Help Please! - Weak Immune System.

[JJJ88]

Hello,

I thought I would sign up in the hope somebody maybe has experienced the same as us with their son or daughter.

Now 4 years old, ever since she was around 18months our daughter has struggled with colds and coughs. Now she is at school it is starting to have a negative effect on her life, especially sleeping wise.

We have seen numerous doctors and a consultant pediatrician who have all told us she will grow out of it but so far she hasn't. She was given a blue and brown inhaler around 2 years ago which does nothing, she has never been diagnosed with asthma. I do not believe she is asthmatic nor does the nurse or consultant. She can be fine for months at a time but as soon as the cold weather comes and colds are going around our daughter is guaranteed to get it, and then it knocks her for six. She struggles to recover and it can take weeks (this is no exaggeration). She gets a very persistent cough, but only when there is another illness present. When she is feeling fine she will not cough, she can run around for hours and hours. When she has the slightest cold/running nose she will be coughing. It can be particularly bad sometimes, last weekend I was very close to taking her to A&E.

We have another appointment with the dr soon but unfortunately, I'm not expecting much progress.

We have tried to boost her immune system with multi-vitamins, sambucol, etc but nothing seems to be working. She is just coming to the end of another cold and but by the end of the week, she could have something else!

When I speak to the Dr next I'm going to question the use of the brown inhaler, I see no reason for her to be on a steroid inhaler which has no positive effect and can sometimes trigger coughing fits. I always have suspicions that it's having a negative effect on her behavior.

What else can we try? I'm leaning toward this being some type of immune response so will be keen to get an intolerance food test. However, her symptoms are very good during the warmer months and over lockdown, the period was the best I can remember. Since starting school it is the worst I can remember; arguably we could have kept her home for 4/5 weeks of the term.

Any suggestions welcome!

The gut and its microbiome plays a huge part on the immune system. If she has had a lot of antibiotics since birth, it might be extremely poor.

You ask for suggestions @JJJ88 , here is mine. Buy high quality probiotics and change her diet to a prebiotic and gut friendly one, which means a lot of vegetables, fibre rich and resistant starch. Giving her the pill only won't help, because once you introduce the bacteria, you need to feed them otherwise they won't do the work.

My DS was like this from 9 month old, 2 year old he got adenoids removed, put on blue and brown inhaler and montelukast granules, Also loads immune system bloods done, he had an immune deficiency, and being on the medications for 3 years And now on antihistamines aswell he’s doing a lot better from March until August he was fine due to lockdown, but every year during winter he struggles, but not as much due to medication, depending on want strain of virus he has caught, they suspect viral induced asthma is the main cause due to winter, without montelukast his airways are worse, he’s also had to get occasional steroids, nebuliser, oxygen due to winter season