15 month old son-numerous admissions to hospital

Hello All,

I'm new to the site and new to asthma (or possibly asthma), since my son was 6 months old he has admitted to hospital every 6-8 weeks with wheezy sessions, 3 times in HDU and once fully ventilated in Intensive Care. I've been told his too young to be diagnosed with asthma although it's probable that it is, due to the fact has eczeme.

I feel really uncomfortable with how often this is happening, the impact it could be having on his other organs as his heart rate is so fast while his ill. Also that he has actually been diagnosed with anything. This hasn't been help with the fact last weekend after taking my son into a&e with him fighting for breath the doctor tried to send him home saying it was due to him having tonsillitis, within 20 minutes after me insisting a second opinion they were concerning ventilating him for a second time.

Has anyone else struggled to get a diagnosis? Or had similar experiences?

I feel out of my depth

Thanks

KeelanMummy

[yaf_user681_15459]

Oh you poor thing, sounds like you've had an awful time! Must be such a worry.

Is your son under a consultant and if so, have they indicated anything at all? How did they treat your poor little man last time, when they initially said it tonsillitis? What regular meds is he on.

You must be totally exhausted. I'm so sorry, I have very little advice for you other than to push and push for answers. Keep going back to your gp,not just when he's poorly either. I found by going to see my gp when maddie was well, gave me chance to talk rationally about treatment plans etc instead of emergency action if that makes sense. I'd also demand to speak to a consultant. Your poor little chap, and indeed you, can't keep going through this. Push for answers my lovely. Your little boy obviously has a lovely mummy. You all need support with this and due to his history, are more than entitled to it.

Massive massive hugs. Let us know how you get on. Also keep visiting this site, it's always been such a support to me.

Lots of love, Emily x

[Hidden]

Thanks Emily

Yeah Keelan is under the respiratory consultant at our local hospital but when we had the appointment we seen the registrar and he would not diagnose Keelan with asthma although he said it was a likely cause of these episodes. He prescribed him a preventive inhaler to take daily and a reliever for when needed, to see how that goes and have a follow up appointment in August.

We than had the last episode at the weekend where he was having back to back nebs and IV aminophylline then he was given magnesium sulphate and had 5 days on preds. His now just having 6 puffs on the reliever every 6 hours so this is a great improvement.

I am definitely going to demand to see the consultant at our next appointment rather then the registrar to see if some of the questions I wanted to be answered can be answered by her instead.

I haven’t really seen the GP much about it, was your GP a help then? Has Maddie been diagnosed with asthma? What age was this?

Thanks again for your kind message and words of support

It’s just good to talk about it as I feel I’m constantly waiting for the next episode

Love Emma x

[yaf_user681_15459]

Hi, yes maddie was diagnosed around 1yr old. My husband has quite bad asthma and I'm covered in excema and we both have hay fever so I guess we had a very strong family history! She had a lot of tests too to rule out other conditions Inc a bronchoscopy and ct scan under general. She also had a ph study for 24 hrs which wasn't pleasant at all.

My gp has been really great (although one or two others at the surgery are dreadful). I'd say if you find a good one, hang onto them!!

Pm me anytime. I empathise completely with you saying your waiting doe the next episode. I feel exactly the same. Both my daughters suffer with Asthma and between them we only have a few days 'off' at a time! Exhausting and draining. Sometimes the apprehension of it all can be even worse too as I find it hard to relax and am always on eggshells and 'at the ready' if that makes sense!

Take care,

Emily x

[angievere]

Hi and welcome to the forum. I am in a similar situation as my 14 yr old son has had bad asthma since babyhood (me too). Doctors refused to diagnose asthma at first but we had to call out GP one night when he was having an attack and she took one look at him and said it was asthma! Helped that she was an asthmatic herself and knew an asthma attack when she saw one. Gave us her ventolin from her handbag, bless her (explained that I had one myself and she could hang on to hers!).

Like others I live in a permanent state of alertness. My heart sinks if I hear him sneezing or coughing, as it usually heralds a cold which always triggers his asthma/chest infection. He has missed lots of school but on the plus side, he is under a really nice consultant who seems to think things will improve as he gets older. We live in hope...

So you are not alone, there are quite a few of us. I have picked up a lot of info/tips on the forum and the All About Asthma section at the top of the page is very useful. Feel free to send me a message anytime.

[Hidden]

I had the same problem with my son. He's now two and still hasn't got a formal diagnosis because he's too young. We found what was causing him most hospital admissions in the early days, allergy to dairy products. Since then we've discovered he's also allergic to peanut and possibly strawberries. When we stopped all these things (not easy as there's milk products in practially everything that you wouldn't expect it to be especially baby food!) anyway, he was much better only getting bad when he had a cold until we moved in here a year ago and the damp in this house is causing him loads of problems.

Ask your doctor to refer him for allergy testing and see what that throws up.

Good Luck, Wintersweet.

[Hidden]

Thanks you for all your kind words of support and advice, this has given me ideas of more questions I need to ask.

Plus it's great not to feel so alone and know I'm not the only one who feels like this

Emma x