Doctors won't listen!!

[Glowz]

My DS (now 3) was diagnosed with a viral induced wheeze from 7 months old and had an inhaler (blue and brown) and a spacer. This really helped him and he's now grown out of it.

We are now at a different GP practice and my daughter is exhibiting the same symptoms. She's now 10 months old & had rsv/bronchitis at 11 weeks old and needed oxygen. She's not been as bad as then since but has never gone more than a week without having a cough, it's constant. I have been the doctors 6 times and they keep saying it's reflux. She doesn't appear to have the symptoms for this and she has gaviscon powder in bottles, tried omeprazol but didn't sit well with her at all. She's chesty all the time and snotty and sounds like shes got a massive ball of snot in her throat. She's a very happy baby, has been walking since 8.5 months but she just doesn't shift this cough/chestiness.

I took my son to our old GP and they just gave him an inhaler straight away but everytime I mention this and how my DD is very similar to how my son is, they just chuck the 'babies can't get asthma' at me. I'm at the end of my tether. Would you push again? I got a bit shirty with the last doctor and he still said I don't know what I'm talking about (again this is a different GP to when my son was little).

I've also considered many times to just try her with one puff of my son's blue inhaler with a brand new spacer, just to see if it works but scared she might get ill or something. What would you do? Or anyone been in the same boat?

Salbutamol (the blue inhaler) doesn't generally work under one year because babies under one year old don't have the receptor that it works on.

but yes of course, your GP is incompetent........

See the salbutamol helped my DS at 7 months but was so much more noticeable with the brown one which he had morning and night.

Or it just got better by itself coincidentally?

According to a paper I read in the BMJ some years ago, RSV can cause wheezing for up to 10 years and inhalers can help enormously until the child grows out of it. It doesn't matter what you call it. It doesn't have to be called asthma. It can be called post viral wheeze or post RSV wheeze. My son followed exactly this trajectory after being hospitalised with RSV bronchiolitis. In fact he needed his inhalers till he was about 12, then he gradually got better.

You can’t expect people who haven’t examined your child or have the necessary qualifications to be able to agree with you.

I hope your child feels much better very soon.

Your dr is right tho. Never give a baby a puff of an inhaler. Go private...go to a different gp, ask for a second opinion....anything, but don't make silly moves you might regret later.

My DD had bronchiolitis aged 6 months. Coughed for weeks and none of the treatments seemed to help. Ended up in hospital for a few nights as she was struggling to breathe and lips were turning blue.
They tried a few things which didn't help- In the end they used a blue inhaler( with a spacer) saying they didn't expect it to work. Immediate effect! She was quite chesty until she was about 4 and hasn't needed an inhaler since. ( Now 28)

When my son was 8 months old with viral wheeze he was given 10 puffs of salbutamol every few hours on the ward. This was 11 years ago though so has advice changed now?

Maybe less well known then. Might it have been ipratropium rather than salbutamol?

For comparison OP. My Dd had a wheeze at 8/9 months and coughed constantly as a baby. It was covid so despite numerous hospital admissions for breathing related difficulties all were considered viral (understandably). After two HDU hospital admissions in the space of about two months (with O2 levels below 90 each time) we were given inhalers. Initially blue for emergencies (so we could get to access care, safely) then adding brown for prevention. Now - aged 4.5 we are under the Asthma team. We have control for the most part using steroid inhalers (brown) but we still have multiple hospital HDU admissions per year (but have avoided ICU which is a win!).

I wish we didn’t need them: I hope we’ll grow out of them. I hate that she needs daily steroids - there’s a whole heap of side effects that are evidenced. For us the risks (ie. Having had hospital admissions with a blue floppy non breathing child) far outweigh the costs and we follow all advice. BUT we’re consultant and asthma nurse led. I’d never self administer. Inhalers are a medicine.

If you really believe your child needs them, keep attending the GP. Get an o2 reader and check their levels at various intervals. Collate your evidence. Keep asking. Inhalers can be a life changing treatment for a wheeze (and they have been for us) but they should be supervised (especially as one dose does very little!)

Possibly. I remember it being a blue inhaler through a spacer. It was a long time ago though! I remember it made him loopy!