can a baby get bronchiolitis more than once?

[enimod]

hi my son had bronchiolitis rsv at 9 weeks and was very very poorly, he then went onto have 7 chest infections in 5 months. he is now 15 months old- before christmas i am sure he had bronchiolitis again and took him to the doctors- all the signs and that crackling noise. the doctor told me he was too old for bronchiolitis- he received a course of oral steroids then a week later penicilin. this week he has been at the doctors evey day- with breathing problems, coughing, crackling, fast breathing, he was sick 3 times on wednesday, is pale and wont eat but has started to breastfeed again- today the doctor said he had Classic bronchiolitis crackling at the bottom of his lungs but then said YOU CANT GET bronchiolitis more than once- anyway after a weeks course of oral steroids my son now has a course of amoxociclin again.
i am aware that bronchiolitis is a virus- i thought you could get virus' repeatedly?
i am really confused.
do you think he is receiving the right treatment-i feel a bit fobbed off by the doctors.

to be hinest i think he should have been in hosital at the beginning of the week when his breathing rate was fast and he looked like he had gills when he breathed. the hospital is more thatn 25 minutes away and does not have a goor reputationl.
my son is under a paedatrician for probable asthma due to his inital bronchiolitis at 9 weeks and has 200mg brown inhler morning and night and blue inhaler 2 puffs 4 times a day.

You can get bronchi more than once. DS has had it twice confirmed by nasal swab and another 2 times suspected. The first at 8 weeks we nearly lost him, at 16 weeks he had it bad enough to be hospitalised again.

However, I was told it is rare for them to get it aged over 12 months, when DS was admitted at 12 months they did the swab which said it wasn't bronchi and a chest x ray showed a severe infection instead.

TBH if your worried take him to A and E and get him properly checked, its not worth taking risks with breathing. Bronchi or not something isn't right and needs looking into. With DS I have found the GPs seem pretty unsure of it all and we always end up in A and E anyway even after seeing the GP.

As far as I am aware (although I am NOT a doctor):

You can get bronchiolitis more than once. You can also get it at over a year.

DD is 21 months, she was hospitalised twice with bronch last year and once with viral-induced wheeze. She was then seen at OOH doctors a fortnight ago and the Dr diagnosed bronch again. Up to the children's ward, and nebulised. Oral steroids. Breathing eased. Sent home. Worse overnight so back to children's ward. Nebs hourly then transferred to overnight ward. Oxygen overnight. However, much better in the morning and sent home the next day. So, it seems what the Dr diagnosed as bronch actually was an asthma attack brought on by a cold.

She was diagnosed as asthmatic by the doctor at the hospital this admission. She has brown inhaler 50mg twice a day and blue inhaler when needed up to 10 puffs every 4 hrs.

My 8 month old is now on his 2nd bout of it since December and is on antibiotics and today has been given an inhaler to help his breathing.

I was told to bring him bAck or ring out of hrs immediately if his breathing became laboured - the sucking in of skin around his ribs as you've described.

Hope your LO is better soon.

it just goes to show me my faith in doctors is right. it really angers me that they dont get theri facts right.
the a and e here is only for minro injuries such as cuts and burns.
i know my son is improving now but feel fobbed off by the doctors. we have been everyday since monday.
one more thing. my son is due his 2nd flu top up vaccine on monday- on the oral steroid leaflet it said avaoid vaccines. should we? (i asked the doctor toay- whom i have no faith in and he said he should have it on monday?)

When DS is having trouble with his chest I always put off vaccines until it has cleared more just because I don't want to add more when he is already struggling if that makes sense?

When DS had his 12 month jabs last week the nurse did check when he finished his last course of pred and antibiotics before she did them. (The pred had finished 5 days before the antibiotics 3)

thats my thinking too- i dont think i'll take him on monday. he is working hard already to combat this episode of breathing and with the thought of his body fighting and making more antibodies etc- its just too much for him.
poor lad even had to have a blood test today-sometimes i just want to swap places with him.

Its horrible when they are ill. I always find the blood tests worse than anything else though for some reason, he was having hourly blood gases done at one point and I hated that so much at one point I couldn't be in the room :(

I kinda got used to blood tests when DD was in SCBU. It's still not easy but it's not as bad as it could be!

hi there, yep they can definitely get it more than once, but usually the episodes get less severe as they build up some resistance and get bigger and stronger. Your doctor does not sound good. Hope your DS perks up soon. x

I remember the horribleness of the hourly blood gases Sirzy - mine had severe bronchioltus as 4 months and was in picu. I think it would be even harder with a toddler.

yes, you can, no doubt

Yes. They used to tell the parents this on the ward where I trained. I'd be tempted to take your child to childrens A&E if he's not feeding. They don't do anything for bronchilitis other then support feeding/oxygen if sats are low.

I hope he recovers soon

Theloen DS was 8 weeks when he first had it and ended up on CPAP which was when he needed the hourly blood gases doing. It would certainly be worse trying to get it from him now, fingers crossed we are never in a situation where he is so bad again.

