Asthma

[naayie]

My three year old son has a severe egg allergy and was diagnosed with asthma at 12 months, I have seen a number of doctors, nurses and peadiatricians, he has recently been given a new green inhaler (he already has the blue and brown) and has been using it for about 6 weeks, but I have seen no significant improvement, I have singulair tablets but his peadiatrician did not want me to give him these yet, has anyone got any advice? I would like to send him privately, does anyone know any very good asthma specialists/clinics?

Thanks for reply cha - my sons got an appointment with his peadiatrician in a few weeks i will ask, maybe if i offer to pay he will give us one! Have you heard of singular tablets for asthmatics??

Found a site which gives info on the tablets, and it seems they are unsuitable for children under 6.

whats the site coppertop, i have the tablets and the leaflet with them says they are not suitable for children under two?

Aaaarrgh! Google keeps freezing up on me! The site I found was for a company called Global RX. I've just tried to see if other companies recommend it but Google keeps freezing up. If you type 'asthma singular tablets' you should get a long list of places. Maybe some are made for a lower dosage. Sorry I couldn't help.

Thanks for trying coppertop - i will look it up

My son took Singulair from the time he was almost 2 until he was almost 5. For him it was a miracle drug, but I've heard it doesn't work sometimes. You should know if it will work for your son within a few days. (This is good and bad: it works within a few days, but if you miss two days in a row, you're in for a horrid night.) He had no side effects. The paediatric form is 4mg (or was, at least) and the adult is 5mg. When we first moved to London he was 2 years 4 months old and they had not introduced the paediatric form yet, so he took the adult. No harm done and it kept him from having attacks and sleepless, snarfley nights. He's off it now as his breathing is much better.

Don't know if this will be of any help for any of your children but I'll mention it anyway. DD2 (18 now) was diagnosed as asthmatic when she was about 3 - started out on Ventolin syrup then graduated to various inhalers - she used to go to asthma clinic at the local health centre at regular intervals and had a peak-flow thing to test her lung capacity (?) regularly. I think in her early teens the inhalers she had were green/turquoise (?) and orange but she also had a purple one at some point. It used to get worse early in the year, possibly from tree pollen.

Obviously she wasn't as bad as some of the children mentioned here, never needed a nebuliser, but anyway when she was 7 she started playing flute and as that progressed the asthma gradually decreased - you need good breathing capacity to play the flute and apparently that made a difference. It could be that she grew out of it anyway, although she does still have allergic tendencies (ie eczema when she's run down) - but the flute definitely helped. So if any of your asthmatic children have musical tendencies it may be a way to go!

thanks JJ, think i will give it ago, i was just worried about side effects, does your son still suffer attacks?

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naayie, he does still have attacks and moreso than he did when he took the Singulair (he's been off of it for almost a year). But they are managable, fairly infrequent and he's sleeping well now, so we're not starting it again at the moment. It was a godsend for him while he needed it, though.

JJ - what made you decide to take him of it?
robinw - have you had your daughter allergy tested? my ds peadiatrician has told me that I should test his egg allergy myself as i have epipens (adrenalin, but it scares me!

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Naayie, we took him off it when he was ok at night without it. It's a total judgment call. Whatever works for you is what's right. Your situation will be different than mine, but I do think it's appropriate to give Singulair a try.

Again, you should know within a few days if it works.