should I worry about croup in a 10 year old?

[basildonbond]

ds2 has had a horrible cold for several days now and he's now developed croup (he had it 2 or 3 times as a toddler)

other than nurofen/calpol to keep his temp down and general tlc is there anything else I should be doing? He doesn't need to go to the doctor does he? obviously I'll make sure he doesn't go blue!

It's more likely to be laryngitis in an older child then croup, it's the same thing though and has the same treatment; none unless it's severe (he can't talk). Give him plenty to drink, do pop to the GP if you are worried or if anything changes though.

thanks - he's doing that seal cough - is that not croup at his age then?

It is croup, it's just not called croup (I know, it's stupid). Ds had an attack when he was 8, he needed hospital treatment and the consultant did say that older children do get croup but it's called laryngitis, it's the same thing, inflammation of the larynx.

If he's struggling for breath alongside the barking cough, this might help.

If you want to look into it further there's loads of official sites on Buteyko, as well as books on Amazon, but this gives a quick recap of the method.

It's mainly used to help asthmatics, but can also help with a panic attack or shortness of breath.

I used it with DS then aged 7, who was having a croup attack, struggling to breathe and panicking, and it calmed him down and got his breathing back to normal.

If you do try this, the relevant section to help with an attack would be the shallow breathing.

My ds, 12, gets croup - they still call it that in the a&e in our neck of the woods! We have an inhaler now for him to use when he gets a cough to try and stop it developing.

Sorry that link just goes to paypal . If you google Andrew Murphy Buteyko you'll find instructions for the method, otherwise the official sites want you to sign up for workshops, which I don't think is what you want atm!

thanks all - he's not struggling for breath at the moment, just thoroughly miserable, but when he got it when he was little it got worse at night so I'll keep a close eye on him

gah! I'm going stir crazy! ds1 was off 4 days last week, ds2's been sick since Thursday, dh is away (of course!) and I'm just waiting for dd to come down with something