What were your early signs of asthma?

[MadEyeWheezy]

Please see Tldr at the bottom of my post!!

Hi everyone. Ds is 18 months. He had bronchiolitis a few months ago (and a lot of other viral infections...) Since then he has had three episodes of viral induced wheezing. Every time we have to go to a n E as he struggles with is breathing and they give him an inhaler to use for a few days. This time one of the doctors said that usually kids who get repeated viral induced wheezes later turn out to have asthma. The doctor then left so I didn't get a chance to ask many questions but I'm so worried now. (He has never been admitted but the doctor said he would have been this time if a bed had been available as it took all night for his wheezing to improve even with the inhaler. He has never needed oxygen.)

Is this true? I've previously asked our GP about asthma and they said it's too early to diagnose but there is no link between his breathing difficulties now and asthma. Have you or has your child had repeated episodes of wheezing and was then diagnosed with asthma? Did they grow out of it? If they didn't how is it impacting their life?

Some people have also mentioned that Ds always sounds as if he is out of breath. (Even when he doesn't have a viral infection or after little exertion).

Maybe I'm overreacting and I know it's fairly common to he diagnosed with asthma as a child but I'm so sad for ds.

Tldr: Sorry, my post is all over the place with lots of questions. So to summarize my questions:

1. Did you have early warning signs (before age 5-6) of asthma and what were they?
2. Did you / your child have repeated episodes of virally induced wheezing for which they needed an inhaler?
3. Did your child grow out of the viral induced wheezes?
4. Did your child grow out of asthma?
5. If they didn't how did it / does it affect their life?
6. If your child had asthma did they seem to get out of breath easily as a toddler?
7. In the absence of asthma What made the wheezing worse. Were there any triggers?
8. If asthmatic what triggered asthma attacks?
9. Is there any way to prevent a child from developing asthma? (The only thing I've read is lots of exercise to strengthen their lungs.)

10. During a wheezing episode (with or without asthma) apart from the inhaler is there anything helped?

Thank you so much!!

Mine had a sniff/cough thing that drove me wild. He didn’t cough that much at night, no different to the day. He also had croup when he was about 5, not sure if that was relevant or not, he was already doing the sniff/cough then.
He is in his 20’s now and still has bath inhalers, but I don’t think he’s regularly taking them. He always (except for covid when we were wearing masks) gets a chest infection every winter and needs antibiotics/steroids.

*still has both inhalers

Oh, and there’s asthma/eczema/hay fever in the family.
He had eczema as a baby but grew out of it, and still has hay fever.

Do you mean he constantly had a cough without symptoms of a viral infection? Did the asthma stop him from doing any any activities? I guess it depends on how severe it is but I have an uncle (not blood related) and a cousin with asthma and they suffered a lot with it. I just don't want that for ds. I also had a friend as a child with asthma and back then she was told not to do many things that might trigger her asthma (including learning a music instrument as she might get too emotional and trigger an asthma attack)

Thanks for your replies. Ds had cradle crap and DD had eczema as a baby. My brother has severe hay fever but there is no one else in the family with asthma.

Did he get side effects from the steroids?

No

Yes, he would cough and sniff.
No, it didn’t stop anything. Exercise is encouraged.

My DD coughed in the night and kept getting chest infections that were tough to shift, she was given a steroid inhaler when she was four and it helped, we also used a cool air mist humidifier in her room to help with the cough, she's now seven and has a stronger Inhaler again due to recurrent chest infections and has been loads better since. She was under the hospital for two years and has recently been discharged. Asthma nurse said that if they grow out of it, it's likely to be when they are teenagers. Otherwise she's fine, has a blue inhaler at school which she has before PE and also if she needs it, like when she has a cold. Doesn't impact us otherwise, hers is allergy related, she was tested and is allergic to grass and dust, not a lot we can do there.

My DS, now almost 5, from around 15 months to around 3 years old was in and out of hospital with viral induced wheezes. Every cough or cold he had would result in a hospital stay. It was so stressful. Sent away with blue inhaler.

We were told that he would more than likely develop asthma and low chance of growing out of it. It's in the family on both sides too.

Eventually he was given a brown inhaler and assigned an asthma nurse. We weened him off the brown inhaler once we got the viral induced wheezes under control. And now I can't remember the last time I gave him the blue inhaler.

He doesn't wheeze with a cold or cough anymore and doesn't struggle with daily activities. He did grow out of it!

It was a distressing time, but we did make it out the other side. From our experience.. the brown inhaler was life changing.