Sirzy Cpap didn't work for us and he ended up on a ventilator. Not good. But then they found out he had a rare birth defect, did an operation to fix it, and (touching lots of wood..) he hasn't been an in-patient since, over a year on. Amazing, really - though I'm still very paranoid about germs.

how is your DS OP?

DD and DS3 went in at 15 months with it for the second time. They'd also had it at 8 months. NOt nice.

he is much better in himself- he hates antibiotics which he is now on- they give him nasty runs.
he is still crackling when he breathes- the sound is low in his lungs but also high near his mouth/nose. he is about 80 % himslef now but still not eating. he occasionally still has fish gills when he breathes. (retractions)
he has been plagued with episodes like this since his initial life threatening case of bronchiolits a year ago. he is treated for probabel asthma.
he has 2 types of illness- this one which starts initally like a cold and then he begins with a cough then difficulty breathing and another one that just comes from nowhere not partciularly very much coughing but lots of retractions and fast breathing- i put this one down to asthma and the first is more like bronchiolitis type thing??
i m making no sense!
he has totally lost his appetite and hasnt eaten well for months and has gone from 91st to 50th centile- becoming fussy and not reallt liking anything. he still breastfeeds.
he also suffers with anaemia.
saying all of this-he is a very happy little lad.

That sounds very much like my DS. Every time he has a cold at the moment we end up in hospital with what you described first. The last 2 times he has had chest x rays which have confirmed he had infections and that always makes his asthma worse (obviously!) which they said showed on the last x ray due to hyper inflated lungs (?)

DS gets the mini sort of attacks you described a lot when he is playing but normally the ventolin works with that, and since being on the brown inhaler they are less frequent.

I have always found DS is better with finger foods when he is feeling under the weather (no idea why!)

Poor little thing 7 infections in 5 months! He must be shattered with it - is there any way you can get some long term advice from a paed how to manage his condition? All those AB must be making him feel rotten.

He obviously has a dreadful weakness in his lungs, can you not push to see a specialist?

Really hope he gets better soon....

he is under a paed- and has improved loads since june/july when he started on the brown inhaler. i think the problem is he is such a happy non grumbly child and likes to please so when i take him to see doctors etc depsite him wheezing and retracting and looking pale he is always happy and playful etc.
he now has a funnt shaped ribcage due to his breathing problems etc- his ribs stick out strangley and his chest sinks in-hard to describe.
i actually think if we lived near a good hospital he would be in there regularly- however our local one is 25 minutes away and the last time we went they stuck us in a room and dint even take his oxygen stats.
i have been told to up his ventolin when he is ill upto 10 puffs- however the most he will take is 6 as he finds it distressing when he is ill.
i am hoping that as he grows his pipes will grow too and he'll outgrow it.

Is there another hospital not to far away you could go to instead?

We are lucky that our local hospital has a fantasic peads a and e and kids services in general which have made it so much easier to cope with as I know they are always going to help (if that makes sense?)

Enimod,

Bronchiolitis is a symptom, not a virus. It is normally caused by one of several respiratory viruses, the most dangerous in young children being RSV. So, you can definitely get it more than once. In fact, RSV is a family of viruses and it also mutates, so it is possible to get RSV bronchiolitis several times.

I was told when our son was in intensive care with suspected bronc that the most common age to suffer it is 6-12 months and most grow out of it. I am not sure why that is other than the lungs generally mature. I think also that people need resistance to breathe against, and young ribs are too flexible. That is why, in hospital, babies are placed on their stomach to improve the breathing. (Clearly they are being monitored, so SIDS is not an issue).

I am not a doc but I have to say, if your gp really said that to you, he seems woefully ignorant and perhaps you should think about changing?

Best of luck.

thank you for all of your responses. i am upset with the gp i saw- thankfully my son is much better, he still is crackling when he breathes and the sound does come from his lungs and not his throat.
i feel that gps dont seem to want to educate their patients/parents of the patients nor themselves!
i have learned more on here about my son than from any people i have seen and i feel that they have neglected him.
my son does sleep on his stomach and since doing so he does not cough as much at night-he found this out himself.
it was the rsv virus he had when he was extremely poorly last years.v

bronchiolitus is a very common thing in babies and young children and I'm pretty shocked at a GP that doesn't know much about it. Sounds a pretty pointless health professional imho.

I am a doctor and yes you can get it more than once. My ds is 14 months and has it as we speak and I have lost count of how many times we have been hospitalised, around 20 I think?
It gets less common as their lungs get bigger though and is supposedly rare over one.

Should add my son gets bronchiolitis from rhinovirus ( cold virus) it's not just rsv that causes it. Most people only get rsv once but you can get in more than once.
Hope your little one is better soon

ds1 had rsv at 10 weeks which led to double pneumonia - we were told at the time that it might cause some damage to the lining of his lungs which would make recurrent chest infections more likely, as well as a greater chance of asthma later.

he had a lot more chest difficulties than either of the other two (including dd2 who has cp and would aspirate frequently) but has grown out of them fully with no long term effects at all now. (he's 7yo and the recurrent chest stuff stopped around 2yo)