3 year old and cough

[Wolowl]

My DD3 has been diagnosed with asthma and we're dealing with that and is all fine.
At the moment she has a tiny sniffle of a cold and since last week has been coughing all night. Last night was terrible, she was coughing in her sleep and occasionally sleeping through, but also coughing so much she kept waking herself up.

She does get coughs frequently, although they have lessened since she's has her inhalers. I also get coughs all the time but it's different when it's me as I can sleep sitting up etc if needed.

I've tried everything that I can think of with her so far, vicks, calpol, capol vapour plug ins, extra salbutamol inhaler, honey and lemon and she still had a terrible night.

She's had a cough since the start of July. We took her to the Drs at the start of August as that cough was a barking cough (although not croup) and they gave her antibiotics, which seemed to help and then about 2 days later she got this new cough.

I did try and get her to sleep on a bigger pillow yesterday but she was uncomfortable and kept sliding off it anyway. Is there anything else I can try/anything I'm missing?
many thanks!

My DS is 3 and he has asthma too. We found the cough was triggered by dust mite allergy. We used hypoallergenic bedding etc and gave him Piriton before bed when he had a flare up and that seems to have cracked it.
I don’t normally hold with old wives’ tales but Vicks on his feet helped too.

Our son had asthma diagnosed at the same sort of age. Unfortunately, it is sometimes just a cough and like other little ones without asthma, it’s almost always worse at night.
We tried everything known to man. The only thing that actually seemed to help a bit was “simple paediatric linctus ” from the pharmacy.

My daughter takes montelocust for the night cough. It does work. It can have side effects of nightmares but she’s been ok

Our son was prescribed montelukast for his additional severe hay fever symptoms some years later, in conjunction with prescription fexofenadine during the day. As with your, daughter no problems.

Thanks all. She's been taking an antihistamine daily since she's been diagnosed and I think her bedding is hypoallergenic anyway. She's fine a lot of the time but this is something else. Especially as she doesn't appear to be unwell in any other way.
Our next hospital appointment isn't until November so won't see the paediatric doctor about her asthma/change or additions to her medication until then.

Have you checked for reflux?

My LO had a terrible cough for months that inhalers didn’t really help with, and turned out to be silent reflux.

She had no classic reflux symptom at all, and was fine as a baby, but I think she had a viral infection that caused her to cough, and it just became a cycle.

Thank you. I haven't, how would I go about doing that? She had a bit of reflus as a baby but never bad enough for anyone to be concerned & she grew out of it as far as I am aware.

@Wolowl youd need an endoscopy to be absolutely sure, but you can also just ask your GP for anti-reflux meds (takes about 6 weeks to work) and just see if it helps.

Thanks! Will definitely look into it.

My DS 3.5 has asthma, with a night time cough being a major symptom. We have found that you have to approach it systemically.
Try her on vitamin D, Vitamin C, magnesium and Quercetin.

The plug ins will almost certainly make it worse, the ingredients on those things are dreadful.

Try a decent humidifier too. And if that's not working you might need a dehumidifier!

Does she have the window open at night? I find that always helps.

Interesting about the plug in, thank you!
She's on extra vitamin D already so can work through the others.
We ended up at the Dr's tonight & she has tonsillitis. The Dr's I spoke to both said you don't get a cough with tonsillitis but it's clearly on the NHS website as a symptom so not sure what to think. Hopefully it will calm down now, although doesn't necessarily explain the cough she's had since July.

It's totally awful when they cough constantly. Best thing we have tried is a humidifier in the room. Didn't do a lot but definitely a touch better than without. In a real fix, I take him into the bathroom at night and run the shower at the hottest level to create a steam room. Then sit in there with him upright on me. During the day I simmer water on the stove to steam the room up a bit. Some people say steam isn't the answer but we have found it helps. Also, I'm not exactly sure why we were advised this but paeds respiratory consultant told us the blue inhaler could actually irritate the airway if using it to treat "only" a cough - but obviously you'd need to ask own dr about that. (We have only ever found the blue inhaler to make a difference when it is in his chest). During the day, a straw water bottle right beside them and sucking on ice lollies seemed to calm the more intense episodes.

Thank you! It's so tough when they're not able to sleep and she's getting so upset.