Newby Help

My son (aged 11) seems to have spells of a bad cough at night and wheezing - sometimes they last for a couple of days and sometimes just that night. I am beginning to wonder whether it is asthma or not. He does suffer quite badly from hayfever and had mild pneumonia about 4 months ago. He was looked at then by the GP but he didn't mention asthma - does anybody know whether he would have been able to tell if my son had asthma or would the pneumonia have covered it up.

Am starting to wonder whether I should take him to the GP to get him checked out but I don't want to waste anybody's time.

Grateful for your thoughts.

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Go back to your doctor is the best advice, have a chat with him, frequent coughing and wheezing aren't good and he's old enough to get a good diagnosis for asthma, but with the pneumonia the doctor wouldn't and rightly so jump to the conclusion of asthma. May doctor do label people with asthma even when they don't by mistake in such cases, hopefully the infection has cleared up, so if he's still coughing and wheezing it would be worth asking for some tests.

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Hello Paulap, I'd take your lad straight back to the doctor. And don't feel guilty in the slightest about ""wasting time"". Your son's obviously still having problems and considering his history, I don't think that any doctor would make you feel bad about going. Honestly. It's important to your son's health and you're obviously really worried about him or you wouldn't be on here.

The term ""mild pneumonia"" is misleading. It can scar the lungs and this scarring cause some symptoms like asthma. So it's actually extremely important that you take your boy back to the doctor. Is he having any other symptoms (apparently unrelated to breathing or otherwise?).