Going to back to school with asthma

[Nell925]

I just wondered if anyone has sent their child back to school. My DD is in Y6 and has moderate asthma (daily user of a preventer inhaler and very occasional use of reliever) and I can't seem to get any definitive answer on whether this puts her at higher risk of getting more severe symptoms.. Would just be interested to hear your opinions. Thank you in advance.

I believe Asthma UK has useful information on this.

I don't think asthma is risk factor for children. As long as it's controlled. I think covid is usually very mild in children therefore wouldn't effect it. My son is back in school and he's 7 with asthma, same as your daughter uses preventor and only occasionally reliever. I'm not concerned.

My 6 yo nephew has moderate asthma and he has spent weeks in ICU with it. Usually he just needs his blue puffer in the Winter. I take preventer and Montelukast and my GP said to work from home.

You need to speak to the child's Gp. My son is seasonal like me, viruses make it worse but with the clenil and blue he's ok and never been in hospital.

A child who has been In icu I'd be concerned about. My son's Gp said he was absolutely fine to go back; my own risks would be different depending on other factors. Ironically I think we'd both be better now, I fear the winter.

My ds (9)and I both have mild/moderate asthma. On a daily preventer. We had covid in March/April (untested) he was wheezy for 3 days now fine. I’m still chesty and wheezy 11 weeks later.

same here. no advice to give, we are still undecided.

Sorry to hear that ipanema. I hope it clears soon. Do you have a long acting bronchodilator?

That's what our GP was saying effectively. Children are ok. Though a friend with asthma (and her dh) were ok with it and their son (no asthma) was unwell for a good 3 weeks, high temps for 10 days.

Our Gp said it's a very weird disease.

NeurotrashWarrior no I don’t. I’m going to ring my gp today as I was quite breathless in the night.

My son's consultant said that he was only very minimally more at risk than any other child as he hasn't been on oral steroids or in hospital for over a year. Tbh he is at risk from any cough and cold anyway (and he has brittle asthma a bog standard cold nearly put him in PICU), so probably much safer atm as there are less of these doing the rounds. Only thing I would do is make sure that the teacher is aware of any cough. His consultant said we need to look for a change to his usual cough rather than a cough in general

Ip it may be that you need an asthma review and a different inhaler considered.

My son's got asthma but it's controlled. He's at school now 4 days a week in the key worker bubble (so could potentially get it) but we don't feel worry as barely any children have been badly effected. We'd rather get covid now (if we haven't already) than in winter time. We feel the risk is very low and the risk to his mental health to keeping him at home all the time is greater. He is otherwise healthy though.

OP - I think the answer you’re looking for is in this study. Controlled asthma raises risk by 11% once other factors are taken into account. So given that she is a child (1 in 3m risk), and female (half the risk of males), it is a ~10% increase in a really negligible risk.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20092999v1.full.pdf