Silent Reflux in Older Child (Age 9)

[jennys79]

Hi all,

My son has been treated as an Asthmatic for the past 8 years. His symptoms have been a dry repetitive cough and more recently a tight feeling in his throat.

He has never responded to reliever inhalers, and as such we have never been convinced he was asthmatic. The only thing his cough has ever responded to is predisolone (steroid) tablets.

Yesterday he had a Laryngoscopy, and the consultant found acid (where it shouldn't be). We have been prescribed Omeprazole, which I think means he has silent acid reflux. We will be seeing the consultant in 3 weeks, where he will go through his findings in detail.

Just wondered if there is anyone else who has an older child with silent reflux. If so, do you have any advice you can give me?

We are so excited that we may have finally got to the bottom of our sons problems. Would be great to think we could get my sons school attendance above 85% next year.

Thanks
Jenny

Hope the omeprazole works, if not may be good idea to look into Eosinophilic oesophagitis , health professionals don't tend to know much about it, but often misdiagnosed as silent reflux.

DS1 developed reflux when he was 5yo or so, although I suspect he had had it for longer.

I had his tongue tie revised and it stopped.

His ties had gone undiagnosed all that time and caused no end of problems. He too had an inhaler for "asthma" which didn't help, but now I suspect it was a reflux cough.

I am on omeprazole for a cough which used to get so bad that I would be retching and have difficulty breathing. The omeprazole reduces the acidity of your stomach contents so that when it leaks into your upper oesophagus it doesn't make you cough.

It took a few months to start working and I do still cough but it is 90% better than it was/