vomit up loads of mucus !!

Its Jimmys mum again with another question !

He gets an asthma attack where his coughing is really bad and he vomits up lots of mucus thats like egg white does anyone else have this problem !

[yaf_user681_23350]

My boys used to do the same up until they were about 3ish.It was always projectile vomiting so it went everywhere, they ruined our first settee so we bought a leather one, easy to wipe clean, shame about the carpets!

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Thanks for the answer. It goes everywhere our lounge carpet needs taking up Jimmy has wood flooring in his room which seems to get the most. Nice to know its normal thanks again.

Ashley x

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Oh yes!

Our son also has the mucus you describe. My understanding (no medical expert though) is that people that suffer from asthma have more sensitive airways which react to many different triggers, these cause inflammation and swelling of the walls and the result is sticky mucus clogging the air tubes.

He particularly suffers from this when he comes into contact with something which he is allergic to, i.e. pollen.

He coughs it up a lot still and when he was younger would often vomit it up too. I even remember finding lots of it in his nappy. He is 10 now and I can't say if it still comes out the ""other end"" anymore or not!!

Antihistamines during the pollen season seem to help reduce this problem for our son.

Hope this helps.

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Yes, have that and I am in my 40s.

Pretty amazing stuff - so gooey with thousands of air bubbles in it. If you try and burst the bubbles they don't burst because they just flatten and move.

Oddly enough, and this is not meant to be gross, I was coughed some up yesterday into the sink and picked it up using the tip of a cotton bud... and it just stretched and stretched. I am sure if should have some industrial use - lol

This is typical of asthma and is basically the mucus that the body makes in the airways at a point where it is inflammed hence why Docs think this is the bodie's response to inflammation from an allergic reaction - i.e. something that has got into the airway such as pollen, the pollen inflames the part of the airway where it is stuck and the body tries to fight it by creating the mucus. Perhaps the body thinks it will help us eject the mucus. No one really knows.

If it does not get ejected from the body then it can simply gather there making the airway more and more inflammed, more narrow and just basically gunks up the works. It can harden and then you end up with a lump of gunk in your airway which can go green or yellow in time - much, much harder to cough up.

Some people see this mucus and believe that by drinking loads of water you will somehow make this mucus thinner. I am not sure about that as can you think you blood by drinking loads of water?

So it is important that he learns how to cough up when he is older and perhaps you can aid his cough up now by patting him repeatedly on his back and on the side of the ribs - this is what the parents of kids with cystic fibrosis due and if you look online there are numerous websites describing how to do it. Once you have mastered it you can come and do it to a man in his 40s.

Last point, I find that a good greasy fry up actually helps me cough up the mucus. If I have one within 30 minutes of eating it I normally cough up a 50 pence size worth and then my breathing is superb for a few days.

Hope this helps.

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Coming out of 'the other end' sounds indicative of the gooey mucus,which looks identical to the stuff that asthmatics cough up, that people with IBS get.

Been there, got the t-shirt.

IBS is basically an inflammation of the gut and bowel. Asthma is an inflammation of the airways. Both produce the same gooey mucus. Can you tell what it is yet?

What is known with IBS is that wheat/gluten inflames the gut/bowel. If you stop wheat/gluten then over 60 days you can eliminate IBS and taking something to soothe the gut/bowel, such as Aloe Vera juice, helps enormously.

What I am trying to say here is that many people think that asthma is associated with wheat/gluten.

What I am trying to say here is that people will moan about pollen - which is often from wheat at this time of the year - causing their hayfever and/or their asthma. People say it gets worse at this time of year.

So they know that wheat, as pollen, is bad for them but they still go out and eat wheat in bread, pie crusts and all the other stuff. Marks and Sparks seem on a crusade, IMPO, to put wheat/gluten in everything - it is even in some forzen chips!

Wheat is a known infammatory. Many Doctors know that removing all wheat/gluten from your diet removes a major source of inflammation.

What I am saying here is that maybe removing wheat/gluten will help not just in asthma symptoms but also in any other inflamation in the body.

Finally, Human Beings have been on the planet for millions of years. In that time we were hunter-gatherers eating mostly fish, veg & fruit and, when we could catch it, some nice grass-fed red meat.

