Treating a baby with suspect asthma/viral wheeze

[strawberrycornetto]

I wonder if anyone can give me a bit of advice on this issue.

My DS had bronchiolitis and pneumonia twice between the beginning of November and Christmas. He's been left very wheezy most of the time. For the last few days, he's been really well but he does still wake up coughing a few times a night on average.

We've seen a specialist who prescribed both a salbutamol reliever inhaler and singulair, which I understand to be a form of preventer which is especially useful where asthma is related to allergies. DS does have several food allergies and eczema. He suggested trying the singulaur for the next two weeks to see if it helps.

I spoke to our GP who has been really helpful over the course of the last few months. His view was that there wasn't any point trying the singulair now because he's not currently unwell so we won't be able to tell if it is helping and for now just to use the salbutamol if he is actually wheezy. He said that if he has a viral wheeze rather than an allergy induced asthma, its probably not the right treatment, which seems logical given that this has all been triggered by the bronciolitis and pneumonia.

I just wondered if anyone has been in a similar situation and what you had done or been advised to do? I will probably call the consultant too and see what he thinks but it does get confusing when professionals disagree and i'd be interested to know what kind of treatment other people have had? If your DC has singulair, do they take it all the time or just when they are actually unwell. If its a preventer medication, I am assuming he may need it even if he's not wheezing. None of the doctors want to say asthma, and I understand why, but I do want to make sure I am giving him the best treatment. I don't have any personal experience of asthma (until now ) and it seems very confusing.

How old is your DS ?

If he is coughing at night, that is probably due to the same cause as his wheeze, so a preventer is a good thing to use at this point.

My DS has the same sort of issues - bronchiolitis followed by lots of coughing and then pneumonia (plus a small part of his lung collapsed through clogging). Our consultant was great, but I've found the GP's not to be very good with this as they aren't quite sure what to do.

We use DS's preventer when he starts getting wheezy/coughing a lot, his salbutamol as needed, and are currently having a bash with pseudoephidrine elixir at night to reduce his mucusy night time coughing - which is actually going very well

My DS is 11 months old. It does sound really similar, he also had a collapsed lung. The consultant was very good and he is the expert so I am inclined to follow his advice, but I can also see the logic of not knowing if a medicine has worked if he wasn't wheezing to start out with. But then I guess there is still the coughing, particularly at night.

What is the pseudoephidrine elixir?

Follow the consultant's advice.

Taking the singulair when he's well will reduce the reaction in his lungs when he does encounter a virus. We were told that it takes longer than two weeks to really show an effect but I have to say, since being on it ds2's attacks have reduced dramatically in severity and frequency.

He was initially diagnosed with viral-induced wheeze after bronchiolitis when he was a week old, at four we this was changed to asthma, although his attacks are only triggered by viruses.

That's interesting Weblette. Am I right in thinking that viral wheeze is just a kind of asthma which is triggered by a virus rather than, say, by an environmental allergen?

Does your DS take singulair all the time? The research I've done suggests is a really good treatment and that GPs can be a bit reluctant to prescribe it as its expensive.

Our consultant said that the winter was a good time to start a preventer due to the no of viruses going round, but that he wouldn't start one in the summer with a little one as they were likely to be able to get through without it.

My DS mostly coughs at night, and is actually quite bad by the time he wheezes in the day - consultant said most probs in little ones are mucus over production rather than twitchy airways, so they block up and a wheeze is mostly just the airway getting narrowed by the blockage.

The pseudoephidrine is Sudafed basically and dries all the secretions up - DS is a very runny generally, and does have problems with his adenoids too, so it's dealing with two problems in one

He'll be on it for some time to come - he's 4 now. He has attacks all year round. With 3 siblings, there's always some bug in our house! As I said, it has made a huge improvement, but doesn't stop him having attacks - he's recovering from one atm.

I couldn't say much about the difference between the two tbh, I'm not sure how they distinguish when it moves from one into the other. I need to do more googling I think!