DS has had a cough for 11 months!

[coffeecake]

Hi, DS (4) has had a cough since august last year, I've tried everything, seen 5 different doctors who said that it was probably asthma and put him on the blue inhaler first (cough improved and came back) and then the brown inhaler (cough eased up after 4 weeks but came back as soon as he had a cold).
I decided to wean him off the inhaler as I didn't see the point in injecting him with steroids if his cough came back anyway, and the cough came back even worse.
He has had a chest X-ray which came back abnormal but to be expected with his cough.
I have just seen a doctor to ask for a referral to a specialist (for the second time), and she refused to give me one, even though I burst into tears and she said she would get in trouble if she did, as they is nothing more a specialist can do.
She is just telling me to put him on the brown inhaler again and come back in 2 weeks time to see if his wheeze has gone.
I am not happy about giving him a brown inhaler to suppress his cough, when I feel that it's not even working properly and that it may not be asmtha.
She told me that the only thing a specialist could do differently is a chest X-ray.
Please has anyone been in this situation before, or can anyone give me any advice as I am at the end of my tether!

I would give the inhaler again personally. You said it worked until he got a cold and it is well known that asthma symptoms get worse with a cold - even when using the childs normal medication. DS is on brown inhalers but has still ended up in hospital with a chest infection and needed a period of more 'agressive' treatment.

If you saw a specialist they would probably also want you to give the inhalers another try.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

i would see a different GP and demand a referral to a paediatrician or whoever you need to see

it's not ok for a child to have a cough for nearly a year and for them to just say it's basically tough luck.

You can always pay to see a specialist yourself if it means so much to you and would put your mind at rest a little....it would cost you about £200 I reckon. If they thought there was more to it then they would give you an NHS referral and you would have sidestepped your GP. Otherwise, ask for a second opinion from another GP. I believe you are entitled to that.

I agree with Sirzy though....it sounds like asthma and the treatment is those inhalers. Can you spot any triggers other than a cold (which is unavoidable now and again)?

my dd had permanent chest infection until diagnosed with milk protein and soya intolerance as soon as we stopped cow's milk and soya rhe inhaler was put in the cupboard and never came out since. worth trying a cows milk free diet for 2 weeks see if it makes a change!
Or maybe another allergy...

Coffeecake, I feel your pain as my DS was EXACTLY the same three years ago when he was three.

We went back and forth the doctors so many times I lost count. They were very quick to diagnose asthma (even though there is no actual test for it), and he had all the inhalers and asthma medication (Singulair tablets) but none of them helped. After a while I started to question the asthma diagnosis and wonder if he had asthma at all as he never got wheezy or out of breath when exercising. His symptoms just didn't seem like asthma to me.

I insisted on a referral to the Brompton hospital in London as they specialise in heart and lung conditions. Getting the referral wasn't easy, but I kept going back and crying, pleading and begging until they got so fed up of me that they eventually referred us.

The paediatricians at the Brompton were excellent. They gave DS a broncoscopy and a PH test. It was done under general anaesthetic so it was a bit traumatic (more so for me than DS) and the results came back as reflux. The acid from DS's stomach was slightly leaking back up to his windpipe and irritating it, causing the coughing.

He was put on anti reflux meds (Domperidone and Omeprazole) for about four months and he improved a lot.

Nowadays he is still prone to coughs after a cold, and particularly with his hayfever in the summer months, but it is nowhere near as bad as it was.

Please please don't give up on the referral, do whatever you can to get your DS the help he needs.

Thank you all, I am giving him the brown inhaler for 2 weeks as advised. Then I am going to see her again, and see if she will give me a referral.
I am hoping she won't fob me off and say "now you need to carry on with the brown inhaler" if she does I'm changing surgery.
I can't ask for a second opinion as I have seen all the doctors in the surgery about this, and they have all basically told me to go away and to do as I was told.
It's not that I don't want to admit that it is asthma, I am happy to believe them, but I have little faith, as my daughter was misdiagnosed by another doctor from that surgery, and so was I (by 2 different doctors).
Also the last doctor I saw told me franckly that they don't do referrals unless it's really urgent and that her job may be on the line or at least she would get in big trouble for doing it.
But I'm sure if her son was in the same situation she would have been in contact with a paediatrician withing 1 month (not 1 year).

Just to warn they may say to try it for longer. I was told it takes about 4 weeks for the medicine to build up enough to have a proper effect.

I hope you find answers soon through.