repeated hospital admissions for young child, what next?

My 17 month old grandson was diagnosed after being in PICU for several days on a ventilator in early March. Prior to this he'd been in and out of hospital and prescribed salbutamol - they said his breathing difficulties were a result of contracting bronchiolitis in Sept 2010. He is now on Salbutamol, Beclomethosone(Brown inhaler) and Montelukast ( for the last 3 weeks) Since coming out of intensive care he has been admitted a three more times and given oral steroids, nebulised salbutamol and oxygen each time until his SATS return to normal. It seems that following discharge he's OK for about 3 weeks then gets a runny nose fore a couple of days, followed by a cough, refuses to eat, vomits and then gets the intercostal reactions and flaring nostrils - this happens within a few hours of the onset of cough. He also sweats a lot on his head and has quite a protruding chest. It seems that they tweak his meds but the end result is the same A&E and a very poorly little boy and no offer of any further tests. They just patch him up and send him home.

I wonder if anyone can recommend any tests? or has any similar experience? We just don't feel that the problem is being addressed - this must be a pretty severe case if he's been admitted to hospital so many times and he's in again tonight.

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hi dianne

sorry to hear your son has been through so much at such a young age and in such short space of time.

is he under follow up of resp consultant? or paediatric follow up at all at local hospital or just see gp following admissions?

where i used to work following an admission, especially severe needing picu, they see asthma consultant/resp consultant and get follow up with them frequently so that they can be monitored, then their medication changed accordingly, in relation to how their condition changes...

not sure bout what testes they can do due to his age.. they could perhaps do allergy testing - skin testing, maybe worth asking your doctor about, if you have an idea of some allergens you think your boy could be triggered by as once this is proven they could help you avoid these and then hopefully reduce the number/severity of his attacks

hope this info is of help to you andgood luck. hope your lil one is well

xxx