Viral induced wheeze ; Asthma or no Asthma

[Arjess88]

Hi everyone, my dc had a viral induced wheeze a couple of times in the last few weeks with low oxygen, that required A&E visits (given salbutamol and steroids). But dc is not asthmatic. Does anybody’s children had viral induced wheeze and no asthmatic or later diagnosed asthmatic?

My DS suffered terribly with VIW from 6 months to about 4 years. He’s still
under paeds but has been off his preventer inhaler now for almost a year. It’s looking like he doesn’t have asthma and he now sees a cold off without needing salbutamol. There are some really supportive fb groups if you need to talk - it can be so stressful every time they have a cold.

My dc has had this her whole life. She’s 8 now. Only when she gets a a cough cold. Fine in the summer months and no signs of asthma. It’s getting better and better each year. We use blue inhaler a few times per year.

Following as my son (4) has had 2 admissions to hospital with viral induced wheeze in the last year, the second time it turned out he aslo had pneumonia. We have a blue inhaler but were told only to use it when he gets a very bad cough/is wheezing. I have asked the doctors about asthma but they said it could go either way really, he may/may not have it. It confuses me and I really dread him getting a cold/cough :(

My 13-year-old DD has become wheezy when she's had a cold/cough for the past year or so. She had a chest infection one time and needed antibiotics to clear it up. Sats down to 95%.

She's on a preventer inhalere once a day and a blue inhaler when needed (never, since she started the preventer).

I'm not actually sure if she has asthma or not (the dr was non-comittal on this) but assume she has.

So if using Salbutamol inhaler, do you use it as soon as they get a cold or if they are congested/breathing issues ? How many puffs generally; just wanted to know how everyone manages it; not a medical query :)

anybody

Have you contacted your GP about it? Viral induced wheeze is very common (a third of children get it) and there's a pathway for managing it - if you've had more than one episode of it you should probably see your GP and get on that. The GP or asthma nurse will explain what to look out for when escalation is required e.g. the rib sucking breathing, and when to use which inhaler. For my friends now 4yo he was given a brown preventer after the first few times, and uses that all through cold season, then uses the blue inhaler if he has a cold/cough and it's a set number of doses from 10 puffs every 4 hours then spacing out.

Children's A&E has a "wheezy corner" for kids during cold season! My sister is a doctor and the way she explained it, small kids have small lungs with very narrow airways, and when they're inflamed, they just can't get enough air in. As the child grows, and their airways get bigger, they usually grow out of it if it's just the viral wheeze. If they don't wheeze at other times like after exercise then it's likely something that will pass in time.

We only use ours now if I can hear she’s pretty wheezy. Have learnt to tell over the years. And now she’s old enough she knows if she needs it. Before that though and before we had the blue inhaler I didn’t recognise the signs and on one occasion she should have gone into hospital way before we took her. We use anywhere between 10 puffs if it’s awful (haven’t had to do that for years now) but normally about 3 or 4. The main thing is to ensure you’re using it correctly with the spacer and making sure they are really inhaling the medication. I still don’t go anywhere without it just in case as there was a scary time when she had gone to bed quite fine and woken with absolutely awful wheeze and we didn’t have an inhaler as it had run out. I’m convinced that it all stems from her having bronchiolitis when she was tiny. I think it weakened her somehow.

Oh yes and as comment above there’s a leaflet you can get from the hospital that gives you a guide, like a flowchart on what to do for which symptoms.

My older daughter had lots of viral wheeze episodes as a toddler and had "suspected asthma" - she grew out of it by school-age and didn't have asthma. We used the salbutamol inhaler when she was having any trouble breathing or a bad cough. It worked well and usually she improved enough from it to stop us needing to take her to hospital/call an ambulance.