9mo coughing to the point of being sick

[rachndan]

Hi
Just looking for a bit of advice as our 9 month old daughter has had a runny nose and/or cough for the last 4-6 weeks, it hasn?t really let up in that time.

We have tried Calpol and Nurofen, but no let up, we have also tried cough medicine for babies but its made no difference and the doctors have said that they are a waste of money. We have been to the doctors a few weeks ago and there wasn?t a lot they could do.

However, since Saturday she has started having quite big coughing fits during the night, to the extent she ends up throwing up. So we took her to the ?out of hours? doctor on Sunday (as our own doctor couldn?t see until this coming Friday). They said she doesn?t have a chest infection and she is probably being sick because babies don?t develop a muscle that adults have that stops us being sick when coughing. They asked if we suffer from asthma, neither of us do. They have said if it doesn?t let up in the next 2-3 weeks then we can go back and they may try her on an inhaler.

But we are getting concerned, because she starts coughing, then it gets worse over about 30 secs then she pukes up so much, it is causing us all a bit of distress, especially her. Plus we have had to change hers and our bedding every night (which is a pain on top of all the other washing).

Since this has happened she has also started throwing up her dinner too, not every time but the majority but she seems totally fine in herself other than this though, but the nursery wont take her if she has been sick, despite her not being unwell so to speak.

We still have the doctors appointment booked for Friday so we will go and see what they fob us off with then, but just wondering if anyone has any experience of this?

Thanks guys and girls.

DS in 2 and has a cough like this. Our GP says it's a viral infection so there's not much they can do about it. He does have inhalers (blue and brown) that he takes every night as he gets recurrent coughs anyway.

It might help your DD if you use cot blocks/books to tilt her cot a bit so her head is higher than the rest of her body. We did this with DS when he first started to get these coughs and it really helped during the night.

It might also help to put a humidifier in her room. I don't have one so can't recommend a certain model but I'm thinking of something like this.

Yeah I am currently watching one on eBay. Would this be permanent though, so she would always need it?

Thanks

Whooping cough epidemic is in full swing. I would not wait till Friday. Not bein a panic merchant.

I also thought 'whooping cough' when I read the OP. Counds like what my DSs did and they had it.

I had this happen to me after a cough which went on for a few weeks last winter. It got to the stage where it was making me sick, and the doctor said this was basically because repeated coughing can sometimes trigger the gag reflex. It cleared up eventually but was unpleasant - viral though so nothing could be done. As your DD is so little I would press on with the GP - perhaps an inhaler on a temporary basis will help to open up her airways so that the cycle of repeated coughing aggravating the problem can be interrupted.

I agree with others about getting checked for whooping cough. They can take a swab for it.

I would request a prescription for a ventolin inhaler from your GP. My DS was prescribed one at 6 months old for a 'viral wheeze', hes 14 months now and it's thought he probably has asthma and has a brown preventer inhaler too. It's difficult to diagnose asthma in very young children as their airways are narrow anyway and many often grow out of it.

The vomiting is normal when they've got a bad cough, both of mine do this when they've got a bad chest and some coughs seem to stick around for ages. My DD, non-asthmatic btw, had a terrible cough all through winter, it lasted for months and she would often vomit.

I would also say, you've obviously started weaning, could it be a reaction to dairy products? My DS gets asthma attacks when he has any dairy (he's BF so cows milk has never been a big part of his diet) and my DD doesn't really tolerate it well either, seems to make her chesty and a bit mucousy. Is that something worth investigating?

DD has had this nearly every time she has got a cold. I've always thought it is because of post-nasal drip irritating the throat and swallowing mucus. So little bits of mucus drip onto throat irritating it, causing her to cough. She then coughs so much she throws up. DD1 is nearly 5 and I still dread her getting a cold for this reason.

On the plus side, the throwing up usually means that mucus she has swallowed get's ejected from her belly - which has got to be a good thing.

Having hot steamy bath before bed, baby vicks on chest and feet & sleeping at an angle helps. I also 'burn' baby olbas oil on an aromastone in her room. Keeping change of bed clothes etc to hand helps too. these days I get DD to sleep on a towel or similar if she gets a cold and cough - she's getting old enough to throw up into a bucket :).

Hope she is on the mend soon.

My DS2 has gone through phases of doing this. I also started a thread on it at one point when I was really worried about it.

You should definitely get a medical opinion but with my DS it turned out that this just seems to be how he reacts to a bad cough. He's now 2 and it hasn't happened for a while but for ages it seemed to be be quite frequent.

We dealt with it by reducing his bedtime feed (e.g.4oz instead of 7oz) and doing it a bit earlier to give him some time to digest. Meant there was less to come up. Also raised the head of his bed, used karvol drops etc.

Ultimately we also got quite good at recognising the cough that was going to lead to vomit - as soon as we heard it would sprint to get up him out of bed and into the bathroom. Sometimes we could calm him and help him to get over the cough without gagging - other times we held him over the bath whilst he threw up! Takes some practice to avoid getting covered yourself and is gross but better than having to change beds.

Good luck - I know how stressful it is waiting for the coughing to start but as I said we haven't had the puking for a while despite a few colds and coughs. Hope the GP can help.