We only began eating wheat about 12,000 years ago and many Docs think that many of us simly have not evolved to eat wheat.

Websites like the Heartscanblog and MarksDailyApple explain this better than I.

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Bob, thanks for the info. on wheat. Our son does have food allergies so yes it is feasible that what we saw all those years ago in his nappy was from inflammation of the bowel and not mucus from the lungs that he was swallowing.

He has tested as having mild allergies to some cereals, but not wheat.

But it is something we could look into further at his next set of allergy tests.

Regards

[yaf_user681_23350]

One of my boys has food allergies, but the other has no allergies. They both had the same type of sickness though, just thought I'd say.

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I too cough up loads of frothy mucous when something irritates my airways or I have a chest infection. It is caused by the inflammation of the airways and can be embarrassing when out in public and get a whiff of smoke or perfume, cold air and the wind also have this effect on my airways.

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sophiez, most of the allergy tests that you see advertised in the yellow pages or mags that cost £50 and use some machine are basically hopeless - a friend who is an alllergy specialist in the NHS told me that. Good earner for the people doing them though.

Even better, she told me that the hundreds of people she tests weekly in the NHS fair little better for the following reasons:

For an allergy test to be effective the person has to give up the thing they are allergic to COMPLETELY for at least 30 days if not 60. This is a huge problem as most people simply do not do this so, for example, an allergy test for wheat/gluten almost never is successful simply because people eat so much wheat. The body needs to be devoid of the thing that is causing the allergy for the allergy test to work.

In fact, it is almost impossible to avoid wheat/gluten other than eating a hunter-gatherer diet - wheat is in bread, cakes, biscuits, cereals, pie crusts, fish fingers, forzen chips, loads of dressings, sauces, etc.

To be blunt, I cannot see how your child can be allergic to cereals and not wheat as basically the majority of cereals are basically BIG BOWLS OF WHEAT. Oddly enough, I was only reading an article this week - can't find it now alas - about parents unknowingly being cruel to their kids with wheat allergies/intolerance by forcing them to eat a big bowl of wheat this morning.

I am not accusing you of being an awful Mum - far, far from it, but you do get my point.

It is bad enough being an asthmatic or have an allergy as an adult and not put two and two together. I read an article by a leading allergist who wrote of the numerous patients he sees who have their asthma made much worse by dairy, tests prove it but, he said, they just go on eating and drinking the dairy. You can lead a horse to water...

So it is much much worse for a loving but busy parent to really understand the problems that a child might be going through re asthma and an allergy. You make a meal for yourself and the family and it is often hard to make that connection between the coating on the fish fingers which is enough to, possibly, put your child on inhalers.

I am not having a go at you by any means as I am certain you are a good, loving parent - you would not be posting here if you were not - but I am just trying to generalise how difficult it is to link the two together in yourself let alone in a partner or a child.

I would love to hear the reasoning from the person who told you that you child is allergic to cereals but not to wheat!?

[yaf_user681_23350]

My eldest Son who has allergies is allergic to most wholewheat. He bleeds when he poohs. He has regular tests for crohns disease as we have a family history and my Husband has crohns.The weird thing is, he can eat bread, cakes but not wholewheat bread or wheatabix but he can eat shreddies!!There is no logic to this, sometimes he gets severe stomach cramps from eating new foods. I cook our food from scratch and have done since they were babies as Ben used to to have a milk intolerance, infact he was allergic to breast milk, goats and sheeps milk. He had soya milk until he was 2. Now he has no problem with milk. We do have the occasional take away and junk food but find his health better when I cook.Allergy problems are just a mine field, don't think we'll ever find all of Bens. Matty who has brittle asthma has had the skin prick tests loads of times and come back with no allergies at all (had 20). They do think he may have an allergy to pollen that doesn't show on the skin but is agrivating his lungs.It took 9 years to diagnose Matty's asthma.

Good luck

Kate

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rattles - maybe the allergies are not the disease but the symptoms of the real disease?

Maybe treating the allergies is not actually tackling the real cause?

I know I go on about it but the latest research of the Vitamin D3 gurus points greatly towards the lack of D3 in the vast majority of Western people being the cause of many of the modern ailments that now affect us.

