Asthma, but only when ill with a cold?

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Ds is 14 months old, he has a cold and he was really stuggling to breath yesterday, his tummy and neck were pulling in and his lips were going blue. We took him to the hospital, they gave him soome medicine to inhale and told us to give him ventolin 3 times a day (only whilst he was ill)

We live in Sweden and the Dr diagnosed ds as having "förkylninsastma" which translates to infection/cold asthma. This seems to be a common diagnosis in Sweden but I have never known anyone who has had it in the UK.

Does anyone know what the english word for this is?

We are seeing another Dr tomorrow who is going to give us a mask and medicine to use with ds next time he gets ill so we don't have to go to a+e so often.

My 2 DC and I all have this; we get wheezy when we have chesty colds/coughs. We have been prescribed inhalers (and occasionally steroids when really bad) but never given a diagnosis of anything specific.

I think its referred to as seasonal asthma or something here but don't think they necessarily give it a name - I have it and suffer when I have a cold or if its humid.

It's called viral induced wheeze here and is really common.

Thanks for the information.

It's good to know it is relatively common, it was pretty scary to see him struggling to breath. He had bronchiolitis when he was 5 weeks old and that was terrifying, I hoped he would never have to struggle for breath again :(

I hope the home treatment works well, the last thing I want to do is take ds into a+e and sit there for hours when he should be asleep, especially when he is poorly.

Viral induced wheeze/asthma
Ds1 has exactly the same, he is 3 and it started after he had broncholitis and a chest infection as a baby

Viral induced wheeze is pretty common in under 5s, it is why it is hard to get an asthma diagnosis under the age of 5 here because so many have issues when they are ill which they grow out of when older.

We saw the children's Dr today and now have inhalers and a mask to help him inhale. He hates it, really screams with panic when we give him his inhalers ( we have to do it 4 times a day for the next few days) any tips to make it easier for him?

Give his favourite teddy bear his inhalers

Put stickers on the spacer

Reward him for having his inhalers, stickers chocolate buttons

It's horrible at first but he will soon get used to it

When my DC were babies/toddlers I used to have to pin them down to give their inhalers - horrible but necessary. Sit on floor with your legs out straight. Lie child on his back on the floor in between your legs, so his head is wedged in between your upper thighs, his arms are pinned under your legs, and his feet are down towards your feet. Screaming is good as it means deep inhalations in between screams!

Good luck.

Thanks for the tips :) I didn't realise you could give when they are asleep, we were told to give it every 6 hours which would mean waking ds up ( which I'm very reluctant to do as he'd think it was morning!)

He's a funny boy, he doesn't cry when he gets injections or when they take blood tests, but he really hates his freedom being curtailed. I will buy some chocolate buttons and give him a round of applause and a clap when he takes his inhalers, he doesn't really understand stickers yet, he just tries to eat them.

His breathing is sounding much better tonight.

My daughter has this. She had bronchioitis twice at 5 months. Then episodes of a viral induced wheeze where she would get a cold and then start breathing fast, chest and neck would recess, breathe 60 breaths a minutes which is very fast. A&E each time. She has now been diagnosed with asthma which at 2 yrs is very young but with 9 hospital admissions behind her, it seemed inevitable! She has a preventer and a reliever that she uses through a spacer. She's very used to these now as has the preventer twice a day but in the beginning we had to pin her down which is necessary but very distressing. I think she thought we were stopping her breathing, not trying to help her as it must be very weird for them. She has steroids on each admission which are the only thing that really do the trick and give her any relief. They try inhalers and nebulisers as well. She's now on medication for asthma as well as still having lots of breakthrough symptoms I.e. Night time coughing, coughing and wheezing when running and laughing. However, we haven't been in hospital since November so doing really well!
As soon as he gets a cough or a cold, start with the blue inhaler every 4 hours as a preventative measure, that's saved us on a few occasions. He'll get used to the spacer the more he uses it. My daughter has a dummy and she can keep that in which isn't ideal but helped keep her calm in the beginning. Crying like someone else said is good when using the inhaler as the medicine gets into the lungs quicker! I hope you get it under control and he could just naturally grow out of it. That's what I kept being told by all the doctors whenever we were admitted onto the children's ward, I'm still hoping that will be the case when she's older! ;) xx

Dd2 has this.
When she was little we used to play at being trains with the spacer. She had to do big breaths to be a train. She even called the inhaler her "choo choo" for ages.

The inhaler is getting easier, he loves it when me and dp do incy wincy spider with one hand each and we have been using jackster's trick when we have been allone with him.

We tried when he was asleep but he just woke and was furious.

Drs again this afternoon to see if the inhalers are working.