My son is 20 months old. I was home on maternity leave with him until his 1st birthday. During that time he was only ill once with bronchitis when he was 5 months old. It was treated with antibiotics and he was fine after that.
He started nursery a week before his 1st birthday and since then he has been continually ill. He got a cold within the first couple of weeks of being at nursery. He was left with a cough that went on and on. I took him to the docs twice and both times was told it would clear up by itself. That was Sept 2009. At end of Oct 2009 he was ill with a temp and bad cough. I took him to the docs. She sent us straight to the hospital saying he had a severe chest infection. We were at the hospital 12 hours during that time they did a chest x-ray and said he had a chest infection. We were sent home with antibiotics to give to him. 2 weeks later his chest was bad again and he was wheezy. I took him back to the GP and asked if it was possible he might have asthma. She said they wouldn't diagnose him at his age and gave him more antibiotics and 3 day course of steroid tablets. That was November 2009. 3 days before xmas he became ill again with a chesty cough and wheezing. I took him to the GP again. We were sent to the hosp. At the hosp blood tests were taken, we were told he had bacterial pneumonia and he was kept in 2 nights and put on IV antibiotics. He was fine for about 1 month after that. He caught another cold in Jan, but shook it off quickly with no probs. He then caught sickness and diarrhoea bug from nursery but was fine after a couple of days. In Feb he became v ill again with bad cough and wheezing. We took him back to GP who sent us straight to the hospital. He was kept in on oxygen 6 days. The final diagnosis was parainfluenza type 3 infection. But (this is a big but!) he was discharged with inhalers to use! Plus we were put on the list for an appt with the chest specialist at the hosp. He was fine for a couple of weeks during which time we went to Tenerife for 1 wk. He was ab fine. After trip to Tenerife Daniel was back at nursery 1 wk before he went down with a cold. He seemed to shake it off ok. We were using the brown preventer inhaler throughout. He didn't get wheezy. He got yet another cold in April 2010. Again he did not get breathless or wheezy but he had tantrum, started coughin, was sick and went blue. So I called an ambulance. By the time they turned up, he was ok but they took him to hosp to get him checked out. At the hosp his blood tests showed he was suffering an infection, a chest x-ray was carried out. This showed a chest infection! They kept him in 3 nights for IV antibiotics. When he was discharged he had 24 doses of IV antibiotics for 2 more days then he was discharged with a 5 day course of oral antibiotics. The hosp said he could go back to nursery as throughout all this he was fine - playing, eating normally. Within 3 days of returning to nursery he went down with sickness and diarrhoea again!! because he was sick he lost the last 4 doses of his oral antibiotics. Within a wk he was chesty and wheezy again. Back to the docs prescribed 3 day course of steroids and 7 day course of antibiotics. The following wk we went to N Yorkshire. Daniel seemed to recover. We came back from N Yorks on 7 May and on 10th May we saw the chest specialist at the hospital. She basically said their are no underlying probs causing him to keep being ill and that he seems better with the inhalers so to carry on with the inhalers and she gave us an asthma plan for him telling me when to use the blue inhaler. Since then he had cold symptoms, I used the blue inhaler every 4 hours like the asthma plan said. His symptoms seemed to go. So I went back to just using the brown inhaler. Within a couple of days he's got cold symptoms again so yesterday I started using the blue inhaler more frequently with him. It does seem to help but how can he keep having a cold like this? I don't understand how he keeps having cold symptoms. We're not seeing the consultant again until september. I don't know if Daniel needs to see an asthma nurse. Today his dad picked him up from nursery and was told he was a bit sick there and wouldn't eat his lunch. He's also very miserable so obviously ill again. I just don't want to keep ending up at the hospital with him. Also they wont actually say he's got asthma. He doesn't get wheezy or breathless normally only when he picks up any cold or flu type illness. Running about he's fine. Does anybody else share the same problems with their toddler. I don't want to keep taking him docs only to be told his chest is clear. The week before we went to N Yorks I took him docs 3 times. The 3rd time he was wheezy and I honestly thought she would send us to the hosp. I really don't know how I should be dealing with this. Surely I shouldn't be using the blue inhaler on him every day? According to the asthma plan if it needs to be used more than 3-4 times a week he should be seeing an asthma nurse.
I'm really not sure if I'll looking after him properly or managing it properly.