Dry cough every 10-15 seconds for hours

[lamad]

Hi all

DD (4) has had a dry cough for a few days now but 3/4 hours ago she started coughing every 10-15 seconds. Going a max of 30 seconds without coughing. Have tried everything from honey to nasal drops, humidifier etc etc 😵‍💫

The cough is constant. It's driving us all insane. She's trying to sleep now but keeps coughing 😭. Not sure what to do. Is this an a&e situation? She's almost making herself sick

I have also put an extra pillow under her head and I'm currently trying to get her to sleep but of course it's really tough for her to sleep when she coughs constantly 😭

Have you given Calpol ?

Here we do the tried and tested vicks vapour rub on soles of feet as a first thing. No idea why or how but it seems to work for us. During the day it’s good to try and hold the cough by sipping water. Somehow a dry cough can become a habit really quickly and often there’s no physical reason for you to cough it’s just a reflex action. Last resort is a salbutamol inhaler which the GP prescribed first years ago and is only ever needed to calm things down a bit, it was called infection induced asthma.

Honestly I'd call 111. Our DD was like this around 3 years old, ended up getting croup, which was really prominent once night when she literally coughed none stop from 5pm to 10pm.

I would say it sounds like croup. Sit them up. Take outside is advice now. But yes may need a steroid.

My children's asthma presented like this, they have cough variant asthma.

We've had this before. Not croup as that is a barking sound of cough. I'm afraid you just have to ride it out with little sleep - it was tough but got through it. I would check the temp though as that signalled we needed antibiotics.

My kid’s asthma presents like this too and they ended up in ICU for a week at the beginning of the year following a day of constant coughing just like you describe, better to be safe than sorry, I’d take them in. Hope she feels better soon!