Mums of children with asthma please talk to me.

[Disenchanted3]

Me and all 3 of my sisters had asthma when younger, we all grew out of it in our teens, my uncle and several other family members have had it.

Ever since he was born DS has been 'chesty' he always has a cough, rattly chest. He gets blue lips really easily when cold. We were told he had croup as a baby etc..

DD is the same, but my eldest is not.

I have a double appointment today for them as they both have awful chests again (DD was only there 2 weks ago for the same thing) should I query asthma?

How do they go about finding out if it could be this? DOES it sound like it could be this?

Im sick of all the coughing and chestyness and people always saying 'ooh what a poorly chest , you should take them to the GPs' etc

DS always has alot of mucas build up and also says it 'hurts' when he coughs.

I would question it, they may well send you away with a peak flow chart and meter to check their 'puff' every morning and an appointment with the asthma nurse to check the results out before prescribing inhalers.

How old are they? Dd2 has 'queried' asthma down on her notes and can get inhalers when she has a cold, but they cannot diagnose asthma untill the child is about 5 or 6.

It certainly won't hurt to mention it though.

Ah I see, might be difficult with the 10 month old!

Can I ask, do any of your kids have asthma?

I honestly can't remember having it and feel a bit of a twit suggesting this may be the origin of the problem without someone claryfying that the above does in fact sound like it could be it.

3yrs and baby is 10 months shiney.

I'll mention it anyway so its on 'file'

Asthma is generally worse during the night and first thing on a morning.

It does sound like it is possible asthma and it is hereditary, but untill they are old enough to a peak flow, they won't formally diagnose.

If they do think it is asthma there are steps you can take to try and reduce the symptoms without inhalers i.e. leave the window open a touch in their rooms, use anti allergy pillows and hoover matresses often and leave a damp cloth over the radiator in there room to moisten the air a little. Central heating can dry the air and make asthma worse.

Thankyou shiney it most definatly worse at night and morning,

at 2am last night DH and I jumped out of bed and ran into DSs room as he sounded like he was choking and vomiting but he was just coughing and bringing up lots of throat gunkyness

Hiya,

Both DD and DS are on antibiotics as she said they have crackles on their chest,

she also took some family history and gave DS an inhaler and spacer to use whilst his chest is bad.

I'll keep an eye on his chest whilst hes on and see if theres any improvement.

Thanks

My ds has had a cough since he was born, it gets worse when he has a cold. My dd has never shown any symptoms of possible asthma. Then last week they both had a cold and a cough, a couple of days after it started my dd was coughing so much she was being sick.. My ds then started wheezing so much he was moaning in discomfort.. I managed to get him seen by a GP at the end of surgery who told me he had bronchitis and a chest infection and prescribed antibiotics and an inhaler. That evening my dd's breathing become so rapid (she was whimpering trying to sleep, it was awful ) Df took her to the out of hours doctor who diagnosed a chest infection and antibiotics. By about 5am she was breathing so rapidly we spoke to the out of hours doctor again and they said to take her straight to the childrens ward. By 8am my ds's breathing was so bad I phoned an ambulance and we joined my df and dd at the hospital. After a succesion of nebulisers, inhalers and monitoring they were discharged that evening with inhalers, advice on asthma, told to bin the antibiotics and told to make them both an appointment with the asthma nurse at our surgery. They did explain that they don't actually 'diagnose' asthma until they are about 5, but I think they are pretty much saying my two did suffer from asthma (which was triggered by a viral infection). Dd is 3 and ds is 16 months. If at any point you are worried about your kids breathing, please take them to A&E as my GP actually had phoned the next day to check how my ds was doing as he had almost admitted him the night before... Now I also know he gave me crap advice referring the inahler he prescribed ds (told me to put 4 squirts in spacer and keep on for 2 mins..) I can't tell you how glad I am I took them to hospital, I now have the correct advice on giving their inhalers and I was told a fantastic way to hold ds to give him his as was finding it so hard to keep him still on my own.

My son has the same type of symptoms when he gets a virus and has had to go to A&E and have the nebulisers, steroids to open the airways etc. The hospital called it a 'viral wheeze'. I've been told that lots of children do grow out of it before they reach an age where it is officially diagnosed as asthma.

Thanks wimp,

Will def keep a close eye on things,

her breathng seems fine at the moment, DS is a bit down, a bit weepy and tired but started the anti biotics this morning and DS had his inhaler last night.

Will definatly keep a very close eye on them over the next few days,

thankyou again.