Son intubated with severe croup :(

[Lucyrobbo12]

Hi all,

thought I would reach out on here and see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

My son, who is 21 months, got severe croup and so had to be intubated as he needed to rest and recover and his breathing was so laboured bless him. It was awful to see and I think I’m suffering from PTSD. He came home on Sunday which was wonderful and I feel so lucky that he’s back with us and healthy again.

One of the meds he was on was Dexamethozone (sp?) and has had to be weaned off it due to how much he had to take. His last dose was 3 days ago, but we’ve been finding that his mood has been all over the place and he is tantruming all of the time and sleep has been dreadful. Refusing to sleep in his bed, waking up at different times and just not going back to sleep, screaming through the night, getting cross if I’m sitting or standing, it’s been so hard to watch him go through all this and me and my husband are so emotionally and physically drained.
They found that he also had a bad chest infection which also caused him to suffer so much with the croup.
It is unusual for a child to be intubated due to croup but they are finding it’s more common at the moment after the lockdown.
I was told the Dex takes quite a few days to leave the system (especially if you’ve been on it for a while) and he was on it for almost 2 weeks and he can experience these types of symptoms because of it. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this? Or can relate?

Thank you!

Sorry to hear, unfortunately I've had to intubate a lot of children, glad to hear he is better, unfortunately a proportion are sick enough to need icu but luckily kids are tough. Dex is a steroid so it really messes up with people's moods and often causes slight confusion and anger. It's known to cause sleep disturbance, totally normal, just bear with it will get better. If you get in touch with the unit he was on they'll be able to put u in touch with clinical psychology who can help you process the emotional side x

Dexamethasone is a steroid, and can cause “roid rage” - violent mood swings and tantrums.
However, being intubated and ventilated in ITU on sedative drugs is very disorienting, interferes with normal sleep patterns and often results in a form of post traumatic stress. Adult patients report delusions and hallucinations, often paranoid, that the nurses are trying to kill them.
It is likely that your child is suffering a combination of these two, and may show very disturbed behaviour for some time yet.
You need to establish a very calm steady routine, with plenty of reassurance that he is safe and well now. He may need to sleep in your room for a few nights until he feels secure again. The dexamethasone will wear off sooner than the PTSD, but your son should be his normal self eventually.

Yeah - he was in ICU for 4 days and then discharged to our local hospital to recover. It was very traumatic. The general consensus was that we (the parents) are more likely to remember this episode than him. He is also having a camera down his throat to see if there is anything structurally wrong that caused him to be so bad
thank you for your response

You’ve had to intubate quite a few with severe croup? I’ve heard it’s more common now since coming out of the lockdown? Have you found this?
thank you

I'm glad your son is home and feeling better now, it sounds like you've all had a horrible experience.

My eldest boy had a few bad croup attacks - blue light ambulances to hospital, dex, hospital stays etc.

He's the most chilled out kid ever but the dex did have quite an effect on him - ragey, moody, tearful.. lasted a few days then he was ok, just tired and clingy after.

I just used to have him in my bed and let him be a little cling-on till it passed.

Relentless isn’t it? Did your son grow out of the attacks? This seems to be an isolated incident at the moment, hopefully will stay like one

It sounds like a horrible experience for you and your son.

As Babdoc mentions this sounds like a combination of short term steroid side effects and the longer term psychological after effects of his experiences.

I don't think it's true to say he won't remember - he is to young to be able to describe what happened and he may not even have coherent memories, but he has experienced something that is traumatic to adults that understand what is going on - he is going to take time to process this and will need lots of emotional support for this.

He may regress to younger child behaviour, including things like separation anxiety and changes to the way he acts, eats and speaks.

It might be worth talking to the hospital about play therapy for him, but he might be a bit young for this - it may be he just needs parenting in a more intense way for a time.