Advice for coughing

[beckylucy2000]

My LO is 2.5 years old. Her cough started Nov 2025 and is still here. It went from April - September 2026. I have a written diary of everyday for the last 11 months of every single cough.

We’ve been to our gp 10 times. 5 times prescribed medication. 2 blood tests (recent one shows all fine) and been given an inhaler.
Every time we’ve gone to an appointment it’s always been “it’s viral” “the cough will go”
Ive had a breakdown from it.
Shes thrown up, stopped eating or drinking at points and lost sleep over it. The worst time was roughly February 2026.

It’s now recently arised again and i’m exhausted from it already. No doctors appointments available, 111 is useless and provides no help, a&e send us home due to its only being a “cough”.

Im in the process of making another doctors appointment for tomorrow, but the website has crashed and is making me feel really deflated and like a bad mum. I’m sat here listening to her cough and cough and i can’t do anything to help her :(

Could be a few different reasons for a chronic cough, for example sometimes its early signs of asthma type picture and she would benefit for steroid inhaler. There are other possibilities too but this is the most common one. She needs to see a Paediatrician, ask for a referral.

We’ve asked for a referral multiple times, pretty much at every appointment and we’ve been refused due to it only being a “cough”

Thank you for responding, genuinely feel like the worst mum in the world

I'd try to go private to see a paedetrician, it could be the start of asthma.

But have you also considered environmental reasons? We moved into a rental.for a few months, last September so the start of nursery bugs. He had a proper chesty cough, every bug hit him hard and we ended up in A&E with trouble breathing. We moved house in December and the cough went away overnight.

The rental had brand new thick carpets, MDF panels on one of the walls and if you didn't air it properly it had a dusty chemical smell we never quite got to the bottom of. Even as an adult I didn't like it. So there was definitely something going on there and I was glad to move out.

Also my SIL had asthma as a child and it improved massively when she was about 11 and they moved house somewhere closer to a big park. It was a suburb so a lot fewer cars as well.

Airborne allergens? Asthma? Keep on pushing the GP and advocating for your little one. Good luck 💐

This has been going on for such a long time that it clearly needs to be evaluated by a paediatrician, and should have been months ago by the sound of it.

"Just a cough" is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say when it's going on for this long.

Have you checked the NHS guidelines OP? I'm pretty sure they won't say that it's fine for a cough to go unevaluated for 11 months.

DS had a similar lingering cough at that age but we had BUPA then and the paediatrician we saw said it could be asthma, allergies or reflux and treated for all three at the same time. He's a teenager now and has an official asthma diagnosis although he has never wheezed or got short of breath, he just coughs incessantly in extremes of temperature or with pollen/dust.

Thank you to everyone who has messaged. I’ve rung up again to get an appointment and demand a referral i’m hopeful they will listen to me, i’ve written everything down and just going to show them. Thank you, reading each message back made me feel a bit better to keep fighting this

Have you checked her tonsils? My son had a cough all the time from about age 2-4. He had very large tonsils and adenoids. Caught every virus going. We eventually got them removed aged 4 and I don't think he has had a cough since (he's now

Just an update for anyone who’s watching this post. Demanded an appointment last night got one, and demanded to be referred and we got that! Got a message this morning saying the referral has been sent, fingers crossed something comes from this. On a horrible note the doctors was really uninterested in our situation and was quite rude towards me and my mum (took my mum for back up). complained about him which it really upset me treating a child like this that’s meant to be in a professionals care. But good note we’ve got a referral!

Can you change GP practice? I've honestly never had anything other than wonderful service from.GPs and consultant paedetricians when it comes to my son.

As an adult, the NHS could not give a flying fuck about me, I could probably die on my GP's doorstep and they wouldn't even call an ambulance, but they seem to be extra careful with small children at least.

Could it be reflux OP?

I'm glad you got your referral.
What inhaler was prescribed...and have you delivered it strictly to instructions and for long enough?
Any pauses or times when it was better?
Worse at night?
Cold weather?
Exertion?
Was she/he a "sicky" baby?
Vaccinations all up to date?

Hoping you won't have a long wait for referral to come through.

she’s never had a problem with reflux luckily, sabutabol was prescribed (hopefully that’s spelled right) 2 puffs a day for 4 times a day every single day for a year never stopped kept up with the instructions worse just all through day and night, i thought it was the cold as it went in april - september! Before last year november we had no problem will cold or illnesses and yeah all vaccinations are up to date

we’ve changed gps twice in the last 6 months and the one we are at they’ve been fantastic with prescribing different medications to find a cause of what it is, they’ve listened to me but this doctor last night just didn’t care about us or my daughters problems which was really shocking

When does it impact her most? My little boy is 2 but has funny breathing since birth but it was dismissed by everyone including the peadiatricians but it never sat right with me. Then when he started to move the cough started. Id queried asthma lots of times but told they dont diagnose it under 5. At about 18 months I filmed him playing at the park on maybe 3 or 4 different occasions, just to show them how the cough impacts his play. The next time I saw the nurse for some vaccinations I asked her to advise me on what to do as his cough was impacting his play. She watched a couple of videos (only a few seconds each), went straight through to the GP who Ive seen probably 15x for his cough/breathing since birth and came back asking if I minded waiting for a little while. About 10 minutes later the GP called us in, examined my son again, watched the videos and said 'this is an obvious case of asthma', prescribed a course of steroids, started him on a daily steroid inhaler and a blue inhaler to be taken as needed that day. My sons cough (and odd breathing) disappeared within a couple of days.

Hmm, I wonder whether it's worth asking for a steroid inhaler while you wait for the referral. The Salbutamol might open up his narrowed airways ( which is what causes an asthmatic cough, if indeed it is Asthma) but may only work short term, and maybe not work at all if the Asthma is established.
It will do your Dd no harm at all to take it.
NB. It needs to be taken diligently, twice daily, without fail, for a minimum of 4 weeks via a spacer. All the best.

To add, the steroid inhaler treats the underlying inflammation if it is asthma. So imagine there is a red ring of inflammation round her breathing tubes, causing the narrowing, and therefore cough ( v common for cough to be the main presenting symptom in children, wheeze may not be present at all) the steroid inhaler melts this away, opening up the airways. It needs to have a proper trial of a month, as it is essentially a "local " application, like cream to a skin wound, if you like. V little is systemically absorbed, so you won't see an immediate effect, often.
It will be no harm, at all, to her to trial this while you're waiting, but I'm cheered you've got the referral, to cover all bases.
Rubbish that it took so long.

I wish some clinicians could apply a little more curiosity to patients' symptoms sometimes, though,...!FWIW, I am a respiratory nurse, DH a respiratory consultant, DD1 aged 8 had a persistent cough for months, tried Salbutamol, steroid inhalers, reflux meds, queried Whooping cough, even though fully vaccinated, and it turned out to be Mycoplasma Pneumoniae after getting a chest XRay. Sorted with appropriate, targeted antibiotics in 3 days, so...🤷‍♀️