Regular chest infections

[HippaHey]

My DD 17 months currently has her fourth chest infection in around 7 months. They vary in seriousness, the one before this was a pretty bad one with lots of wheezing and vomiting after coughing fits - I even took her to out of hours GP one night after she started coughing blood - thankfully it was just a burst blood vessel after coughing so much .

This one isnt so bad but she still has a course of antibiotics.

Just wondering if shes just unlucky to have had so many or if there might be an underlying cause?

Her doctor just said it was something they would have to monitor but didnt tell me why

Would be greatful for any advice

My DS at about that age and a bit younger was getting bronchiolitis every 3 months every time he had a chest infection.
Not sure yours has anything similar.

Has she started being in contact with more children? It could be a factor.

Anyway, eventually my DS grew out of it, although he still gets a bit of breathing signs and I keep a salbutamol inhaler at home.

Could your gp be thinking of asthma? If so I was told they don't diagnose it before the 2 years of age.

It's possible she's asthmatic. That's how dds started, chest infections then colds that hit her chest. If she's had a lot if ABs it wouldn't hurt to start her on some probiotics and maybe some vitamins just to boost her up.

It could be that the first episode was whooping cough if the coughing was so severe that she started coughing up blood. A complication of whooping cough is pneumonia. After having had whooping cough (if this is indeed the case) she may be more vulnerable to both upper and lower respiratory tract infections.

My dd contracted swine flu followed by pneumonia (complication of swine flu). Next year she got whooping cough followed by pneumonia (again complication).

She is fully up to date with her vaccinations but does now also get the annual flu vaccination due to her history.

Last few years have been fine, so hopefully her lungs have recovered.

Hopefully your dd will grow out of this too. We were told that there is not much they can do. There is a very small chance that the weakness is caused by cystic fibrosis which can be detected through a sweat test and blood test. But the probability that this is the case is really very very small, so you may just want to take a wait and see approach and get her a flu vaccination.