The idea that D3 is key to the immune system and the inflammatory response is gaining so much credence with cutting-edge docs now. The concept being that our immune systems via T-Cells, without adequate D3, either do not swtich on or it switches on and does not switch off.

So hence we have a surge in asthma, allergies, hayfever, MS, autism, cancers in the past 20 or so years - diseases which basically do not exist on and around the Equator.

[yaf_user681_23350]

Thanks Bob Roberts will look into this,I have to be careful about having vitamins because of another condition but my Sons should be fine, will check with their consultants

Kate

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Unless you find a really cutting edge doc rattles you will have little joy with most Brit docs when it comes to cutting-edge D3 research.

They have been brainwashed into anything other than small amounts of D is OK - in fact, most Brit docs do not know the difference between the rubbish D2 that they prescribe and the correct D3 that our bodies make from sunlight.

Talks to most Brit docs about D and they will tell you anything more than 400 units is dangerous even though 20 to 30 minutes in the Summer sun means your body creates about 10,000 units with no sun-block. Never burn.

The Curies and Einstein knew about the importance of D3 but your average GP has been trained by the drug companies that it is bad.. bad because they can't patent it and charge us a small fortune for it.

Best of luck.

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Hi Ashley both me and Ryan get this and I am almost 28. I also think it has to do with the the fact that we have extremely sensitive airways and being on the anti-histomene has helped reduce it down but it is still there. I wouldn't panic unless the mucus is green or yellow as this could indicate a chest infection

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hay

Thanks for all your answers its just nice to know we are not alone.

Im off to Addenbrookes tomorrow so we will see what help we are going to get.

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sounds like what i cough up when im bad as well.

hopefully over time your son can learn to cough it up himself and control.

unfortunately even at 17 it ocassionally catches me by suprise.

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Bob,

I have waited a while to reply to your message on this thread, which was addressed to me, as I needed to collect my thoughts calmly before replying.

The role of vitamins in the correct functioning of the immune system is a fascinating subject and I am sure that it is an area we should all be looking at more closely and this appears from your messages to be a subject you are interested in?

However, I wanted to let you know that on reading your message that it left me feeling very uncomfortable and to coin your expression “to be blunt” your words left me feeling personally attacked. I really hope that is not the way you intended to come across? And I hope your intentions were honourable, but the reality is that this is how your message to me made me feel.

With regards to your reference to “£50” tests advertised in the “yellow pages”, I can assure you that this is not the way our son has been tested.

For your background information we do not live in the UK. Our medical system is very different here from the one in the UK. For example, since the days they were born our children have been cared for by their paediatrician for their simple everyday needs (vaccinations, check-ups, etc).

Our son is also followed by 2 consultants in once of Europe’s leading hospitals (at the forefront in some asthma research areas), and it is there in this hospital that the allergy tests are done on our son on an annual basis. He undergoes skin-prick tests and blood tests. He has numerous allergies and had his first major allergy - at the very tender age of 3 days old, his first anaphylactic shock at 10 months old (lucky to have survived that one) and numerous other reactions during his life. He has an IgE level of nearly 2,000 at the age of 10. As you appear to have an interest in allergy testing this brief summary of his allergies will show you that he is a highly allergic individual and is being tested by leading experts.

Therefore I think we can summarise that in no way are his allergy tests “£50” tests advertised in the “yellow pages”. I hope this is not what you were suggesting without any background information on our personal situation?

I believe that allergy tests are probably not as exact a science as we would all like, as like any scientific result they can be influenced by other elements. Indeed our consultants take great care to not test him during times when he has been accidentally exposed to something we know he is allergic nor during the pollen season (which here lasts from January to August) as this will effect his results.

I am aware that some people do offer what they term to be “allergy testing” which is probably far from what we both understand to be correct allergy testing, in that they do not use the same science used in hospitals by leading specialists.

In your message you state the following:

“parents unknowingly being cruel to their kids with wheat allergies/intolerance by forcing them to eat a big bowl of wheat this morning.”

I am a parent who had to fight for her child to be tested (by our ex-paediatrician) for allergies despite various reactions PLUS an anaphylactic shock and yes who during those first long, difficult 11 months of our son’s life did feed my child items we did not know he was allergic to. And it is in this context that I really take offence to your statement - “being cruel” and “forcing them”. We were lucky our son survived his anaphylactic shock (which happened when he ate a new food for the very first time). Other parents are not so lucky. Children have died after eating foods given to them by the parents who were unaware of their allergies - would you also class these parents as “cruel”?

