Parents of asthmatic children, please help!

[angel1976]

Hi all,

I have a lovely, beautiful 9 months old DS2 who is a really chilled out, calm and smiley baby. However, he seems to have a chronic cough / chest issues that's really causing sleepless nights all round! We finally have a referral to see a top paediatrican specialising in respirology but don't know when the appointment will come through. Just wanted some ideas from experienced parents what the possible cause is. His symptoms:

• Streaming nose with lots of clear mucus from birth. Don't think that has ever stopped once.

• Suffered from possible reflux in first six months, a lot of his vomit would consist of the normal milk / curdled milk but with a huge amount of clear mucus too.

• Chronic cough - started from birth but got really bad from about 4 months old. Mostly at night. He seems to get these 'episodes' of non-stop coughing (to the point of gagging / vomiting but not all the time) for anything from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours in middle of the night. He would 'sleep through' most of these episodes but is starting to get distressed by them. I would say he gets these episodes 2-3 times a night.

• Some wheeziness but not a lot. His chest does sound like a 'rattle' most days though.

• Poor weight gain, he is a tiny 7kgs. The last time he got weighed, he put on 2oz in 7 weeks.

After endless research, it's all pointing towards asthma though I know he is too young to be diagnosed. We have no pets. He is formula fed but down to only 3 feeds a day.

My DS1 was also slightly prone to have coughing episodes but nowhere near as bad as DS2! I keep hearing he will grow out of it but I am literally driven demented by having disturbed sleep most nights. When he doesn't have these coughs, he literally sleeps like a log all night and I can't imagine how bad these disturbed night sleeps are for him... Developmentally, he has no issues and is even more advanced than his brother... Also, I read the other asthma thread and it seems that children with asthma should be 'wheezy' and also prone to chest infections, which DS2 has never had. Can you have asthma without all the 'wheeze' and chest infections? I just don't know what to think anymore... He is having a nap now but I can hear him coughing away. Thanks for any advice or help you can all give.

My GP is an idiot, he won't refer DS2 anymore as he's already waiting to see a paediatrician. But my friend who works in the hospital said the doctor we are referred to see is away on holiday but once we get back from our holiday, she will make sure we get the first appointment possible to see him and she says the hospital will do allergy testing as well. I asked the GP for a prescription for Aptamil Pepti but he will only give me a prescription for 3 cartons to last us over our holiday. DS2's night-time coughing is gone completely. He might do a bit of odd coughing when he wakes in the morning but that's it. It has made a world of difference to my sleep! His nose is still streaming but definitely much better too. I'm not wiping it constantly. Thank you all for your concern. I am sure we are on the path to him getting diagnosed properly. I just wished it would happen faster! :)

Oh dear, sorry to hear that. Hopefully you won't wait too long for your appointment, and then once you're on the hospital system rather than the gp system, it should all be a lot easier (I know that was our experience). Great that your ds sounds so much better; if you are in dire need, you can probably get the aptamil off eBay, or maybe even your chemist (at 3x or more the cost of normal formula) - we bought nutramigen from the chemist for a while for dd2 before I found a gp to take pity on us.

Sounds like things are on the up though, which is great news.

Thanks for your concern luke. I really appreciate it. DS2 is really thriving this past week. Maybe it's a coincidence, he's always been a happy, chilled out baby but he seems even more chilled this week. Maybe me being less anxious helped too, knowing that things can only get better now (fingers crossed!). My mummy friend whose son has a prescription for it may be able to spare me a carton or two if we run out. Fingers crossed. We go on holiday in a week for 2.5 weeks and can't wait!