cough and no wheeze with asthma, but you can quickly test that theory by giving her blue inhaler and seeing if the cough goes away/lessens. If it does, it's asthma, if not it's likely viral. If it's intermittent, try and time how frequent the cough is before giving a few doses of the blue and then time again.

The blue seems to reduce the coughing a bit but it comes back. Doctor said they won’t formally diagnose asthma yet as she’s too young and may grow out of it. In the same breath also said she will be vulnerable to coughs and viral bugs…which isn’t encouraging with winter coming.