“ I am not accusing you of being an awful Mum - far, far from it, but you do get my point.”

As you do not know me I struggle to comprehend how you can state so confidently that I get your point. You are assuming to know what I am thinking. Your audacity quite simply astounds me.

“I would love to hear the reasoning from the person who told you that you child is allergic to cereals but not to wheat!”

When I stated that our son was allergic to cereals I did not say “breakfast cereals” but cereals - as in the food group. He has tested positive to 3 separate members of the cereals food group - but not wheat. So in fact I think you have misunderstood a fundamental part of my previous message.

“So it is much worse for a loving but busy parent to really understand the problems that a child might be going through re asthma and an allergy. You make a meal for yourself and the family……….”

With regards to this statement…… I have never met a parent of an asthmatic/allergic child who is too busy to understand their child’s problems. Fighting for them, advocating for them.

Out of interest do you have an allergic child? Or a child with asthma? If so have you found the time to understand the challenges of their medical condition?

I think we all need to remember that all parents here are doing the best for their kids, sometimes with little support or guidance from elsewhere. We come here for support, not to receive messages that leave us feeling personally attacked. Reading words directly addressed to me that I perceived to be as arrogant and condescending and having someone make assumptions about me was not a pleasant experience.

You seem to very passionate about the role of vitamin D and this is something I will research further in order to draw my own conclusions. It would be a real shame to turn people away from your support and advice due to the way in which your messages are worded.

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sophiez - I have neither the time nor the interest in reading your rant but I can see where it is going from the first few sentences.

I repeatedly pointed out in my post that I was not accusing you of anything, that I was certain you were a good Mum doing your best and, I will say it again, repeatedly stated that I was not having a go at you.

The post is there for all to see in plain English.

If, however, you wish to take it personally then that is your life story - that is the path you have chosen to take. How is that working out for you?

If you have decided to read something in my post that is not there then perhaps that is an indication of guilt that lies within you? If so, that is your problem, your issue and do not try to project it onto me. I am not your co-dependent!

Being angry with me is not going to help your son or anyone else you are in a relationship with.

I will say it yet again, I repeatedly pointed out that I was not having a go at you personally or for being a Mother. It is there in black and white in my original post.

I can point you to good books on ""emotional intelligence"" if you wish.

Being angry with someone, wrongly, who is also oblivious to your anger is just a waste of spirit.

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Im sad my post caused all this attention i was only looking for help for my son !

[yaf_user681_15459]

Ashley boo - OOOoooo I sooo feel your pain. My daughter (aged 20mths) is very poorly too with Asthma and allergies.

As a mother, you spend every waking moment (and sleeping moment) racking your brain for reasons behind this dreadful illness. You feel fear as to what the future will hold and at the same time you have to try and keep your emotions hidden from your child in order for them to lead as normal childhood as possible!

Ive 3 children, 2 of which are healthy and the youngest is not. I look at her every day and blame myself for her being ill. I go through each day of pregnancy and wonder if i did anything wrong.

But at the end of the day I know I havent. I am on the phone to or in the surgery speaking to, doctors, consultants, specialists.....all to try and get my baby better.

Oh and as for the vomit.....YES! Our little girl vomits alot due to coughing and each time its like frothy egg white. Horrid for her, bless her. We can hear it in her chest as she breathes too.

Massive hugs coming your way from one mummy to another.

pm if you ever need to chat.x

[yaf_user681_23350]

Life can get better, we had years of bad health with Matty but he's getting stronger day by day. Still get really bad ones but they are only days not weeks,months or years now. Matty was on masses of medication and very high doses of oral steroids year after year, but he is thriving well now. Last week he raced for the area and came first out of 18 schools, he is running for our area next week. Today he swam for his school as he is very good at that too. It can get better, I know it's hard when your going through it, but it may not be forever. Every time he goes downhill I panic and think here we go again but he's older and I'm sure his sports have really strengthened his lungs now he is well enough to participate. Good luck, most of the time I try not to think back as it was just a horrible nightmare, the future is more possitive and medicine is moving on quickly x