parents of asmatic toddlers?

[haven]

do you have control over it?
Do they have allegies?
Do they get sick frequently?
Do they weeze alot? outloud, or with stethescope?

ds ,2, has diagnosed asthma, and allergies. he gets sick still quite frequently. i get happy with 2-3 weeks going by with no symptoms. but, sometimes he'll weeze for a seck, then nothing, then weeze then nothing. i actually had a doctor tell me one time, that they found it hard to believe that ds had been sounding that way out in the room, but now he wasn't. insinuating that i was exagerating!!! anywas wondering about all of the above.

Hiya

We have control of dd's asthma at the mo yes

As far as I know she has no allergies

By sick to you mean ill or actual being sick ??
When dd gets a cold which is alot then she is physically sick alot.

Dd doesn't wheeze out loud very often at all. She tends to have sudden coughing fits where she cannot catch her breath and is then sick.

dd1 has been asthmatic since before she was one. she has many allergies, atm her asthma is not under controlat all, she wheezes each day, she now has 4 puffs on her brown inhalor instead of 2, tweice a day and 2 of blue extra if wheezing. the air quality is pretty poor atm and this is setting hers off. she does cough and is sick at times. btw she is now 5, it does get easier as you notice the signs quicker.

I accidentally cleared my life long bad asthma by coming off wheat and dairy. I did so in sympathy with my son who's intolerant. I've now been drug free for Four months after twenty years of steroids and bronchio-dliators. No doctor ever suggested it was diet related. Doctors rarely look into diets.

just a quick question.... sorry to hijack this thread
Do your children use a spacer?
What would you do if they didn't want to use one?
I saw nephew yesterday, he's 5, and he doesn't/won't use a spacer... he doesn't breath in propely and the mist escapes throught the top... then my brother moans that his asthma is out of control

he has either got to use the spacer, or lean how to use the inhalor properly without one.

ds asthma seems to be under control for a week or so. then from out the blue, sinus infections, and chest congestion, and so on... he has alot of allergies, but we are always around the same things. i feel bad for him sometimes,well all the time. he can't be a boy. maybe a day or so. when when spend to much time outside, he gets sick for atleast two weeks. then he gets stuck in the house.

DD (age 3) gets asthma attacks almost every time she gets a cold. She doesn't seem to have any other triggers, and she is absolutely fine in between times.

It's very easy to hear her wheezing and she also gets recession in between her ribs and around her neck. Any time there's a hint of a wheeze, we start her on her blue inhaler.

She's been in hospital 3 times this year already - last time 2 weeks ago for 3 days, on IV Salbutamol and hourly nebs.

Rummum,

We use a spacer with DD. She has an Aerochamber which is very easy to use.

Your nephew might be more willing to use an Aerochamber rather than the bulky things they get from the hospital. He could use the orange one with the face mask, or the blue one with the mouthpiece.

I got the impression that spacers are beneficial to everyone, not just small children (obviously they are crucial to small children though).

DS2 (nearly 4 now) has had asthma brought on by colds since 13 months. We had two hospitalisations in his second year (hourly nebs and oxygen to start with), but since he turned 2 and went onto daily Flixotide (fluticasone), Singulair (montelukast, non-steroidal preventer - chewable tablet) and Serevent (salmeterol - long-acting beta agonist, and also non -steroidal preventer)he hasn't been hospitalised. As he gets older his attacks seem to get less severe (touching wood) though he does still wheeze with every cold.
When he was under two I really didn't feel that his asthma was well controlled, and he was having bad attacks needing 4 - 6 hourly nebulisations every 4 -6 weeks (every time he got a cold). Our home nebuliser kept us out of hospital lots of times, and I feel lucky we were living in Singapore where the doctor recommended home nebulisation and also prescribed the Singualair and the Serevent, which might not routinely be prescribed to little ones in the UK. Don't know how easy it is to get home nebulisers in the UK.

ds, uses nebulizer several times daily on most days. what age could a child start using a spacer to get the meds. ds is two so he gets impatient when he starts to feel better. a spacer seems like it would take much less time to accomplish the same goals.

They should be using a spacer from the start.

how? from what i know about a spacer they should know how to hold in their breath.

they just need to beable to have the mask held over their face.My ds used to be unco-operative with space inhaler or aerochamber but has improved a lot he is 2.5 now and gets wheezy with colds.We can hear his wheezing ,can see him using all his accessory muscles to breathe ie. shoulders up,unable to talk properly.
He has had to be hospitalized once ,but we need a nebulizer at the surgery occassionaly.

He has allergies to tree nuts and eggs,no hayfever.

hello, just reading through and I suppose I should start taking my ds2s astham seriously, he is a wheezer when he has a cold or cough like many of yours. I did ventalin for 6 weeks as the gp instructed then just forgot about it, which wasn't very sensible.

He has a cough because of a low immune system due to the chickenpox and I am such a bad mummy I cna't find the rubber face mask thing for the apparatus. Can I give the ventalin to him through is mouth?

God I really should get my act together but i'm in denial I suppose

no you're not a bad mummy suzywong.
My ds was initially prescribed ventolin only and I just gave it too him when he coughed a lot or soundded wheezy.

he has become a lot worse this spring summer hence I have become vigilant,you will take it seriously if it's serious,you won't be questioning it cause you'll realise it's more serious.
Don't know if I've explained my thoughts very well there....clear as mud!

thanks polly28
so do they grow out of it?

We don't have allergies or asthma any where else in the famil. The doctor thinks it could be brought on by the strange and ancient pollens from the wheat fields down here in Western Australia. I worry that it was pushing him up and down bloody Archway road when we lived in London

I know! No history of any allergies or asthma in my family either.We live in the country southern england.

My personal thery is its all the immunisations we give our kids ,plays havoc with their immune system.I can't back this up with impressive scientific stuff but hey that's my tuppence worth.

don't think air quality is that relevant in the cause,it probaly makes it worse if you've already got it.
Doesn't New Zealand have a high rate of asthma and very clean air quality?

Haven, they just breathe normally when using a spacer.

I think you might be thinking of a peak flow meter, which they can't really use until about age 5. This is to assess how bad their asthma is.

A spacer is simply a large space or volume between the inhaler and their mouth/nose. The purpose of it is to allow the medicine droplets to disperse evenly in a quantity of air so that they can then just breathe normally.

Suzywong,

I was in denial until DD was called for cystic fibrosis testing. I'd take asthma over that any day.

We have no risk factors whatsoever.

You should be able to buy a spacer at your pharmacy. They aren't expensive.

what is better. nebulizer or using a spacer? ds has always used a neb.

Air quality is terrible in NZ, lots of open fires in the winter with wet wood, lots of spores from ferns in spring and autumn and heaps of agricultural chemicals being sprayed in everything in summer. It's probably worse than the UK and in Christchurch it is frequently 10 times worse than the WHO limits.

Yes we have lots of fresh air - but sadly not where people actually live. The clean green thing is a myth.

Ameriscot2005----

what actually caused your child to get tested?

ds battles with chest infections twenty-four-seven, i had to have his stools tested as he was passing so much mucous...

Research says that a nebuliser has the same efficacy as a MDI + spacer.

To get tested for CF? I think it is routine for children with chest problems in my health authority - not that I knew that at the time.