My child gets way too many colds, really worried...

[bunny85]

My older son is nearly 6, but he still gets sick very often, and I mean every 2-3 weeks he gets a cold. Sniffles with or without a cough which then clear out on their own, but the frequency makes me worried. I'm going to ask the GP about it when I get an appointment, but just wanted to see if anybody else's child has this? I know they say children get sick a lot but it just seems very often to me, or I am (hopefully) wrong? Thank you.

I think its normal for the number of viruses doing the rounds this year.

Sounds normal to me and my eldest is almost seven.

Sounds about normal I'm afraid.

Could it be an allergy? Do you have pets?

My first thought was allergy as well. My brother suffers from a dust allergy and he can be very sniffly.

Sounds normal.

I reckoned at 5 and 6 my child had a new illness ( sore throat generally) once a month. Didn't always miss a lot of school as it might peak over the weekend so just one day off or in a holiday week. Visited gp who said nothing to be done.
It did become far less frequent until by secondary it's dropped right off.

I've been wondering about allergy for a long time, but then why does he get runny nose first, then (often) a cough, and then it all goes away? With allergy I'd expect it to be a permanent thing? We don't have any pets and even had all the carpets removed a few years ago for this very reason. However he had his tonsils and adenoids removed two years ago, and after the surgery I think the colds became even more frequent..

Sounds completely normal

Sounds like my 6 and 3 year old at the moment.

… my son has the same issue highlighted by the amount of covid tests he’s had for coughs that start like this and are really frequent- he’s now been referred for an asthma assessment. Might be worth considering x

My dd9 has had a cough for 6 weeks that isn't budging, she also gets colds galore that go and come back again. It's so frustrating. She was checked over a couple of weeks ago and they said just wait and see!!

Sounds normal.

Horribly, horribly normal.

@Genevie82

… my son has the same issue highlighted by the amount of covid tests he’s had for coughs that start like this and are really frequent- he’s now been referred for an asthma assessment. Might be worth considering x

My son was the same, it did turn out to be asthma.

Yes I was going to suggest asthma, I get far fewer colds (or get them much more mildly) since I got mine properly under control.

Normal, unfortunately.

Because of the cough, may be worth checking for asthma.

It's not normal for my family tbh , my son goes to a sn school and there are always illness going round and he hardly ever gets unwell..
what are you worried about though? Some people are just more resilient to germs than others .

It might be worth getting it checked out? As others say it could be asthma?

But it could also be time of year? My 18 year old was always poorly at nursery eventually got over that hump and when she started school was very rarely ill & I think had near on 100% attendance at school BUT since September has had a constant cold bug tonsillitis & now chest infections - she’s on her second course of antibiotics! After only ever been on one set over the last 10 years! I think lockdown and lack of exposure has knocked her immune system completely!

DS1 was like this, particularly the winter he was 3. He was rarely well. Constant colds that nearly always developed into coughs and one ran into the next. I took him to the doctor as I was worried he had some sort of immunity problem. He was tested for some iron and vitamin deficiencies but everything came back normal. The GP said that preschool children have an average of 10 respiratory infections per year. He's now 7 and still prone to coughs when he has a cold (no asthma as far as we know) but doesn't seem to catch so many colds any more thankfully although obviously the covid measures now make it hard to compare.