So, my three year old son has got, once again, a pretty persistent and quite dry cough, which he seems to get every Winter. When he was one he was hospitalised a couple of times for chest infections, and we were told he had bronchialitis, which I understand to be a chronic inflammation of the bronchia which is an ongoing suceptibility. We were told he was too young to make a diagnosis of asthma.
One of the things we were told to do was to give a blue and a brown ingaler EVERY DAY in the Winter, so as to help prevent further chest infections.
Now he has got to three and again, as soon as the real cold weather comes along, his cough has come back - he was fine over the Spring and Summer. I am having second thoughts about the idea of just always administering these two inhalers (one ins Ventolin but can't remember what the brown one is)every single day. Surely it isn't good to be administering medicine every day? And is it likely to be asthma? I would have thought asthma would not only come on in the Winter?
Any thoughts on these issues?
Particularly like to know about the long-term possible side-effects of using inhalers every day in a child who has NOT been diagnosed as asthmatic or a major allergy sufferer