Please help me understand dd's suspected asthma

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Hello lovely Mumsnetters. I need some help please with understanding DD's 'suspected' asthma. She's 7 1/2 and had a very bad cold/cough recently which made her wheezy at night for a couple of nights. Because she had been wheezy twice around cats before, the docs were fairly quick to say she must have asthma, and we've been given a peak flow meter plus the brown and blue inhalers.

Now, DH and I both felt they had jumped to the asthma conclusion a bit too quickly.

DD's peak flow is fairly consistently the same and didn't change when we reduced the brown inhaler to just once a day. She was symptom free for quite a while and I was planning to stop the brown inhaler completely but then...

She started another cold/sore throat/phlegmy cough and had the flu jab on Tuesday. Her peak flow was still the same but yesterday she came home from school saying she had got wheezy when running around with a friend and she had had to go into the school office (for the first time) to have two puffs of the salbutamol.

When I asked her what it felt like when she was wheezy she said it was like pins and needles in her throat. Not her chest. I asked whether her chest felt funny and she said no. Just her throat.

So, sorry for the long blurb, but here's my question: Could it be that it's not asthma at all if the symptom is in her throat and not her chest? Could it be that it's just all that mucus from her cold that she is struggling to shift, rather than a 'real' asthma wheeze? I know that when I have a cold with a lot of phlegm, I can sound wheezy too but it's definitely the phlegm and I don't have asthma.

I am a bit reluctant to keep her on the steroid inhalers if she doesn't really need them. At the same time of course, I don't want to deny her medication if she does need it.

Those of you with more experience - please can you help?

Thanks!

The office lady is sort of right in that, in my experience, many children don't always know when they need their inhalers when they're still very new to having them, and perhaps in her experience children ask for the fun of it (although I've not noticed that myself).

But I'd be cautious asking if she was heard wheezing - not all asthmatics wheeze and it's not a non-medical person's call whether she's "fine" or not. I realise you were just trying to build a picture though!

a wheeze is not necessarily a symptom.
many people with asthma do not wheeze.
I don't. I cough and clear my throat.
doesn't make it less asthma.

my dc with asthma just goes very quiet and slinks off to hide in a corner. like an animal crawling into a hole to die

I have asthma and sometimes need my inhaler but don't sound wheezy. The first signs are tightness and yes, a constriction and pain in the space where my throat meets my chest so your DD's symptoms sound plausible. If I don't take my inhaler at these early signs it will eventually develop into ab asthma attack. These can often be quiet too. Sometimes your breath is so restricted you simply can't make a lot of noise.

So the 'office lady' said she didn't sound wheezy, and you're going with her explanation, rather than that of your daughter's, who, from the vantage point of inside her own body, said she felt wheezy.

I don't understand this.

The brown inhaler is a preventor, so it sounds like it's doing its job.
Definitely sounds like she has asthma. DC1 presents very similar to your DD. He can go for months and months with absolutely nothing. Never has problems when he's running around. But sometimes, if he has a cold, or when he's stressed, he starts coughing all the time. We've had 2 occassions where he's had to be hospitalised, completely out of the blue and very unexpected. But he's getting to his teenage years now and seems to be getting better (tough wood)

Don't mess about with asthma, your doctor has prescribed medication for her, they don't hand inhalers out like smarties. I suspected that my grandson had it when he started coughing and wheezy when he was three and was running about in my house, his mother has it and I recognised the symptoms, my daughters doctor said it is hard to diagnose in small children until she witnessed him struggling, coughing and wheezing one day in the surgery , he was so bad he needed oxygen and a nebuliser in the surgery. I thin you and your dh are in denial that your dad has asthmatic symptoms. It runs in my family, does she cough after exercise, does she cough after running about? Wheezing isn't always present.
My DH always had a bad cough during the winter months when he was a child, his father thought he knew more than the doctors and never bothered to get it checked out, it was actually undiagnosed asthma which came back with a vengeance when he was 30, he now has both blue and brown inhalers and sometimes needs oral steroids.
As I said, don't mess about with her treatment, my cousin died during an asthma attack, his was well controlled too but even so, he knew he needed help one day, he died on his own in a phone box as he called for an ambulance (pre mobile phone days).

By the way, I looked up the cost of inhalers. A blue one is available over the counter for about £15, so may well be given out like smarties. A brown one by contrast is more like £50, so probably not waste fully prescribed.

You've had many responses saying roughly the same thing... asthma is individual ... the symptoms vary from person to person and also can change over time.

YourDD is old enough to know something isn't right and she needs an inhaler ... for now trust her judgement on that. See the asthma nurse and ask any questions you gave - they will try to answer and help.

I have adult onset asthma and my ds (18) and dd (15) have been treated on and off for asthma since they were toddlers ... we're all different and need different approaches

You need to learn what the signs are for an exacerbation and how to help...

E.g. When I am well, I appear absolutely fine but that's in the back on a combo inhaler, another inhaler, tablets and anti histamines

When i am ill - usually triggered by a cold/flu virus - I end up on steroids,more tablets and lots of ventolin.... and unable to walk/talk...

Take time to accept she needs this help... it doesn't change who she is, it just means she may need some mess or help from time to time...

Thanks everyone and especially putthehamsteretc.... much appreciated your post.

My son has inhalers but he doesn't have asthma ( is fine running around etc) but he gets wheezy after a snotty cold ( diagnosed as viral wheeze and has led to frequent hospital admissions ). He coughs and claws at his throats when he is having an attack... he also rattles when breathing. My husband says his attacks feel like they are in his throat