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General health

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Original poster

Croup attack last night - scared the life out of us, any advice anyone?

10 replies

mummyplonk · 11/04/2008 19:21

DS (3 yrs old) was as fit as a fiddle yesterday, had a great day, woke up at 10pm coughing & gasping we ran to his room and found him on the floor, could hardly breathe, bulging eyes, lips blue and very pale, it was awfull. Ambulance was brilliant was here in a few minutes, regulated his breathing, then 2nd one can with more drugs & experienced paramedic and gave him steroids to have for the next 3 days. It was so scary for the poor little lad.

Does anyone know what the chances of this are happening again tonight? or is it usually a one off, he was absolutely fine today not even a single cough, am sat here with the baby monitor on full blast, the paramedics said to just watch out for it and call 999 if it happens again. Has this happened to any of your LO's? x

OP posts:

gagarin · 11/04/2008 19:25

When younger yes - I sat in a steamy bathroom and all was fine though sounded terrifying.

Didn't come back the next night - it was always a one off.

Hope yours is too.

ScienceTeacher · 11/04/2008 19:27

It could happen again tonight. We found that it would happen for around three nights.

The best treatment is humidity. You can try preventitive treatment by running a humidifier in his room, or putting a bowl of water on a radiator. If you can't do this, and he has an attack, take him into the bathroom and run the bath or shower with hot water. If you do this, be very vigilant as you don't want to fall asleep and fall into the bath with him.

Is he on prednisilone (the pink tablets)? These kick in fairly quickly, so if he has another attack, it should be a lot milder.

canadianmum · 11/04/2008 19:32

Hope it's a one off - but definitely try to get a humidifier going in his room, it can't hurt.

Original poster

mummyplonk · 11/04/2008 19:32

Thanks gagarin & scienceteacher, yes he has had 2 x doses of 20mg of Prednisolone with one more to go. I have put wet flannels on his radiator with a bit of albas oil (I hope this was the right thing to do?), good to know if he does have another may not be as bad, can relax slightly a bit now and eat for the first time today.

OP posts:

summer111 · 11/04/2008 19:41

my ds used to get attacks of croup roughly twice a year until she was aged 7 - they always were precipitated by a headcold and would last a week or two in duration. Humid air is helpful as is cold air - I would stand by an open bedroom window with her breathing in the cold air and that seemed to do the trick. It is very frightening but once you are used to it, you do learn to relax.

ScienceTeacher · 11/04/2008 19:44

It's horrible, mummyplonk, especially because it hits you at night when you are half-asleep. The good news is that your LO will grow out of croup as he gets bigger.

dippica · 11/04/2008 19:54

Yes, really scary. We were at Centre Parcs and couldn't raise their "24 hour" first aid office. Called NHS direct who eventually phoned us back with the same instructions - humidity, basically, and he calmed right down. Right as rain the next day (we were exhausted!). Was coughing and spluttering again the next night, but not nearly so bad.

Hope he's OK.

Tiggerish · 11/04/2008 20:04

ds had this aged about 4.8 He woke up about midnight with the classic cough and unable to breath etc. but also with 2 black eyes. scared the life out of us. He was admitted to hospital overnight as a precaution but was fine. They gave him some meds for the following night to prevent a recurrence and he was fine.

summer111 · 12/04/2008 16:37

dippica - I found your problem with the 24hr first aid office at Centre Parcs interesting as we experienced the same problem there about 4 years ago when ds was unwell. It was terrible as we needed to get him to hospital but couldn't get to our car... eventually they did manage to summon help for us and were very repentent afterwards, sending ds a soft toy along with a letter of apology for the incident

tissy · 12/04/2008 17:02

dd had this when she was 2. I was terrified that she'd inhaled something (though nothing had been in her cot but her dummy, and that was intact!). Ambulance took 40 mins to get to us and of course by the time it arrived we had been standing outside for some time, and dd happily waved at the ambulance men when they hurried towards us.....moral of the story is that very cold air can work as well, as it shrinks the swollen tissue in the larynx!

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