7 months of wheezing and coughing in now 1 year old

[cmotdibbler]

My just 1 year old had bronchiolitis in November, and has been wheezing and coughing ever since (he sounds like a 50 a day smoker), and gets very out of breath. He also wakes himself up coughing approx 8 times per night.
He's been on an Atrovent inhaler for 4 months which does help a bit, and a chest X-ray 5 weeks ago showed pneumonia for which he had 10 days of antibiotics. That really helped for about 3 weeks, but he's gone right back to where we started. We're just waiting for the latest x-ray results to come back now.
GP opinions have varied from 'you just have to live with it', 'must be asthma', 'can't be asthma - he's too young', to 'he's just had one cold after another - what do you expect if he goes to nursery'.

I have no idea what to do next, and hope that someone might have some advice or experience to share.

cmot, that sounds so hard - I'm sorry you and your ds are going through it. My dd had bronchiolitis in December, at just 4 weeks old, and was very ill with it - but hasn't been too bad since; on the other hand, my friend's ds had it at the same time, but was far less ill, but is now very prone to chest infections and coughed a lot up until recently.

I did see a couple of posts from MNers whose LOs had asthma as babies (I asked about hayfever in babies). It sounded a lot like that - coughing at night, wheezy, prone to infections. So 'too young' is clearly not necessarily the case.

Can your GP refer you to the paediatricians/a specialist? I think I would ask for that, if they haven't already - bronchiolitis followed by pneumonia is a lot.

Sorry not more help, at least am bumping in for you....

DS and DD were diagnosed with Asthma from 18 months old. DD has suffered with hayfever from 9 months old, she also has allergies, and has done so from an early age. MY GP expressed the 'she is too young for Hayfever' - but soon changed his mind when we kept going back with her eyes swollen and running and nose running. My DD is on ventolin and becotide and is 3.5 now and it is mostly controlled - if she has a cold - it will kick the Astmna off again - so will cold and damp weather, do keep going back as the night coughing disturbs them so, that's all I can advise really - post was just to assure you that the 'too young' comment is not true.

Good luck

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Do go back to your g.p and be reffered to a peadiatrician or respitory specialist. It's obviously not right and needs checking what ever age. You do unfortunatly really have to push g.p's to get anywhere with treatment and referals sometimes but if you know your LO isn't well then it's worth it. Good Luck i hope he feel's better soon. xxx

Ds2 had bronchiolitis at 5months and had asthma from then on. RSV bronchiolitis is known to cause wheezing for up to ten years.
Why anybody should say that a child is too young to have asthma is beyond me. Luckily ds2 was put on a reliever and a preventer before the age of one, it took a few changes to get a combination that suited him, but he is 16 now, and pretty well, but still has the inhalers around just in case.

You definitely need a referral to a paediatric chest physician. The sooner this gets managed properly, the better.

Good Luck.

My ds is the same, he had pneumonia at a few days old and bronchiolitis at seven weeks, and has had a very weak chest since birth (he's now 11 months).

He's on all sorts of meds, including continuous AB's, and we're seeing a resp specialist for tests.

I really think you should get a referral, a specialist might try things like a steroid inhaler, or Singulair, a drug which works wonders in some children (unfortunately not in ds).