My 2.5yr old son has asthma

[Thomass_mum]

Hi

My 2.5year old son has finally been diagnosed with asthma even though it has been clear to me for almost a year. Only one doctor would agree it was asthma the rest were very reluctant to commit to anything other than wheezy bronchilitis.

He has been in hospital 3 times in the past month and his medication has now been changed to 3 puffs of clenil modulite twice per day and the montelukast granules since has last hospital discharge 9 days ago. I finished the reducing salbutamol dose Monday and since it was completed I have been having to give him 6-8 puffs up to 5 times per day even through the night.

I think I will end up taking him back to the doctor when we return from holiday but just feel really disappointed how ill he still seems.

Anyone else with small children with asthma would appreciate stories of your experiences.

Thanks

Jenny x

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Hi Jenny

I too have had a similar experience. My son was in and out of hospital until he was four and the sleepless night were endless. It can be very difficult to get the medication right and you may still find that you will have some unsettled times ahead unless you are lucky and the medication suites from the start. Believe it or not my son failed his seven month hearing check because of his weezing! Had to wait for his chest to clear and he passed with flying colours. I also had the same problem with the doctors diagnosing asthma as the hospital told me that they try to do diagnose asthme until 5,until then its a viral related weeze! My problem was they would not give a brown inhaler because he wasnt diagnosed with asthma as a result of which we were constantly at the hospital until I had a blow out about the fact that they were happy to keep treating him there but prevention was not being given. I had to point out to them that whilst I was more than happy to sit at the hospital for days on end for the health of my son I needed to think about the prevention as I actually had another child of school age at home and a full time job both of which were suffering too. My son is nearly 9 now and once the meds are sorted life will improve. On the whole his health is better than it was some mild flare ups and usual pattern at the moment seems to be a hospital admission around every 18 months so still working on it. Best of luck to you and you son.

yvonne x

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Glad to hear your son is doing well now Yyvone. That gives me so much encouragement that it wont always be like this. My son is 2.5 and asthmatic. We didnt have much of a problem with diagnosis luckily but have had a lot of history etc so they didnt really have any other option but asthma!

We are having an especially bad time at the moment and it feels very relentless and that not much is working. I feel your pain with daily and nightly inhalers.

How has the montelukast working for him? It doesnt seem to do anything for my son other than make him constantly thirsty. Not sure if his behaviour is more linked to the steroids at the moment though.

All the best. Feel free to get your worries and stresses out I know how it feels to be in a similar situation.

[Thomass_mum]

I don't feel the montelukast has made much difference in all honesty. They did say if the clenile modulite and montelukast wasn't working they would try him on a purple inhaler. I got so fed up I gave him one puff of my purple inhaler yesterday morning and one the night before and didn't have to give him ventolin all day until about 5pm! Very different to the usual every 4-6 hours. Thomas has a brown inhaler since last December but we were told to use it for the winter and stop once the weather picked up so stopped it in April. He was fine until mid July and then the wheezing started again. I have found my asthma gor worse around the same time so don't know if it was something to do with the weather or maybe a virus. My son is already under a consultant for his excessive drinking so not sure if he drinks more than usual as he drinks about 3 litres a day anyways.

Yvonne I couldn't believe it when I read your message my son also failed two hearing tests following his two year check. He got referred for the hearing test as his speech is a bit slow and it was just the low frequency sounds he couldn't hear so maybe he failed cos of the wheezing. When we went for a third he was having a good day and passed lol.

Thomas's chest is always clear on xrays even when he was rushed from our local walk in centre by ambulance he had a very loud wheeze and oxygen levels of 76%, I don't think they had much choice really as with family history (I have asthma, hay fever, eczema as a small child and allergies) the consultant said its silly not to diagnose him especially with the symptoms he had. I am glad we got a diagnosis as I was beginning to feel like a neurotic parent as I knew it wasn't a viral wheeze. I still find it hard to judge when he needs to go to hospital as have been told in the past I should have persevered more with the ventolin and that's when my GP sent me up there! I felt so guilty about waiting when we took him to the walk in centre and then they took him in ambulance with blue lights to a&e. I knew he was ill but I just thought they would give him a nebuliser and send us home as sometimes he picks up quite quickly after one nebuliser. We have decided to buy one of the finger oxygen monitors so I can keep an eye on him as even with slight wheeze his oxygen levels quickly drop below 90%. When he was released from hospital they were only 91/92%. Just over the threshold for oxygen at our local hospital.

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Hi everyone

My son is almost 3 1/2 and we have been having nightmares with him he has asthma, reflux and hay fever. Like you guys my son has Been in and out of hospital from the age of 4m!! It also took me over a year for anyone to diagnose him with asthma then he had tests done and then found out he had reflux on a daily basis he has 4 puff of the brown inhailier (2morning 2 night) he has his blue about every 4hrs somtimes through the night he also takes anti histamine twise a day and in the last 4m he has had steroids about 20 times (60mg in 3days) he used to have montalucast ( spelling is rubbish) but I have stopped it as it doesnt seem to be doing anything but all the doctors think it's great and look at me like I'm an alien when I say it's not working!! I see his consultant in sep and want her to do an allergy test on him as most night he wakes up sneezing but it's more like 6-10 sneezes and he get in a bit of a state and gets frustrated because all he want to do is sleep!

Guys do you have any sugestions on how I can help him?

Thanx leah.x

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Hi leah,

One thing I will say is that its really important for the reflux to be controlled (easier said than done I know, I'm mum to a refluxer too) as this tends to aggravate asthma quite badly.

X

[Thomass_mum]

Well here we are 3 days from coming home from Gibraltar and I have a wheezy boy, just got up to 10 puffs and although the tracheal tug has lessened its still there and the intercostal recessions are still pretty pronounced. Going to give it another 30 mins then we may be sampling Gibraltars NHS healthcare.