Coughing in the night (a lot) but not during the day.... any ideas?

[fryalot]

ds has been up every night for about a week with a ridiculously bad cough. It's waking him up and keeping him up for an hour or so, by which time he's wide awake and wants to play (grr!)

He does get asthma, but when he's coughing he isn't wheezing - could it be connected?

I don't have a car till Wednesday so can't take him to the docs, and I'm not sure what the doc will do as he is absolutely fine during the day.

Should I be giving him his inhaler? (I have been doing, but it doesn't seem to make an immediate difference - maybe he's better than he would be without it though?)

It's not a chesty cough, or a particularly irritating throaty cough, it's just a cough - that goes on for hours.

Any ideas?

The Fourth bear is even harder to explain, but really funny.

At 2.6 he won't be able to use a peak flow meter properly - I think they need to be 7 before it really works, which is why they won't normally diagnose asthma at that age.

We sort of told our new GP that we needed to start steroids with DS - but he had seen a consultant at the start of the summer who said that he would need to start them if things didn't just improve naturally over the summer, as they apparently often do in small children.

oooo sorry didn't read he was 2.6! (didn't have much sleep last night duh)

(depends on kid - some are very good at using peak flow from about 4)
you don't need a peak flow meter to diagnose asthma, history alone can be enough, but it helps.
asthma can be diagnosed much earlier than 7. often the term "pre school wheezer" is used until about 4/5, becasue it is harder to differentiate between true asthma and viral induced wheeze. the treatment is largely the same but he will grow out of viral induced wheeze as his airways get bigger.

asthma is more likely if there is a family history of atopy (athma/eczema/hayfever), and they can get wheezy with or without a cold and viral induced wheeze ONLY occurs with colds.

they diagnosed his asthma after about four trips to the doc with me saying that he had been very wheezy in the night but seemed ok now.

The docs eventually referred us to the asthma clinic who gave me an inhaler and basically said that if it worked, he had asthma, if it didn't work, it wasn't asthma.

It works.

His coughing did seem better with the inhaler last night, but it didn't stop it. Then again, it may have gone on for longer without it...

I shall take him to the docs and ask for a brown inhaler, or at the very least for another appointment with the asthma clinic.

tbh, a lot of the time, they are really feeling their way with treatment ... I have been on all sorts of preventer drugs through the years, and have only now, at the ripe old age of 37, found one that totally suits me (Symbicort, if you're in the slightest bit interested )

DS is 5, and not asthmatic, and his night-time cough was never productive - just persistent, and he was on all sorts of meds to dry him out.

We stopped them just last week - he'd been under the ent team at the hospital, and they suggested we stop his meds for about 3 days every month or so to see if he'd grown out of his snottiness ... anyway, this time he had

that has nothing to do with your ds, I know ...

I'd push for a referral to the hospital asthma clinic tbh - 2.6 is very young to be basically given an inhaler and told to get on with it ....

hmmmm
i'm sure the gp can deal with this
not many "feel their way"
there is an evidenced based ladder of treatment with NICE guidance.
asthma & viral induced wheeze in kids is common and gps are used to dealing with it, esp as he's already had a diagnosis from hospital

by the way does presuming he uses a spacer?

good luck!

Asthma tends to make them cough more at night, that's one of the signs. Dd has asthma and so do I, she has phases where she will be coughing all night long and sometimes without a wheeze.

She had to have oral steroids recently because she got quite bad and was having trouble breathing.

She has a brown and blue inhaler. Brown is used morning and night and blue when needed.

luvaduck, the op has been given an inhaler for her lo, and told "if it works, it's asthma, if it doesn't it's not" ... doesn't seem like a very evidence-based course of treatment to me!

My own experience has shown me that treatment needs to be tweaked to suit the individual.

and 2.6 is awfully young to be let to their own devices with the child's treatment.

wasn't suggesting OP left to own devices to manage asthma!
just that there are very clear guidelines about management of asthma in childhood (british thoracic society/NICE) and the Gp will be able to move up to the next level, without referring on to asthma clinic. A couple of the steps have one or two different options for treatment and yes, it may have to be tweaked a bit to see which suits individual best.